I was a pack a day smoker for 36 years and it has been almost two years since I last took nicotine in any form.
The secret to successfully quitting smoking is commitment and personal discipline. Pure and simple.
Every time I had tried to quit in the past and failed, it was because in the back of my mind I never thought of the cigarette I had already smoked earlier as the
Last Cigarette I would ever have.
That cigarette was always the one I was going to light up later on, or the one I would smoke on "The Big Quitting Day" or the one I would allow myself if I was able to hold out for some arbitrary amount of time, or if I just needed to smoke one to keep from choking somebody who richly deserved it. If you think about it you can invent all sorts of reasons to fail.
But all that did was set me up for failure, because even when I was smoking what I intended to be my last one I knew the real quitting battle wouldn't begin until the jones for the next one started. It was like a condemned man waiting for the axe to fall. The physical jones hadn't even started yet and already I was stressed out about it.
So laying in bed one morning I decided that the
Last Cigarette was going to be the one I had smoked last night before I had gone to bed. Of course I didn't think of that one as my last smoke at the time, but I damn sure would see it that way now.
It avoided making that whole big scary line crossing, journey beginning moment of drama, instead I found myself past that and already on my way.
It's difficult to explain. The only analogy I can think of is that it was like suddenly finding myself on the road, already heading to some distant destination, on a trip that I didn't have to pack for, or make any arraignments to go beforehand. Does any of that make sense?
Anyways, that got me through the first few days. That and chewing a lot of sugar free gum. What got me through the first crucial month was stubbornness that was increasingly buttressed by pride.
I resolved to treat the addiction like kids who will badger a parent for something until they give in: "Can we have it?", "Can we have it?", Can we have it?" My answer would always be "NO!" no matter how many times it asked, I would have an entire sack!, a mountain! an unending supply, of "NO, I will not smoke one!".
Because that is how nicotine addiction works. It insidiously wears you down over time by constantly nibbling at you until you give in, and I was just not going to let that happen this time. I will never smoke another cigarette for any reason, be it personal tragedy, natural or man made disaster, pestilence, nothing. Que the Rocky theme music,
I was going to be stubborn.
About three weeks into it a curious thing happened. The longer I went without a cigarette the prouder I felt talking about it. It feels
really good to be able to say "I haven't had a cigarette in three weeks", but it feels MUCH better to say "I haven't had a cigarette in two months!" and it continues to get better. The length of time since the
Last Cigarette has become a source of pride to me. Now every time I get the urge I think to myself how much it would suck to have to go back to saying "It's only been 48 hours since my last cigarette"
and that does the trick.
I've put too much effort into it now to waste it.
Almost two years into it I still get the urge occasionally but it has gotten much easier to tell myself no. I've gotten into the habit of not smoking you see.
So good luck Dowly. Be stubborn. Be strong. Be true to yourself because that is what this is really all about...