Pipes and Patches

pipesmokingtom · May 30, 2015

For some time now, I've dabbled in quitting cigarettes, sometimes successfully for a period of time but never with long-term success. I'm a pack-a-day smoker and I've really struggled giving it up - or even cut back with any significance.
I have been smoking a pipe for many years now as well, and more recently, much more frequently. I had delusions of grandeur about using the pipe as a tool to assist me in quitting, as I know some people have found success this way. For me at least, they are completely mutually-exclusive activities and I can't substitute one for the other. I often will enjoy a great bowl of tobacco in my pipe and then go smoke a cigarette. Even though there is some nicotine, even though I'm smoking, even though I'm doing all the hand-to-mouth with the pipe, I still reach for a cigarette when I'm finished. I know they are vastly different nicotine delivery systems, but still, the hope was there that ramping up the pipe smoking would help me reduce the cigarettes. The deal with the wife is - whatever I don't spend on cigarettes, I can spend on pipe tobacco, so I could essentially get a new tin for every two days I don't buy a pack of smokes. I am 15 no-cigarette-buying days in the hole right now

It's probably time for me to attempt to use other nicotine replacement methods like gum or patches. I wanted to reach out on here to see if anyone else has cigarette quitting experience with nicotine replacement while still enjoying pipe smoking. Or - if someone has been a cigarette and pipe smoker and had to give up both for a time to "detox" and then successfully returned to the pipe.
I'm hoping I can kick the cigarettes and retain the pipe smoking, without it being a trigger to pick back up the cigarettes.
Any thoughts on the subject would be appreciated.

Chasing Embers · May 30, 2015

Have you tried higher nicotine pipe tobaccos? Irish Oak from Peterson really leaves me a bit dizzy.

alexnorth · May 30, 2015

I smoked for about 10 years and one day I decided that it was bad and that I should quit. I quit by stopping entirely with the cigarettes and instead chewed nicotine chewing-gum. After about a year i switched to regular chewing-gum and got bored with that after a short while since you kinda stop producing saliva if you chew regularly. Now about 6 years later I've taken up pipesmoking. Keeping it casual, limited by will and weather to a few Bowls per week I feel like it's totally under my Control. I never "crave" a bowl, should it come to that I'll probably stop or limit myself to perhaps once a week or less.
You CAN quit if you like, It's all in your head. Good luck!

pipesmokingtom · May 30, 2015

Have you tried higher nicotine pipe tobaccos? Irish Oak from Peterson really leaves me a bit dizzy.

One of my favorites is Irish Flake and that can be a real kick in the shorts, especially in the morning. If I smoke a bowl of that, I can last a little longer without a cigarette, but I still have to will-power my way through it.

mranglophile · May 30, 2015

I have been smoking cigarettes for 25+ years and started pipe smoking in 2009 with the idea of replacing the cigarettes. It has been tremendously challenging, more so than opiates which I have been clean from for 13 years.

The first thing I learned is you can't smoke a pipe like cigarettes. For me at least trying to use the pipe to replace cigarettes taught me a lot of bad habits. It wasn't until I really focused on flavor and not nicotine that pipe smoking became really enjoyable for me. Once I became focused on flavor it was much easier to not smoke nasty tasting cigarettes. Now on occasion I still inhale a little smoke by habit, but if I remember correctly I read somewhere that Pipestud had been a cig smoker and he occasionally inhaled during his transition. I didn't mess with the gum or such because it screwed with my taste buds when smoking a pipe. If you want it bad enough you can make it happen....Good Luck!!!

pipesmokingtom · May 30, 2015

The first thing I learned is you can't smoke a pipe like cigarettes. For me at least trying to use the pipe to replace cigarettes taught me a lot of bad habits

For sure. The way I smoke my pipe is sort of a source of pride for me, as I feel I do it properly with the reverence a good tobacco deserves. That's why I don't want to replace cigarettes with it, I think, i.e. inhaling or using it solely for the nicotine.

I didn't mess with the gum or such because it screwed with my taste buds when smoking a pipe.

Good info - that's what I feared. A patch may be the way forward.

davet · May 30, 2015

Quit cigarettes five months ago using a electronic vapour thing. That and only that for almost four months then put that away and picked up the pipe again.I have absolutely no cravings for a cigarette and rarely inhale, don't need to anyway. I avoided the vapour those times I would normally smoke, morning coffee after meals etc. You have to be ready to quit, keep trying and one of these times it will work for you, good luck.

Sjmiller CPG · May 30, 2015

I smoked cigarettes for about twenty years then one day I decided I wanted to smoke cigars. That was about seven years ago and have had one cigarette since. As should be obvious one day I decided I wanted to smoke a pipe. Found out I enjoyed it more than the cigarettes or cigars.

fishfly · May 30, 2015

Or - if someone has been a cigarette and pipe smoker and had to give up both for a time to "detox" and then successfully returned to the pipe.

I used the patch to finally get off the cigarettes about 15 years ago. It wasn't easy, but it was easier than using nothing. I went without nicotine for a year (except to hang around smokers and suck up their second hand smoke).
Then I slowly re-introduced Cigars and then Pipes. Now I occasionally smoke a cigar while fishing, but usually only a pipe.
I think if I hadn't had that year off, I'd have slipped back to the cigarettes.

drennan · May 30, 2015

I descided I'd had enough of being addicted to nicotine, I'd got bored of being banished at bars and friends houses to the naughty step outside for a ciggy. I'd tried several times before to quit using some type of expensive aid, they hadn't worked; so I just went cold turkey. I kept telling myself that withdrawls will not last forever and whats two shitty weeks in a lifetime? It worked. Around 3 - 4 months after stopping the ciggies I started smoking a pipe and for me it's a treat, I rarely smoke every day and so far I've not had a problem with addiction.

gregprince · May 30, 2015

I once heard the story of a dedicated union man who hated the "suits" with their corner offices and perrier water. One day, just after the cost of cigarettes had gone up again in the shop cigarette machine, he had just put his money in and a friend walked by and said, "Boy, those suits have sure got you by the short hairs!" As he pulled the lever our hero responded, "But it's my last pack ever!" He finished that pack and never smoked another cigarette.
For him the realization that he was being manipulated into giving up his health and wealth to make richer those whom he despised was a reason to really quite rather than just fight with himself about it. When you find a real reason to quit, it will be done.

gloucesterman · May 30, 2015

I smoked two decks a day for almost 50 years. It's a wonder I can still breath at all. What I did was, one day I just stopped buying them. You can't smoke what you don't have handy. What you will do in all likelihood is substitute your pipe instead or at least that's what happened for me. As you retrain yourself, and you have to do that, just keep telling yourself "it's my pipe or nothing" and mean it. It won't be easy but it can be done. Just one cigarette is never just one! Give in and you'll have to start all over again, but you already know that!!!!

settersbrace · May 30, 2015

I can relate to what your going through as it took me years to finally give up cigs. I did it through a supervised and monitored smoking study that involved the use of the patch. Whether I got the real deal or not I'll never know. What I do know is that it was the single most difficult thing I've ever done. After 72 hours of no cigs the physical dependency has passed, that is a fact. What remains is the habit of smoking itself. It was over 10 years later that I became interested in cigars and a couple years beyond that, pipe smoking. Neither has ever held the grip on my soul that cigs did. I wanted to quit for several years and had many failed attempts, I know you want to quit and you will. Inhaling is the one thing you can't do with the pipe or cigars or you'll never give yourself the chance to lose the cig habit. The patch would only be a safe option if you abstain from all tobacco use until your body is no longer physically dependent. Just my opinion, a medical opinion from a doctor you can trust might be way better. The best of luck to you, and I know you'll feel better and healthier once you do quit those damn little white sticks.

pipesmokingtom · May 30, 2015

Thanks for all the input and words of encouragement, everyone.
I don't want to lay off my pipe that long! I just ordered ten more tins! Booo.

gregprince · May 31, 2015

Almost everyone that I know who has quit smoking cigarettes did so cold turkey, having found a reason to quit. The one exception was a old friend who was hypnotised by his friendly neighborhood bartender. Unfortunately, within months of quitting he had died an agonizing death due to lung cancer that was, until latter, undiagnosed. It had already metastasized to his bones and he was feeling some symptoms, he just hadn't yet seen a doctor. So I guess you could suggest that his reason to quit was that at some level he knew the cigarettes had already killed him.
I've always felt that campaigns aimed at scaring people away from smoking are misguided because cigarette smoking is, fundamentally, a self-destructive behavior. We, mostly, started smoking as teenagers because it is a time of self-loathing when dangerous, self-destructive behavior appeals most.
Keep in mind settersbrace's 72 hour rule. After just three days you have beaten the cigarettes and the addiction. All that remains to defeat you is your residual teenage self-loathing. Most of us have moments of self-doubt, disappointment, fear, anger, etc. At such times our inner teen raises it's pimple face and we really need a cigarette. IMHO pipe smoking operates very differently, connecting with the drive to pleasure rather than death.
But then, what do I know?

robwoodall · May 31, 2015

Patches, vaporizers, gum and the pipe can all help to sooth the nicotine addiction but, as settersbrace and gregprince mentioned, the physical part ramps down after around 72 hours. Actually more or less for some, but fairly quickly.
Nicotine is virulently addictive, but the effect does seem to pass quicker than many substances.
Unfortunately, we are then left with the habit, and it's a killer.
(Think about this: Most pipe smokers wouldn't be pipe smokers, and we certainly wouldn't be hanging out on forums, if we weren't pretty ritualistic to begin with!)
The only thing that worked for me was to quit entirely. I don't like the phrase "cold turkey," because, no matter how long or with what you put the decision off, ALL quitting is "cold turkey." At some point, one has to just stop!
After I stopped, I was pretty much a lunatic for half a week. Then I kept reaching for my pack for several months.
A couple of months ago I picked up the pipe, after six months cigarette-free, which seems to satisfy my desire for nicotine and the need to have something to, mentally and physically "fiddle with."
I haven't smoked a cigarette since I quit, but I doubt I would have been successful had I tried cutting down.
As an also recovering alcoholic, there's a clear parallel. for a person like me, not drinking is (fairly, after a rough start) easy. Drinking right or occasionally was simply impossible!

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