--"I stayed home and avoided all smokers for the first week. Climbing the walls was necessary, but I did manage it. Sipping on ice water and deep breathing kept me sane." --Char
--"Chewing on spicy things like cinnamon candies and whole cloves helped a lot."--Jules
--"I always had a box of Good and Plenty candies in my shirt pocket. It really helped to have something in that pocket when I automatically reached for a smoke. The taste of black licorice seemed to be a large help with the taste thing." --Deputy Dave
--"I armed myself with sugar-free bubble gum, mints and candy at all times, and did not drink alcohol." --grammie2rylee
--"I do not fight the cravings and urges to smoke, because it only makes me more tense. I try to accept, if not welcome them as a natural part of my addiction recovery. I let them wash over me, take deep breaths and just ride them out." --Carol C.
--Snack on sunflower seeds in the shell. Messy, but they will keep you busy and satisfied when craving a smoke." --Terry
--"Take hot baths and showers. It wasn't possible to crave smoking in the shower, for some reason." --Nyniane
--"I cut my coffee intake to one, sometimes two cups per day. If I started grabbing for food, I sucked on sugarless candy or ate an apple." --Williegenny
--"If I'm craving a smoke, I climb a flight of stairs, jump and down or just get up and move somewhere else for a few minutes." --Sept192007
--"Sing! The physical act of singing works great as a crave-buster. It gives the lungs a workout, gets the blood flowing, and kills the urge to smoke in the process. Pick you favorite, motivating music, and as an added bonus, it improves your mood too!" --LtHousLady
--"My suggestion is string cheese. Yeah you know, it looks like a tube in a plastic wrap but it's cheese. You pull on it in tiny pieces and it comes off like string. It can easily take up 20 to 25 minutes of your crave time if you want it to. It keeps your fingers busy and it's challenging to see just how small of a string you can pull off. If you like cheese, give it a try." --punkn'head
--"The thing that helps me a lot is popsicles!" --Nayls
--"Something that really helped me with cravings to smoke were hot /spicy dill pickles." --Shenna2
--"Change your routines. For instance, take a different route to work. Have your morning coffee and meals in a different room than you usually do." --Chris--"I had to break old routines that involved smoking. Instead of talking on the phone and smoking, I would clean the house. Of course, after every chore, I would think I'd earned a smoke, which lead me to more cleaning! From there I got into scrapbooking and all sorts of crafts. You have to stay busy with things that aren't your normal routine early on."--Tammy
--"I recognized, after the initial physical withdrawal from nicotine, that I was breaking a habit. So I thought about how I could replace that habit with something healthy. For instance, I use to smoke on my porch. I started taking herbal tea to the porch, and before long I didn't feel comfortable going out there without my tea. I had replaced that habit!" --Kimmie1213
--"I look past the desire for a cigarette to the bigger meaning. The only thing smoking a cigarette would accomplish (besides making me feel bad) was to make me want another cigarette. Even if it satisfied me, how long would that satisfaction last? How long before I'd want another one?" --Nyniane
--"Go places where you cannot smoke. Movies were the best for me because I couldn't smoke for hours at a time. The movie distracted me and the snack bar was full of crave busting goodies." --Charlie777222
--"Think H.A.L.T. when you find yourself craving a smoke. Nine times out of ten, the urge from a cigarette originates from one of these four things: H -- Hunger A -- Anger L -- Lonely (boredom falls into this category as well) T -- TiredWhen you learn to identify the source of your discomfort, you can react with a better choice than smoking. If you're tired - rest, hungry, eat, etc." --Terry
Bill Ledbetter
