I am having a seriously hard time quitting smoking and am wondering how others have managed to do it.
I began smoking (daily) 2.5 years ago just before I started to have noticable symptoms (of depression), and remember thinking that it helped me deal with 'stress' at the time. Previous to that, I smoked for roughly 2 years but only when drinking, so it was a very infrequent habit.
About 6 months ago I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and have been lucky that has stabilized on medication. I have tried to quit cold turkey 3 times since, but can't seem to make it past 3-4 days when the withdrawal symptoms get intense (no amount of help from others, reminders etc works, I just can't stand the feelings I have). I know it won't last but I feel very emotionally unstable at those times and it reminds of how I felt before I was diagnosed...I especially find the agitated, anxious and restless feelings the worst and worry that I might have episodes again.
Because I have experience with an anti-depressant making me manic, I don't think I could take some of the medication that helps with quitting. I am going to attempt using the patch and see if that will help in gradually reducing nicotine and hopefully make the withdrawal symptoms less severe so I can stand them. Has this (or other tactics) been useful for others? It is discouraging to see statistics that those who are bipolar smoke at significantly higher rates (~70%) than the regular population - as if it wasn't hard enough to begin with.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
I began smoking (daily) 2.5 years ago just before I started to have noticable symptoms (of depression), and remember thinking that it helped me deal with 'stress' at the time. Previous to that, I smoked for roughly 2 years but only when drinking, so it was a very infrequent habit.
About 6 months ago I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and have been lucky that has stabilized on medication. I have tried to quit cold turkey 3 times since, but can't seem to make it past 3-4 days when the withdrawal symptoms get intense (no amount of help from others, reminders etc works, I just can't stand the feelings I have). I know it won't last but I feel very emotionally unstable at those times and it reminds of how I felt before I was diagnosed...I especially find the agitated, anxious and restless feelings the worst and worry that I might have episodes again.
Because I have experience with an anti-depressant making me manic, I don't think I could take some of the medication that helps with quitting. I am going to attempt using the patch and see if that will help in gradually reducing nicotine and hopefully make the withdrawal symptoms less severe so I can stand them. Has this (or other tactics) been useful for others? It is discouraging to see statistics that those who are bipolar smoke at significantly higher rates (~70%) than the regular population - as if it wasn't hard enough to begin with.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
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