Quitting

For me smoking was always a social thing, smoke breaks were spent with my schoolmates, friends and colleagues. It was a nice ritual to have. Go out, walk to a smoking spot, chat, smoke one, chat, maybe two, head back, get back to work. This aspect made quitting easier, in a way. Once at work i switched from a tightly knit team that was spending every moment of the day together, to a different smaller team where everyone had their own track and there was no such esprit de corps, and no one was smoking. My breaks became much less enjoyable.

I got frustrated with myself hanging onto a habit like that. I quit cold turkey from half a pack a day because i felt like tapering down was just an excuse to continue smoking while still doing "something" about my addiction. I had weird nightmares for a few weeks, that i do not remember that well but i remember that the main theme was the embarrassment of finding myself smoking again.

It was 9 years since my last cigarette and i still think about smoking daily. I understand that mainly it is not the tobacco that i am missing, but the fun that i had and people i had around me.

I grew up in France and started smoking before age 15, and was a heavy smoker (1 pack a day) until I quit when I was 27 after moving to the US. Getting out of an environment where smoking was normalized is what helped me take that step.

Smoking is terrible in that it really messes with your brain, you intellectually know all the reasons why you should quit but it’s so easy to put it off. “I can quit whenever, I just don’t want to”. Until you try and get that gnawing yearning feeling.

It took me a solid year to not feel that way all the time. And another two to not feel that when having a coffee/glass of wine/standing next to someone else smoking.

13 years later I’m completely over it, to the point where I can barely tolerate being in the vicinity of someone smoking. And yet I often have dreams where I light a cigarette.

If you’re thinking of quitting, there is no better way than today. It’s likely going to be hard, but it’s one of the best things you can do to yourself. You already know that of course, but hopefully this helps.

It's three and a half years since my last cigarette, after decades of smoking. Sometimes I cannot tell if I 'backslid' during that time, because I have had SO MANY dreams about smoking, and feeling regret, in the dream, that I weakened.

But as far as I can tell they are just dreams. But this demonstrates how deeply nicotine addiction was burned into my psyche and my life - that it can even blur the distinction between fantasy and reality.

Your last cigarette is the only reason you light up another