How I quit smoking, and how you can too!

Here is a little story that I want to share.

About 3 months ago I quit smoking. Something I thought I would never be able to do. Just the thought of trying to quit scared me. I was fearing the withdrawal symptoms associated with quitting. I was also scared that I would fail and have to start over again. So I had to mentally screw my head on right to make the jump from smoker to non-smoker. It’s a mental addiction and it’s a physical addiction. Your body and mind thinks that it can’t live without it.

3 months ago. June 4th I decided that I had enough of these cancer sticks and motivated myself to quit. I motivated myself by making myself hate cigarettes as well as replacing smoking with vapor cigarettes. (A bit on that later.) How did I make myself hate cigarettes? Just by tricking my mind into hating them. Any time I had an urge to smoke, I said to myself, no, don’t do it. I even put myself in positions where I would always find myself lighting one up, but I didn’t. How? I call this trick the water-boarding method.

The trick. I put myself in situations where I would normally smoke. (Coffee breaks, drinking beer, hanging out with friends who smoked, etc.) Any situation where it made me want to light up one, I forced myself to go through it. In those situations I repeatedly told myself no. No matter how bad the urge was, I trained myself to say no. Based off pure hatred for the cigarettes which I prepared my mind to do.

About 2-3 weeks of water boarding myself, putting myself in smoke friendly situations and coming out a non-smoker, I think I did well. I had lost most of my urges to smoke cigarettes. My lungs felt great, and it was a way better feeling than what I was feeling on days 1 2 and 3. In other words, I kicked the cig habit in 3 weeks. I still had the nicotine from the e-cigs but minus all the additives in cigarettes which are also addictive. I’m not totally off the sticks of hell but I’m further along than most who try and quit but fail… like I’ve failed many times before. (ECIGS YOU’RE NEXT!)

But the secret is to prepare your mind to go for it. You have to convince yourself that you’re stronger than the addiction as well as training your mind to let it go in situations where you’d normally smoke. Do this repeatedly until the craving cease or don’t become a problem. I know smokers have that smokers twitch to get their fix. That’s the hardest part to fight but you can win if you set your mind on right. You have to convince yourself its time to do this and fight for as long and as hard as you can.

Just remind yourself, that you’re bigger than this. That you do do this and remain positive.

Oh and one more thing. Remind others of your success for moral support. The positive feedback you get will make you feel good. And when you feel good, you do good things... 1 step at a time.

If the e-smokes have nicotine this was not a story of valiantly combatting the nefarious tobacco stick by sheer willpower of the mind, it's simply trading up cigarettes for vapour.

Not that this is a bad thing. I did the same too. I enjoy nicotine, (just as much as I enjoy caffeine in my coffee), simply in another form.

And it takes out all the crappy negatives, like stinking like an ashtray... coughing, etc.

But the secret is to prepare your mind to go for it. You have to convince yourself that you’re stronger than the addiction as well as training your mind to let it go in situations where you’d normally smoke.

No offense, but the amount of drama you inject into this story is laughable. At least a dozen people I know made the switch to vapour with absolutely no hardship at all, more like they liked it better after two or three days, just getting used to the harshness of the unburned nicotine.

Good job friend!

I am starting to think about quitting, I did years ago for about 3 months with the help of those pills Chantix? or Champix? something like that. They are really expensive if you don't have medical but still cheaper than buying cigs. I had to stop taking them they really mess up the brain (depression, emotional ups and downs) but they work like a charm

Stay strong and enjoy your lungs!
Here is a picture of Agent 86 for support.

I stopped smoking about 3 months ago and I had no problems with withdrawal symptoms... My trick?

I sustained some brain damage during an accident. My pain level is all messed up now. Since I didn't feel myself smoking cigarettes, I switched for cigars, but then, smoking over 25 a day wasn't doing much either... lol So I quit.

I admit I have no merits and I wouldn't recommend my technique.

reply to post by boncho


I noted that im not totally there yet. 3 months cigarette free.

Huge steps were made. Those steps were getting away from the additive chemicals that are in cigs. Those are just as addictive as nicotine.

Not to mention the habit part of it. most of the time when I smoked cigs, it was just to hold something in my hand or something i'd do while doing a random task. I altered my behavior towards it. That's the biggest change people forget to make which was my big point here.

E-cigs are next.

reply to post by Agent008


That's how I quit too, but they gave me the Chantix for free. Florida has a stop smoking program. I took a gun and shot the tailgate of my husbands truck and ended up in jail while on those pills. If I had hit my intended target, I would be in prison right now. Otherwise, yea those pills do work but the side effects can be deadly.

Originally posted by boncho

No offense, but the amount of drama you inject into this story is laughable.

Its to grab peoples attention. as a writer you should know that.

Quitting cigarettes isn't that hard if you want to. There isn't any physical withdrawals like other substances we can't talk about here. I quit the same time I quit the other substance september 1st 2011.

How I quit smoking: I stopped buying cigarettes.

It's a matter of willpower and nothing else. You can fight "addiction". If you can't, you're just weak.

Suck it up.

if that was true there wouldn't be that many people smoking them... ..I knew one lady that quit and had no withdraw, no problem at all, had no desire for them once she had her last ciggie! another has quit multiple times (cold turkey, hypnosis etc) she can't quit... her sister used hypnosis and quit and never started again, so even related people have a different experience.

I read of 1 way to quit and I am wondering if anyone has tried it... you start 2 to 3 months before actually quitting,but, every time you light a ciggy, you tell yourself you are quitting on that date 2 or 3 months down the road that you picked.....that's it....you are programming your brain to quit, so when you reach that date, it is much easier.

Originally posted by catt3
Quitting cigarettes isn't that hard if you want to. There isn't any physical withdrawals like other substances we can't talk about here. I quit the same time I quit the other substance september 1st 2011.

edit on 9/1/2013 by catt3 because: (no reason given)

reply to post by research100


I don't know what to say to you. Smoking is all mental. There isn't any physical withdrawal symptoms that I observed.

reply to post by ugie1028


good for you Ugie! I hope you are completely successful in your trek to stop smoking!

Congratulations!

I have just quit too. Today is day 6, cold turkey. I know I'm not completely out of the woods yet, but it is very nice. Today was the first day that I even wanted one. The daily stresses showed up and I had a few moments earlier when the urge was there. I tried to call friends and when that did not work I actually went to ATS chat for about 20 minutes and a friendly member talked with me for a bit. It was great, just enough distraction to make it past the urge. Thanks again to him as well!

Good luck on the next step.