My cig-battle progress.

@Rogue these things will happen. I’ve tried to cut down to only X or Y a day, but sometimes events occur that cause me to smoke more. The only real option is to get off the cigs and don’t buy them. It’s also harder if you live with, or have a large social group of, smokers.

At least you are trying and figuring out your triggers, etc. 

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Relapse for cigarettes mainly occurs due to old habit of the motor function of lighting and smoking it. Once you use snuff (especially ones high in nicotine), I dont think you ‘crave’ nicotine, but just the feeling of filling your lungs with smoke. You can snap out of it (even cold turkey) anytime you decide. 

@newbiesnuffer I know, but events as of late has required me to get a strong and quick nic-fix to be able to keep goin through the day.

cig-battle paused. Dislocated shoulder while sparring, had it put back in place, dislocated one minute later while moving arm. lots of pain lots of cigs. Funny thing: First thing I did after relocating it the second time was to grab a cig…foolish me.

@Rogue - take care man. But isnt it worse to kill yourself with cigarettes when some other pain is already doing that? Try some strrrrong snuff :slight_smile:

@newbiesnuffer Hard to move my arm up to nose level, goin with my left hand makes it very messy.

@Rogue If you’ve cut down to 4 cigarettes a day, I’d say cut them off entirely. You’ve obviously beaten the physical aspect of smoking by substituting, why not go all out and beat it mentally? 4 cigarettes don’t really provide you with all that much nicotine, you probably can’t get past the little “rituals”, like smoking after waking up or after dinner, or even lighting and holding a cigarette. These things are understandably hard, but you’ve went this far so why not go all out? Also, if you’re going to smoke and box, it’s not a good idea to count on your stamina. Develop knockout power so you can drop people before the 3rd round starts, or maybe even tough it out like I did and do extra cardio. I used to run 5-6km every day and still put away a pack of smokes. I was as determined of a smoker as I was a boxer. My role model was Ricardo Mayorga, and he still is in some ways.

@DrOctagon Mayorga, eh? I always digged Nicolino Loche. My very style in boxing is actually based on wearing my opponents out. I never go toe-to-toe, I like to make every punch count, and rely a little too much (which some people have exposed) on counter-punching alone. It should be noted that 4/5 of my wins were due to well-placed counterpunches. I know my stamina holds me back, which makes me avoid combinations, I throw 3 maximum, and its rare for me to throw that many. I have decent reach, so I try to stay on the outside, which I feel helps me catch my breath if, for some reason, I have been trading blows for too long, which I try to avoid. On topic again; I found I dont need any cigarettes if I smoke a pipe, so I ordered a few pipes, just to have something on hand when my old carey’s magic inch is resting. Im thinking of buying a few cobs too, those things never need any rest it seems, so that should be a good all-day pipe. Luckily for me, pipe tobacco is cheap over the border, and I smoke way less pipe tobacco than normal tobacco, which is an economical win too. I have also noticed that I dont even enjoy cigarettes anymore, at all. A pipe is more relaxing, satisfying, tastes and smells better, and lets face it, a pipe is freakin cool. Theres nothing like playing chess and smoking a pipe while recovering…or just smoking a pipe now that I dont have anything to recover from. I was forced to quit boxing for a year by my doctor, who told me I need to let my shoulder rest for a ton of weeks, which I have to follow up with weightlifting (not the worst medication I guess), but there goes the hand-speed and loose shoulders I spent a long time training for.

@Renegade I dug Mayorga because he’s like us, he’s a smoker and a boxer who on several occasions actually blew smoke in his opponent’s face at the weigh in. A true character. And as per smoking boxer MO, always got winded in the later rounds and lost, which is why he knew to finish early. Truly a God among men. I always hated guys like you, to be honest! I was a pressure fighter, and I hated having to chase guys around who knew what they were doing. My trick was just to rush the opponent, corner him and tear him apart. Whenever guys started doing stuff like gauging distance or fancy footwork or counterpunching, I got irritated. I’m a fairly short guy and I’m a southpaw so I ate a lot of small punches before I got inside so it always had to be me punching harder than the other guy otherwise I’d probably lose. I’m too old now, I’m almost 30, plus I have a lot of little old injuries that get aggravated when I get too into it even on the heavybag now. I can’t even tell you how many times I broke fingers or got that stupid boxer’s fracture or wrists or something, and these things add up. Whenever it rains now I feel every single thing that I broke. Also if you’re looking to speed up recovery time, I suggest you go out and find Thai Boxing Liniment. It’s this yellow oil you rub into sore muscles or sprains or even bruises and it does wonders. Usually it’s fairly cheap, but make sure you get it from a legitimate source because there’s a problem of bootleg Boxing Liniment coming out of thailand. My advice to you with regards to smoking is, stick to one thing for long periods of time. If you try snuff and snus and pipe tobacco, eventually you’ll exhaust your options and go back to smoking. Maybe we should contact a snus manufacturer and perhaps get a snus mouthguard developed? How cool would that be! You’re just handling your business in the ring and you get your nicotine at the same time. But I digress. Quitting smoking is done in 2 ways: you either quit cold turkey, or you wean yourself off it. The latter is mostly psychological because eventually you’ll have to quit cold turkey anyway, but honestly out of everything I’ve tried to quit with–and I’ve tried all of it–there is a lot more progress with snuff than anything. I just wanted snuff to try it, but I’ve actually noticed a pack lasting me longer and longer.

@DrOctagon Nicolino was a smoker too, a heavy one, smoking between rounds, even. I guess thats one reason why he never made it big, despite a lot of skill; bad image. And I know what you mean regarding injuries, I had some wrist/hand/finger issues myself, which luckily, I dont have now. I havent tried the thai cream, but I use tiger balm, which is absolutely incredibly too. Im not sure if it will work on my shoulder problems, but I will try it. Im waiting for an answer for what they found on the x-rays, which is hopefully nothing that requires surgery. My doctor “prescribed” me some weights and some weird freakin ways of lifting, which he says works very well, cause it tightens up the shoulders (but should not be done with healthy shoulders, cause apparently it can damage them). And I can undertand your frustration with outfighters. I have a friend who is competing on amateur level, who I have the “honor” of sparring with. I dont compete myself, but love sparring. Anyway, the first time we sparred, he was a slugger. Slow, easy to hit, bad punches. After a while, his coach had him switch styles and copy mine. Now I have problems hitting him!!! So instead of simply being an outfighter, I was forced to focus on counter-punching to be able to hit him, cause that became my only way of actually hitting him. He trains much harder than me, which I assume is why he bypassed me in regards to footwork…frustrating indeed. It was actually in a sparring match with him that I damaged my shoulder. He threw a jab, I crouched, countered with right hook, and as soon as my glove connected, I heard a weird sound in my shoulder followed by excruciating pain. With no workin out, I find it hard to avoid cigs tbh, boxing is one of the things that convinced me to quit.

@Rogue Bad image, my butt. In boxing, as long as there isn’t an outstanding warrant on you for rape or armed robbery, you can basically do anything you want. It was probably politics. Boxing has always been crooked. I was an amateur for a little bit and I still saw and heard some stuff, when it gets to professional it gets so dirty. It’s not a cream, it’s an oil. It works better than tiger balm because tiger balm is just topical, but you really have to massage this oil in and that itself heals, plus it’s ingredients are top notch too. Penetrates really well but it’s a constant burn either. If you get into Thai Boxing, they rub the fighters down head to toe in this same stuff to prevent injury and it totally works. Thais use this stuff religiously: they put it on after warmup to prevent injury and to get blood flowing, and afterwards. I’d trust their methods because those guys really put themselves through hell even in training. Another thing I suggest is looking into kinesiology tape. I thought it was nonsense but it really, really works, especially in your case. If you’re not training to become a fighter, try not to spar too hard. Even real fighters pace themselves outside of the gym, but since you have no plans to turn professional then you should take it easy. Otherwise you’ll break yourself and for what, you know? Or even mess up someone else that could’ve turned pro. It takes one little thing to end both your desire to fight and to end someone’s career. It sounds like you just threw your shoulder out. It’s a soft tissue injury, you need to baby it for a while with ice and resting and that Thai Boxing liniment I told you about and you’ll be good soon enough. But I’m telling you, man. Boxing is serious business. It’s not a sport you can do casually, right? Consider giving kickboxing or Thai Boxing a try after your injury heals. They’re not as punch intensive but still very good and lethal sports. Or pick up biking. I myself got into BMX biking not too long ago, seems fun. Basically anything that’s even remotely active and engaging will keep you from smoking, especially if you enjoy it.

Day-4 of me going cold turkey. Ofcourse I have a little bit of snuff to take care of the nicotine urges. Hopefully my order reaches me sooner than later. I didnt really have any health reasons to quit. After over a decade of smoking (usually 6 or 7 a day - I’d smoke after a meal or after having tea only), I find cigs to be tasteless now. Dont really miss the cigs but I do miss the smoke breaks and the throat hit. But I resist. So far so good.

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@bolbam420 nice! You’re doing good! I fell back into old habits, but will try to quit…again…

Guys it’s just psychological with the cigarettes. With snuff around, cigarettes are not really needed. (speaking from experience here)

With snuff around, e-cigs are not needed (started quitting back around March). I had a couple weeks of relapse a few months back but I don’t even own any anymore after 8 years of clinging to them. And on top of nicotine I also enjoy the experience, aromas and history of snuff.

@rogue I am a man of routine. So to make any changes, I have to adapt a new one. I think that’s what helped me most. When I did smoke (5 days back!) I always had a cig after a meal or tea only. Now I’ve changed that to having a couple of sniffs immediately after having anything. Or having a sniff while having tea. The urge to smoke is noticeably quite less now. And when I do feel like it, I take a big pinch, lurk on snuffhouse, keep myself distracted. Cigs havent taken their toll on my health yet (touch wood) but they’re getting quite expensive here in India too. I’d rather use that money on snuffs - there are so many of them to try. It will take some time to just check out all the Indian ones. And then there’s a big world outside India for snuffs too. I’d like to try pipe smoking some day too. None of this is happening if I keep having cigs. However sometimes I do wonder if me quitting cigs is because of the reasons mentioned above or maybe I’m just bored of my routine from the last 10 odd years. Maybe I am simply looking for something new. Whatever it is, not going back to cigs again!

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@bolbam420 It may be you’re getting tired of cigs…I am…back in the day, every cig was a pleasure to smoke…now I dread the next one. Instead of being something I enjoy, it’s now something I feel compelled to do, and I loathe the cigs. Pipes are better…I look forward to every pipe I light up.

@rogue Tired of cigs-yes. I have had to put out my stick of Marlboro Red midway many a times before I finally quit. Pipes and cigars are intriguing. However as a cig smoker I do wonder what is the point of it all if you wont inhale.

I believe everyone has a different genetic make-up and I am NOT assigning any “labels” to anyone but myself. I think what some people refer to as a 'habit" or “routine”, in my case, in just plain old addiction! I have an addictive personality and I always have. I can easily become addicted to almost anything if I allowed myself. I think accepting this fact helps me. Usually, instead of quitting something, I trade one addiction for a lesser one. 

In my case, the most important thing about trading snuff for cigs was… NOT HAVING ANY CIGS AVAILABLE!

If I have cigs around when I get a craving, I’ll smoke one, if I don’t, I wont. It really is that simple The first time I quit smoking for 7 years, as soon as my girlfriend (at that time) started smoking, I was doomed! I started by just bumming one of hers, then a couple… well, you know how that goes… 

If you want to quit smoking with snuff, stay away from cigs and use snuff to calm the nic cravings… if I did it, anyone can. 

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Oral tobacco(snus,dip,chew…)helps better to quit a habit that keeps your mouth busy…

I hope this sound proper

:smiley: