Cigarettes: Bad! Help?

[MR Bubble]

I'm calling on all the Hookah dudes and dudettes out there who are Ex-cigarette smokers (or those who want to be ex-cigarette smokers). I have decided it is time to quit the cigarettes. How does one quit cigarettes and still enjoy the hookah in the evening? Is it possible? I knew a gal who quit smoking with one bowl of massel each night. Wow, she really was a success. I don't want to let go of massel, but the cigarettes MUST go! I just have a feeling if I don't let the cigarettes go soon, I may be a statistic. Any help and advice is always appreciated. Thank you guys, I know I can count on you.
MR Bubble

[alen]

swedish snuff daytime and hookah in the evening -use to work for me  just tell me when you want a delivery my friend

[Mathazar]

You can go on my daily routine of 10 bowls a day,  that'll for
sure get you off of ciggies.  But,  the only way to
accomplish this grueling task is to smoke some AWESOME 
tobacco. 

PM me with your mailing address and I'll send you some samples of Hookah-Hookah ma'asell and a bag of The Lord Charcoal.

I GUARANTEE you this method will work.  Though,  you may also want to wear a daily nicotine patch,  also 

[King Mo]

one tip, which many use, and I use from time to time when i want to cut down on the ciggies, is to have some sweets (candy)
something chewable for a while, or something like a lollipop (you guys call it a sucker?). You will look like a little girl, but it certainly helps.
A soccer legend named Johan Cruyff was a 40 a day smoker, who had heart trouble and quit, used to have lollipops all the time, and he's pretty cool, so it's not all little girls stuff.
 
you may put on a bit of weight with all the sugar, but having something 'take the place' of the cigarette in your mouth is certainly a good method.

[cypress]

I quit smoking cigs and went to the hookah. I enjoy the hookah so much
better.  I was drinking at the neighbors this week and didn't want
to bring it out. I smoked his cigs and that reminded me why I went to
the hookah.  I have to be flat out buzzing hard to smoke cigs now
and the flavor no where near compares. 

[E.G.]

Tough one... As an M.D. in-training (which adds an infinite amount of guilt whenever I fire up the machine, as you might imagine ) here's the sort of stock advice I'd give to someone looking to kick the cig habbit, uncomplicated by any other tobacco intake i.e. cigars, snuff, or hookah.
First off, it's important to realize that nicotine is very, *very* addictive.  Heroin addicts have been known to have a harder time kicking cigs than horse.  So if it takes you more than one time to kick the habbit, try not to get discouraged.
That being said, let's take a look at the psychological side of things.  Smoking often has a psychological component to it.  So, it's important to consider when you smoke, and why you smoke.  Once that's determined, you can work on modifying your behavior accordingly.  For instance, do you smoke during work breaks?  If so, is there something else you can do instead of light up?  For example, try walking around the building in which you work a few times.
On the psych front, it's also worth taking a look at the times you want to light up and trying avoid those times or modify them.  If you always have a cig in the car on the way home, try singing along to the radio instead.  If you always end up smoking around a certain person or group of people, try telling them you're working on quiting, and not to offer you cigs.
It's also easier for many people to cut down gradually as opposed to going cold turkey. A way to persue this strategy is to get a calendar, and map out your consumption.  Say you smoke a pack a day.  On the first day of your efforts to quit, you allow yourself 20 cigs.  On the next day, you allow yourself 18.  The next is 16, and so on.  Hopefully by day 10, you'll be down to 0. While this strategy is helpfull in minimizing the physical craving for nicotine, it still requiers some personal reflection regarding the psychological reasons why you choose to smoke, and decisions/strategies to minimize those reasons.
As King Mo suggested, there is a sort of physical comfort associated with the handling of a cig and the oral satisfaction derived from smoking.  As such, sweets, carrot sticks, or other edible treats are a common strategy used to defeat the oral craving of a cig.  Just be careful you don't go the route my Dad did and substitute Oreos for Pall Malls -- the weight gain probably didn't help much!  (BTW, you may very well notice some weight gain. Cigs do decrease your appetite and increase your metabolism (certainly the first, and I'm pretty sure on the second pint), so don't be surprised if you add a few pounds regardless of what you do -- nothing a little extra time working out can't take care of, though!)
Finally, the physical front; as I mentioned before, nicotine is very addictive.  There are meds that can help defeat the craving.  No dobt you've heard of nicotine patches (FWIW, they work much better when stuck to the skin rather than rolled up and smoked ).  Insurance companies are beginning to realize that getting patients to quite smoking is in their interest, so some are beginning to cover the cost of patches or Wellbutrin 'scripts.  Your doc will have more information and knowledge about these avenues than I feel comfortable providing. 
This represtents the general startegies your doc is likely to present to you during a smoking cessation appointment.  It's a bit difficult to offer more specific and helpfull advice without a true dialog, but hopefully this'll be a start.  And I do read the boards nightly, so feel free to ask questions!
FWIW, quiting smoking is considered such a benefit to your health that most primary care physicinas will schedule an appointment with you for that reason alone, so if you're serious about dropping cigs it's probably very much worthwhile making the effort to see your doc.  S/he probably will give you sh*t about hitting the hookah  but dropping cigs is still a good move.
Best wishes,E.G.

[Ghaleon]

Mr. Bubble,
I quit smoking earlier this year and my hookah was a great
help.  I actually started with two a day, then went to one a day,
then one every other day, and so on.  Once you've made it for
three days the dependency is out of your system.
Don't get me wrong though, quitting cigarrettes is hard as
hell no matter what approach you take and the health risks of the
hookah, though probably less than cigarrettes, is not negligable. 

  Be sure to start with a plan, and to have some rough
dates set.  It still takes a lot of discipline to break the hookah
dependency, but you can do it.  And when you do, that occasional
hookah tastes soooo good. 
  I'd also recomend that before you start smoking a
bowl every evening, you take a week or two off of the hookah as well...
just to prove to yourself that your off of the dependency.
  So let me wish you the best of luck.  There's
really not a whole lot you can predict about the challenges of quitting
smoking. I can promise that it will be hard and that you will find that
there is nothing mroe annoying than people who have never been addicted
to cigarrettes trying to tell you how to quit.  Alot of people
have made it though.  Good luck.  And please keep us posted.
-Ghaleon

[Jon12]

I usually find comfort from having a pen in my mouth at work since I
smoke a few cigars a week or the hookah. My friend used a lot of gum
when he quite a few months ago. Good luck man, you can do it!

[MR Bubble]

Thanks a lot all you guys. Mo, thank you. I did the licorice stick thing before with good results and got my fair ration of crap from people but that doesn't bother me. I found that your bast friends will give you crap, but would hate to see you give up on it. I had quit a few years back (for a month) prior to back surgery. I remember I put the cigs down on a long weekend after pumping my body with Wellbutrin for a week. I had nightmares all weekend. I was napping about 12 times a day! I would see things in shades of yellow and was very light-sensitive. Why did I start back up? The pain was so great after surgery they gave me percocet. I had Demoral in the hospital and that was useless (the worst 3 days of my life) and when I got home I popped 2 percocets and "bam!" Felt like I went through a 6-pack in 10 minutes. Cigarette time! So, here we go again. I'll keep ypu all posted. Thanks E.G. I'll be in touch. Will probably be another week as I need to get rid of the beer here and don't drink on work-nights.
Cheers, MR Bubble

[supachink]

I just started setting rules for myself, like no smoking when im not at home, i dont even take a pack of ciggerattes out with me, but occasinally ill bum one off of a friend after class... The other thing that helps is hte snow, i dont like cold weather and having to smoke outside now discourages me from smoking at all... Ive tried the gum and lolipops thing, and that led to me having an oral fixation with straws and toothpicks, to the point that i chew them for hours, not so great but better than smoking... all i can say is stick to your plan and you should do pretty well, i cut down from a pack a day to about 4 a day. Good Luck