Is it harder for somebody with AS to quit smoking?

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I'm talking cigarettes by the way, the legal stuff. Tomorrow I will have not smoked for 2 weeks but I feel like I am going insane. Any thoughts? Or anybody with any experience in this utter torment?

Everyone who tries to quit smoking goes through the same withdrawls.

I disagree, I quit at the same time as a few people and they (except one who started again after 1 day) are all doing much better than I am.

Yes, Mr. McDragard, we are all precisely the same and we all go through identical circumstances. We are all, every one of us, just like you, sir. Glory!

Okay, that being said, for me quitting was probably easier than for most, because using my Aspie superpowers, of which McDragard envious, I can pretty much do or not do anything I set my mind to. Once I decided I was not smoking, I applied that rule to myself like I do anything else.

I too have super powers and I am applying them to the smoking thing hence the 14 days without a cigarette. The issue I am having is with my (brilliant) obsessive mind. I can't stop thinking about smoking and it's making me crazy. Which super power would you suggest that I draw upon to control my feverish thoughts?

Ah, well... Have you tried avoiding activities that usually involved smoking? For instance, I would always have to smoke while searching for music to download. I had to stay away from that for a few weeks, because it automatically triggered smoking thoughs. On the other hand, I almost never smoked while taking walks outdoors... So I did a lot more of that until the thoughts passed.

Try to become obsessed with something else? Or use visualization: imagine toxins being cleared away and your body returning to a healthy state (that is, see quitting as gaining rather than losing something). Find a snack or activity that can serve as a substitute at the times you would normally smoke.

I think my tendency to be kind of "all or nothing" about things made quitting by tapering off impossible but helped when I eventually quit cold turkey. Hang in there, it'll get better soon.

Whenever I have to quit something I always try to find holes in my thought process and work around them. Like sabotage them, I quit smoking that way.

I hid my license from myself in a place I'd never remember until the cravings were gone which was about a month, and then I supplemented the cravings with a cigar from time to time. Never fear though push though.

I quit cold turkey in early 2011 after I did the math to see how much money I was wasting.

I took what cigarettes I had left, smoked them all on the same night (almost set the roof on fire - long story) and haven't smoked since.

No withdrawals, minimal cravings.

I've heard it said that nicotine is more addictive than heroin and harder to kick.

In my own case, I was a heavy smoker until I became allergic to the smoke and had to quit. That was twenty years ago.

For a year or two afterwards, if I was at a stop light on my motorcycle and someone in a nearby vehicle was smoking with the window open, I would open my visor so I could breath in the smoke better.

I still dream about smoking sometimes. Some mornings when I first wake up, I could swear that I never actually quit smoking and that I have some cigarettes stashed away somewhere.

No no no no no I know lots of NTs who find giving up smoking the hardest thing to do nicotine is addictive for most people that smoke surely you already know that.

For myself it felt not so hard to stop smoking. There is a word I am looking for to explain further, but I do not know it in english.

Often i feel like not being really in the place I am. I hear the people talking, but it "feels" more as if i was watching television. Or as if there was a glass window through which i am looking but which emotionally separates me from the people surrounding me. They and the world then just dont feel real and i really have to push myself to not center about my own thoughts in this situations. But its not only emotionally different, but physical feelings are also harder to detect because they feel different.

In german there is a medicinal word for it, i dont know how to translate it, but its something thats autists/aspergers seem to be often affected.

Normally i am trying to avoid this, pushing me to "try to make contact to reality" again. But in this situations i dont feel my bodies needs also very well, so diets, suffering injuries or trying to withstand drugs like cigarettes is much easier in this kind of mood. Dont know if it helps you, but if i avoid social contacts for days and force me into my special interest, normally i am starting to "drift away".

If my daily plan is changed from normal it is also easier to withstand rituals. For example in my work, i get alwasy hungry at 12:00 because then its eating time according to "the plan" ^^. But if theres a changed day routine anyway then my "12:00 = hungry" routine also does not start. So i would try to change your daily routines and situations whenever they were linked to smoking.

Always remember that you are not a slave to your body, but your body is a slave to you. He may be able to argument all day that he wants to smoke, but as long as you dont decide to let your arm move to a cigarette box and lighten a cigarette and so on, your body cant do it. You are the commander.

Thanks for the feedback everybody. It's helping me to talk about it on here. Today I'm actually doing pretty good so far. It's a very stressful day as I am waiting for some news about my employment but I figure that stress is stress with or without a cigarette.....I may succumb to the siren's call of drink sooner than later today.

If it's how you stem, yes. You need a replacement for the stem, as well as the standard withdrawal.

Do not forget that you stem with the cigarette (holding it, touching it to your mouth, releasing it), and you need some sort of physical replacement for that repetitive action.

I quit cold turkey when I found out I was pregnant; it was very easy for me to quit. My NT husband, who quit a few months after I did, had a lot of problems quitting, and still gets cravings after 5 years.