I smoked from age 5 (dad owned a grocery store and everybody smoked, easy to sneak cigs!) to age 55, quit on Christmas day 3 years ago and haven't had one since. After 50 years of hard-core smoking I didn't see how I could ever quit; I LIKED to smoke. So, I had to figure out what would make me NOT LIKE it.
I liked full flavor cigarettes, so I switched to Lights, then Ultra Lights. That helped, but not enough. So I doubled my smoking until I could barely stand the thought of lighting one up, because I knew I had to smoke 2 or three one right after another, not just one. I set a date 90 days out (Christmas Day) to quit. I asked everyone to buy me sugar free candies (I found out I was diabetic too) so I got 15 bags of candies (they didn't know my ulterior motive, however!).
Now, I'm weak. I know I'm weak. There's only one thing that will make me stick to something, and that's I'm cheaper than I am weak! So, I committed myself to a purchase - I bought a GPS when they were $600 apiece; with my discount it was $515. That worked out to about $48 a month for 12 months on a 12 month interest-free RS card. We were battling my wife's cancer and couldn't afford a free lunch; she hit the roof when I gave it to her for Christmas that we could never afford it. But, I showed her that if I quit smoking, we'd save $85 a month, making it affordable... "YEAH.. IF you quit.. uh huh.. right.." she scoffed. That's all I needed. NO WAY IN HE.. was I not going to quit! I couldn't wait to stop all the dang smoking that was making me hoarse constantly, and the fruit candies tasted GOOD! I was a nervous wreck for a few days, working my tail off, but didn't smoke. By the end of the week, it was easy. I never had another one and don't want one. I changed a habit that I liked into a habit I hated. I hated Ultra Lights. I hated hacking and coughing. I hated wasting time smoking three cigarettes instead of 1. But most of all I hated the thought of failing and letting my family down, and I didn't.
But, I never 'quit'. When you quit something you leave a void and you are compelled to go back and restart the habit all over again. I changed. I changed myself from a smoker to a new role, a non-smoker. A good friend tipped me to that idea; he said I could never quit; I had to convince myself I wanted to become a non-smoker, to raise myself to a higher level, and that I wasn't a quitter, I was a doer. He was right and sparked me to figure out what I had to do to become just that. You can figure it out for yourself and do it too.
