Going Cold Turkey to quit smoking? How long did it take you to not crave any more cigarettes?

2 or 3 days

I hsve a strange smoking history, I take frequent vacations to the Philippines (my wifes origunsl home) these vacations last 2-5 months, hen there I smoke out of boredom and because almost everyone I hang around with does to. I smoke my last cigarette at the smoking lounge in the Manila airport before we depart. By the time I get home to Texas I don't have anymore cravings

Never counted.. It's history

Quit cold turkey after 56 years of 1and 1/2 packs a day.Two years ago yes still have some cravings but not too bad now.Took about a month to get straight from wanting it,at the beginning. Now I am good everyday.And truly WORTH it.

I quit 18 years ago, and still crave a smoke with my morning coffee.

I quit in 2006, after over 35 years of smoking more than a pack a day.

I went for a 4-day drive and hiking in the Rocky Mountains with a friend who was not a smoker.

I brought a pop-top water bottle to take a suck of water when I wanted a cigarette.

When a craving started, I firmly told myself "I don't DO that anymore".

And I ate oranges to replenish my Vitamin C (smoking cigarettes takes the Vitamin C OUT of your bloodstream).

The first day I was a little fuzzy headed.

The second day, I had occasional cravings that went away within 15 seconds when I talked to myself and took a suck of water.

With each passing day, I had fewer and fewer cravings and they were progressively more and more weaker and more and more shorter. By about a week, I was having MAYBE one mild short craving a week, that I could easily shake off. By about a month, I was totally over it.

At NO time did the cravings overwhelm me or bother me.

Previously, I had tried to quit several times, but the cravings were SO horrible I HAD to go get more smokes.

The human brain resists change .. and if you stop doing something it is addicted to, it has a little temper-tantrum to try to force you to NOT change.

But when you are in the middle of the mountains with no cigarettes available, and you are no longer in the places/situations where you HABITUALLY light up ,.. it becomes very easy.

I only had a week off work but I had no trouble when I went back to work ... back into the situations in which I had previously smoked.

Don't allow your brain to blackmail you with temper tantrums, into lighting up another cigarette.

Good luck to you.

I did that 10 minutes to New Years Eve 1976 after smoking for 9 years. I felt a tickle in my throat that scared me, so I quit cold turkey. For many months I would be between a sip of my drink and a bite of a chip and I felt there used to be a third thing then I remembered there wasn't.

The physical addiction is broken in about five days.

The habit is still there in decades.

It surprised me when after a stressful event I was reaching to my breast pocket for a cigarette.

I am not a quitter. I am still a smoker.

But smoke stinks and I have paused for as long as I am living with a smoker. 33 Years and counting.

There are many factors that are connected with the habit of smoking. Drinking, having a cigarette after eating, talking on the telephone or driving in your car are just a few of them. For most people, these are the things that trigger the desire to smoke and these activities need to be modified in some way. Habits usually take about 30 days to break.

It took a good long time to not constantly think about smoking. But I will tell you, after almost 2 years off cigarettes, the cravings will hit me out of nowhere, so intense, I want to scream. Then they disappear as quickly as they came.

Part of quitting, once the general withdrawal and habitual cravings where off, is accepting that you will still get cravings from time to time, they just happen less and less overtime but you learn how to not give in. That's all. After the physical and habitual go away, it's all mental, and that's the hardest. So you get over the nicotine going through your body (about 3-5 days), then the habit (smoking after you eat, for example), but then, it's a matter of will power. Being stressed, being in a social circle with drinks, needing something to do with your hands and mouth...that's harder to overcome. And that can trigger cravings like you wouldn't believe.

So, in a nutshell, you never really stop craving them 100%. Some days are better than others and once you quit, hell, you could go a good 3-4 months without a single craving, but out of nowhere, you're stuck in traffic or at your parents house and it just gets to be too much and WHAM! you want a smoke so badly, it's all you can think about. Count to ten slowly and breathe. That's what I do and it goes away quickly enough.

Good luck on your quit journey!