Hardened smoker

[Steveresz]

What advice would you give to a 60 year old female smoker who has been smoking for 47 years? This person wants to give up and has tried everything over the years - acupuncture, hypnosis, Allen Carr, nicotine patches etc. Nearly everyone in the family smokes and she gets seriously angry and/or depressed after a few hours without a cigarette. All suggestions welcome, thanks.

[alanogden]

I gave up like this. When you start the thought of never having another cigarette is horrifying so the first day you don't smoke till after say, 8:30 am. Not too hard, so the next day make it 9:00 am. Increase the time by half an hour each day till you just have one in the evening and that's no bother to give up.

[Eve]

There are tablets like Champix.

If she gets an appointment to see her GP or practice nurse she can talk through the possibilities with them.

[boogieboogie]

What does she want to give up for at her age.
Option 1.Tell her it's too late she'll never give up now, so she may as well smoke herself into an earlier grave and get some pleasure from it.
Option 2. Try the patches again. Tell her her house smells, her hair and clothes stink.
I gave up with patches it's not hard, infact really easy. As said above the hardest bit is accepting the idea of never having another fag because they are enjoyable. But being able to breath in the mornings, and not stinking of stale nicotine is far more enjoyable than having a dirty fag..

[blackcat77]

What's Allen Carr to do with smoking? or giving it up?!

[Lakitu]

^ LOL, he wrote a book about stopping smoking, are you thinking of Jimmy Carr??

[ladyalex]

I agree with the first answer. Don't say 'I'm never having another cigarette' that's too difficult to do and if you have one, you've ruined the whole thing so can easily just give up trying. As well as the 'not before 8:00' etc ruling , you could add in throughout the day that you're allowed to have a cigarette any time you want one, it's just you have to wait another five minutes before you light up. Look at the clock, get on with whatever you are doing and after 5 minutes if you still want one, have one. Do that every time you want a cigarette for two or three days, then increase the time delay to ten minutes, then fifteen minutes etc. If you don't stop, at least you gradually cut down.
The main factor in success , though, is having a good enough reason for you to stop. Only the person themselves will know what this reason is, so preaching to them about how unhealthy, smelly, antisocial etc smoking is will be no use. They have to come to this reason themselves.

Good Luck. It ain't easy to stop.