r/stopsmoking • u/Ancient_ModernPeople • 16h ago

Helping my father in law quit smoking

My father in law is 68 years old and is a heavy cigarette smoker. We are encouraging him to cut down and eventually quit, but it’s not easy for him.

My mother in law is constantly after him, yelling, nagging, and telling him that he disgusts her. Unfortunately my husband and I feel this just makes it worse.

We’re thinking to try to introduce him to snus. He has tried nicotine gum, but it’s not very effective.

Does anyone have any suggestions about how we can help him or what he can transition to that may be less harmful than cigarettes?

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u/BaldingOldGuy 1837 days 15h ago

Whenever anyone told me I have to quit it would give me a huge anxiety attack. Do you want to guess how nicotine addicts deal with anxiety? We suck on another cancer stick. By now I'm sure your FIL knows he needs to quit but the yelling and shaming has the opposite effect to what you want. I'm about his age and started as a teen like he probably did. Something you need to understand is he never had any adult experience without addiction. Nicotine is his only coping mechanism. You could suggest he gets on this community for support. I started with an app on my phone called smoking log just to track my addiction where when and why every smoke. I could really see the cost and time wasted add up. NRT never worked for me so in the end after cutting down to half I just quit.

Good luck to all of you

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u/Ancient_ModernPeople 15h ago

Yeah, we felt the same and telling my MIL that actually yelling and shaming him is just going to stress him out and make him want to smoke even more.

My MIL has a very strong personality and honestly I think she is one of the main reasons he had to find a coping mechanism to deal with her 😣

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u/Strong_Man_of_Syria 12h ago

Every time someone would tell me to quit I would get anxious and smoke more, sometimes it would piss me off and I would respond by immediately smoking. If your FAL wants to quit it has to be his choice and his choice alone. You can support him through it but it has to be his choice (when i quit i did not want to tell anyone) and wanted to do it on my own. For me I didn't want to tell anyone cause I was scared that if I failed i would disappoint others and be a failure. In terms of NRT it never worked for me. I would always have trouble stopping the NRT treatment and would just revert back to smoking. I know NRT works for some people but I am a strong believer in the Cold turkey willpower method. I really do believe quitting is that simple yet its still that hard to quit.

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u/Ancient_ModernPeople 8h ago

Thank you for sharing your experience, it helps me to also understand better how to support him and where not to push.