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Re: Quitting smoking
I really toned it down the last few days
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Re: Quitting smoking
As a former smoker myself, I know what you're going through. I started smoking back in 1999 and smoked about 1.5 packs every day for 5 or 6 years. It's now been 4 or 5 years since I quit. (I don't remember the exact year I quit, but it was when I was working on my previous job). In my current job, I just so happen to work for the company which produces Chantix and am in charge of the data management for pretty much every single clinical trial we have for this compound. And that is a LOT of trials. (The efficacy trials with regards to quitting smoking are pretty much done with as the drug is approved by all regulatory agencies. The work I do now focuses on safety trials and new indications for use). So I see a lot of data every single day regarding smoking and quitting.
As you smoke more, your brain begins to grow tolerant of it and basically reworks itself to create more nicotine receptors. This is why that one cigarette you first smoked really screwed you up badly, but after that you started to need more and more nicotine in order to get over your craving. In addition, as you smoke your lung function lowers so you also need to smoke more in order to absorb more nicotine. Basically, your entire body ends up reworking how it functions due to the nicotine you absorb. (Nicotine is also a very powerful poison. Hence why the tobacco plant produces it so that animals won't eat it. Take a pack of cigarettes, boil it in water for a while, then filter out the tobacco and reduce the liquid down to a paste. This paste is nearly pure nicotine and just a small amount of it, if ingested, will basically kill you).
So to quit smoking, you really need to understand why you do it in the first place. A lot of is probably a psychological reason with the rest being the physical addiction. The first step to quitting is to try and find a way to break that psychological aspect of it. In the instances where you would normally smoke, try doing something else. If you take breaks at work, instead of smoking try walking around for a bit. The physical activity will also help your brain forget about its need for a smoke for a little while.
The physical aspect of it is more difficult to break, but as has been mentioned here in this thread previously, it is also the first part of the addiction to be broken. For me, I tried to quit cold turkey, but that didn't work. I couldn't do it. Waking up in the morning, having sex, or drinking alcohol just made the cravings so fantastically tough that I had to have a cigarette. So I went with the reduced amount followed by the gum. I would only smoke in the morning, after eating lunch, when finished with work, then after dinner and before going to bed. It was still a lot, but not like the one cigarette every half hour or so I was doing before. While at work, if I wanted to smoke, I would still go outside but instead of smoking I would chew some gum and walk around the outside of the building for a while to also get some exercise. That helped IMMENSELY! Still, smoking was legal in bars in CT so if I went out drinking I would smoke relentlessly. (And if I had a good night at the bar, after the ummm.......... "activities" were over, I'd light one up.
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Eventually, I decided to set a date when I would fully quit and planned it out on a calendar. I would reduce my cigarettes to a certain number a day, then plan the day when I'd buy my last pack. If I ran out before my quit date, then oh well. (I quit for good before Chantix was released). I will not lie; it was INCREDIBLY tough. I did gain wait, but that's normal. When you smoke and are inhaling toxins, your body uses the food you eat to repair all the damage you do. When you stop doing the damage, that extra energy isn't need so your body stores it. The fact that you have already started an exercise program is great. Because of the calories you burn every day, any weight increase you see will be minimal as long as you can avoid the urge to eat.
Another aspect about quitting, that probably bothered my friends and co-workers, was the changes to my personality. I was far more irritable and found that things bothered me a lot more than they used to. However, this is all really tied into your own personality. Quitting smoking affects people's personality in a wide range of ways. For some, there are no changes. For others, the changes are very drastic. I had a lot of trouble sleeping and having a drink really made me quite irritable and craving nicotine. I also had a lot more funky dreams at night due to my brain constantly working to try and rewire itself to function without nicotine. (And if you go to clintrials.gov, I believe that's the site, you can read the Clinical Study Reports for our Varenicline Clinical Trials and see that it's not just Chantix users in these studies who have the psychological side affects widely published about the drug).
I have to state again that drinking just made my quitting that much harder. When CT banned smoking in bars I was the happiest guy on the planet. I could now go to a bar and have some drinks and not be overwhelmed by all the cigarette smoke in there. I FINALLY realized that I had quit when I went out one night and got really smashed, but had NO craving for a cigarette. I broke down and shed some tears when that happened because I realized I had indeed quit. Since then, I have foolishly had a cigarette but it killed my throat and made me feel horrific so I didn't get hooked again. I also saw that I had a great deal more money because I wasn't blowing $12 every other day on cigarettes.
So is there any advice I can give? Yes. Get a support program. Having someone you can talk to when you get a craving who can help take your mind off of smoking is great. In addition, avoiding people when they are smoking is a big help as well. That can be tough if your family and friends are smokers too, but if they care about you they will understand. (And maybe they'll try to quit too). The oral fixation with smoking can be bad too, so if you have any sugar free candies you can suck on, that will be a big help. (since you don't want to include a bunch of sugar and excess calories into your body). Quitting will also take some time. It can take a good couple years to fully remove all cravings for cigarettes. (Since in many cases, there are other things you can do which don't happen every day that will bring up a craving. Things such as drinking, having sex, getting SERIOUSLY stressed out, etc.) I would suggest that you set a quit date for yourself and slowly ween yourself away from the cigarettes. Save the gum for when you get those cravings that you simply cannot resist. That is when the gum will help kill those cravings and let you continue on without smoking. While you want to quit the smoking aspect, you also want to kill that nicotine addiction and you don't want to get yourself hooked on the gum either. (For expense reasons, and the fact that nicotine is a poison).
Now if you want to try using Chantix to quit, make sure you talk to your doctor about it. Chantix really shouldn't be your first attempt to quit. It is there to help you and requires the support of your family and friends, as well as your doctor. If your doctor is using the drug properly, he/she will give you the proper instructions, ask you about any changes you experience, and help you set that quit date.
This will also give me a chance to explain some of the things you see in the commecials and in those pamphlets that come with your prescription. My job at the company involves the data management of the clinical trials. I am given a copy of our protocol when the schedule of activities in the trial has been finalized, and from that SoA I design the Case Report Forms (CRFs) that are used to collect the data that the trial intends to collect. Many of these are standard forms that are used in every single clinical trial we do, and others are specific to the studies that we do. I also work with our database builders to build the database to house this information and all the procedures that are used to validate the data that's entered and help clean it. I work with our lead clinician on the trial who writes the protocol, the statistician who analyzes the data, and all other members of the study team who work on the trial. My work is also done in accordance with all regulatory principals and guidelines from all regulatory agencies that oversee the countries in which the drug is made available in.
In our commercials, as well as in every single drug commercial from every single drug company out there, I'm sure you've seen the list of side effects that are mentioned. What the commercials do not tell you are the likelyhood of those side effects happening. If even a small percentage of the subjects in the clinical trials have experienced these effects (Called Adverse Events), we are required by law to list them as a side effects. If these AEs are considered "serious" (meaning that they result in hositalization, potential for death, or drasticly affects the subject's life), they are reported regardless of how many subjects experienced it. These SAEs are collected from everybody, regardless of whether or not they are in a clinical trial. So if you do take Chantix and have any AEs at all, you should report them to your doctor and your doctor is then required to report them to us so that we can enter them in the spontaneous AE database and collect data on them. This information can then go into further revisions to the pamphlets, etc. So please don't let the side effects that you read about or hear about prevent you from taking a drug. In many cases, the side effects are very rare and the benefits of the drug faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar outweigh the potential AEs that could happen. (I believe, and don't quote me on this, that our reported trials show that subjects on Chantix quit smoking at a rate of 44% compared to 18% for those on placebo). But the key thing is, in order to quit you have to WANT to quit. No matter what drug you take, if deep down you really don't have a desire to quit, you're not going to. I am very proud of the compound I work on and the fact that I've seen subjects who have smoked for 50+ years quit smoking after taking our drug and improving their lifestyle. I am also not naive and believe that everybody will quit if they take it and nothing bad can happen. Bad things can happen with every single thing we do in our lives.
Over the next couple months, I'll be travelling across the US and Europe to talk about an upcoming trial we will be starting. It is a great feeling to talk to doctors and others who will be working on this trial and seeing how much they want to help people as well. Quitting smoking is a great accomplishment that anybody can do. It is a very tough addiction and is not easy to break from. And while the damage that has already been done to your respiratory system can not be reversed, you can stop further damage from happening and lessening the quality of your life.
If you want to, feel free to PM me at any time. I can give you my e-mail address via PM if you want it, and help you out through the process. If you do decide to go the Chantix route, you can also tell me about any side effects you are experiencing as I am required by law to report them if I am told about them. So good luck, and you definitely have the support of all of us here at OS.Comment
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Re: Quitting smoking
you need someone like "The Rock" in that Saturday Night Live skit who kicks people's asses every time they try to smoke.Comment
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