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Dublin: 8 °C Saturday 18 May, 2013

One third of smokers sabotage friends who want to quit

Jealousy, guilt about their own smoking and wanting a smoking “buddy” among the main reasons.

Grave of butts
Grave of butts
Image: Matthew Romack via Flickr/Creative Commons

ONE THIRD OF smokers admit attempting to sabotage another smoker’s attempts to quit, according to a new study.

Jealousy, guilt about their own smoking and wanting a smoking “buddy” were among the reasons people gave for wanting to wreck another’s attempts to quit.

The data was collected from 6,300 current and former smokers by Pfizer as part of its Don’t Go Cold Turkey campaign. It found that 31 per cent of smokers admitted being “saboteurs”.

However it also found that 72 per cent of smokers who tried to quit found that someone else had tried to overthrow their attempts to do so.

In total, smokers said they tried to quit smoking at least three times. One in five said they had tried five times or more.

Pfizer says that the majority of people try and quit through willpower alone. However, the majority of people using this approach will fail within eight days and only three per cent will be smoke-free after one year says the pharmaceutical company, which says that it “manufactures an agent to aid smoking cessation in adults”.

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Comments (38 Comments)

  • 4 years off them. best thing I ever done

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  • I’m off them 6 weeks now,best thing I ever did,the first 2 weeks were the worst but once you get past that it gets easier..will never go down that road again & feel the better of it.:-D

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  • I quit in one go but it helped that about three of my friends did at the same time we are all smoke free for years now but remember its just a habit and dont replace it with another one you dont need the addiction tear up beer mats sit on your hands drink water distract yourself at that point when “you are dying for a fag” stage … The cravings will go and it gets easier and it IS worth it think of the kids or the nice pile of cash you will have so good luck :)

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  • I tried frequently for years to quit a 20 year smoking habit. Patches,herbal cigs,tablets,hypnosis whatever. One day I realised the craving lasts about 15 seconds. That was in Feb 2009 and I haven’t smoked since. Call me a smug arse if you like but if you’re trying to give up just count to 20 when you feel the need to light up. :-)

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  • 2.5 years off the smokes and still a smug, self-satisfied arsehole. I love the feeling if being a smug self-satisfied arsehole.

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  • I was a heavy smoker & I went cold turkey twice, the first time I put on two stone in weight and after 6 months started “socially smoking” and then was smoking any chance I got and feeling the worst for it, the second time, I lost the weight I put on and have been off them for over a year & feel better for it. My advice for those who want to quit is choose cold turkey and get yourself to focus constantly on all the negative aspects of smoking and for a short time change any habits connected to smoking and eventually you will hate the damn things like I do now.

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  • off them now over 2 years and just went cold turkey, best thing’s ever did, I’ve never looked back, never had the longing for one. and I say shame on pfizer, this campaign they are running should be banned, there products are only replacements, a person is never off them while using a substitute, I tried everything to get off them and indeed so did many of my friends, the only ones that were ever successful were those who GAVE UP COLD TURKEY

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  • “Part of Pfizers Don’t Go Cold Turkey campaign”, that is the biggest load of rubbish I ever read. It reinforces the Allen Carr book (which I used to quit after trying everything else including Zyban) which discusses how pharmeceutical companies and health services across the world use smoking cessation, patches, gum, hypnotherapy etc to squeeze more money from smokers. Patches et al isn’t quitting, it’s prolonging the addiction. Cold turkey is the one, true and only way to stop smoking. After reading the Allen Carr book (after being a sceptic of it for years prior before finally trying it when all else had failed) I quit immediately and haven’t looked back. Quitting isn’t difficult, years of brainwashing being told quitting is difficult (just like the message this article conveys) is what is difficult. Oh and do you know what the best thing about smoking is?…NOTHING. Quitting is easy, read the book.

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    • Actually the Allen Carr book is very good. Although I believe I did actually develop a short dependency as a result of it on, embarrassingly, the Allen Carr book, which I then lost.

      Ho hum.

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  • When I gave them up the most supportive friends I had were smokers, the encouragement I received and indeed the sabotage others receive I reckon stems from a desire to give up themselves.

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  • Damocles have you ever tried to quit smoking ? It’s a very difficult thing to do and should be applauded not mocked.

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    • I do quit from time to time. I’ll sometimes go a couple of weeks or months on then off the pills or whatever, I’ve trimmed down massively if truth be told but at no point did I ever become self satisfied about it. I have a deal with a few people that if I ever do they should take me out and beat the hell out of me.

      Like most smokers, and indeed like these ex-smokers before they quit, I have to put up with the ex-smokers who seem beholden to tell smokers and the world in general how absolutely fabulous they are and what great and massively fulfilling lives since they quit. Like they’ve found Jesus or something. You sit there, you patiently listen to them and you go “Oh, good for you.” and you think “Arsehole, self satisfied, smug, arsehole.” And then some people, when they quit, become that person. That is what I am mocking.

      “It’s a very difficult thing to do”, Ah, but is it? The physical addiction of nicotine is very short lived, the addiction is more a mental one, and most smokers simply replace one ritual with another.

      But give up, feel free, it’s your life, just don’t be smug about it, or I shall mock you.

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    • Maybe you’re the only one that perceives it that way, maybe they’re not being smug, maybe they’re just delighted.

      It’s possible that most other people are happy and proud of the ex-smokers, and feel like congratulating them and encouraging them rather than being bitter and almost insulting towards them.

      It’s your problem not theirs

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  • Misery loves company.

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  • Shameless self-promotion by Pfizer

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  • My friend and her sister have both smoked for the last ~30 years. The sister was recently diagnosed with lung cancer which thankfully should be treatable with chemotherapy and has decided that she has to finally give up smoking.
    It sickens me though, that my friend doesn’t seem to have changed her smoking habits one bit. I can’t understand it at all. If this wasn’t a wake up call to quit smoking I don’t know what is.

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    • it’s obvious that you have never smoked Barry, its an addiction, some say more addictive than heroin, for some people no matter what happens in their life they will just never be able to quit unfortunately. I hope your friend gets cured, best of luck to her in the long road ahead.

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  • Off them since November , went cold turkey, still get cravings occasionally , would like to say I feel the health benefits but I don’t really but I am just glad to be off them and I’m sure my lungs are too.

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  • disgraceful campaign aimed at making money, not helping people quit. This sort of thing should be banned

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  • Finipops 27/07/12 #

    I’m off them about 4 years now and I gave up cold turkey. First time I tried I got to four days and went back on them and the second tone I got to five days so I just kept going because of breaking my previous record. And of course they don’t want you to give up cold turkey because then they’ll never make money off you for giving up without their patches!

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  • Same goes for boozing, as for the cancer sticks. Not so long ago saw first hand how a friend tried to pull away from a boozing club but just got reeled back in. Subtle, pathetic but its the reality of where you find yourself sometimes. Drink, fags, booze-it’s mostly esteem and self awareness thats at stake. In my experience health issues are the very last thing people consider in circumstances, right up to the hospital door.

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  • 4 yrs off them since July. Best move I ever made. The stink of them turns my stomach now. I drive a truck and always smoked in them. If someone tried to smoke one in my truck now, they’d get booted straight out the windscreen. Even my boss stopped a lad trying to smoke in it one day when I was off :-)
    If only my wife would give the bloody things up.

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  • There’s none so pure as a reformed whure

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  • The Pfizer drug CHAMPIX really really does work. I was a heavy smoker until I took CHAMPIX. I feel like I’ve never smoked before. It turns your brain into a non smokers brain. It’s incredible. I will never again smoke. It was last year sometime when I took it. Smoking now seems alien to me. A far far distant memory.

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  • Champix all the way,off the smokes 6 months now & will never go back on them. The smell off somebody who’s just had a cigarette is horrible I’m embarrassed that was me,that I used to walk around smelling like a ashtray.
    Never again

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  • Cold turkey is the only way. I smoked for 17 years and tried to quit 15 of them used patches and the rest of garbage. Nothing worked until my life got settled and I got support from my husband, then boyfriend, who quit with me to help.

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  • Love the words according to the study, who conducts these so called studies , load of crap, nobody i know would dream of trying to prevent a friend from giving up smoking thats utter nonsense …..

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  • 3 years off cigarettes but I still use Nicotinell lozenges. I feel 200% better than I did.

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  • Oh great. Lots of self satisfied quitters. This should be entertaining.

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  • Leave the smokers alone!This is a nanny state dictatorship that rules in this E E C nation!!!!!!Life is too short for putting up with more of that misery the govt is imposing on us.

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  • Yo, Jody.
    What happened to all the comments?
    Jaysus man, gonna have to start using another news site to discuss current affairs – you are all going mad on censorship.

    Reply

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