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r/stopsmoking • … • u/graylie

Any advice or suggestions for a pregnant woman trying to quit?

I started when I was 13, and I’m now 26; I’ve been a pack-a-day smoker since I was 18 and legal to buy them myself. In the past three or so years I’ve felt the need to quit, had the desire to quit, but finding out about my pregnancy has obviously been the push I needed to take my desire to quit seriously.

I’m still very early along—only a handful of weeks—and I was advised by the WIC office to wean myself down. I’ve taken myself down to two or three a day, and though I don’t have the desire to smoke, I still feel the urge—and if I’m being honest, it terrifies me to think of not smoking at all. I’ve never tried to quit before, I’ve never been without them since I started 13 years ago, and it feels really weird to imagine that this part of myself that has been with me for all these years will suddenly be gone. I tell myself that that part will be replaced with something even better, that I’ll have this child that I’ve wanted my whole life, a beautiful and healthy child to focus my attention on, but then I suddenly find myself reaching for my cigarette pack. The guilt that I feel is incredible, and usually what happens is that I’ll take a couple drags, feel disgusted at myself and terrified of the damage I’m doing to my child, so I put out the cigarette, but 45 minutes later I’m automatically, mechanically reaching for it again. I want to be done with this, but so far, it seems like I’ll never be able to quit.

I have no support on this. My entire family smokes, my live-in boyfriend (the father of my child) smokes, my coworkers smoke, and they all acknowledge that I need to quit but don’t stop lighting up around me. They’re not doing it to be rude or whatever, it’s just a habit for them too, and it really kinda feels like I’ve been thrown out to sea on this—“Find a way to swim, we’ll be sitting over here on the boat when you figure it out.” I bought a pack of 200 suckers off Amazon so I could at least still experience the hand-to-mouth sensation, the feeling of something resting between my fingers, but I’m not much of a sugar/sweets person and I generally feel worse after the sucker because it leaves a sugary coat over my teeth. Besides, it’s so hard for me to feel motivated to reach for the sucker, it feels like a chore but I don’t know what else to do.

So I’m reaching out to you guys. Please, if anyone can give me any tips, motivation, advice, it’d be greatly appreciated. I’m by myself here and I don’t know what to do, where to begin, how to deal with the fear of losing my addiction—I’m open to all suggestions. Thank you in advance.

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