The first time I smoked was at a 311 concert when I was 14. I remember smoking a cigar, feeling nauseous, and being paranoid that my friend's mother would smell it on us during the drive home. At the same time, there was a kind of allure in "getting away with it". Over the next few years I smoked a handful of cigars, but I did not do it often enough to consider it a habit.
I started smoking cigarettes at 17, the summer before college. Once I went away to college, I had nothing stopping me from smoking at all hours of the day. Over the course of the next four years I worked my way up to smoking two packs a day. I had to have a cigarette within 15 minutes of waking up each morning and would smoke at any chance I got, right up until the moment I went to sleep.
I got fed up with the consequences of my cigarette addiction, and I smoked my last cigarette four days after my 22nd birthday. I am now 26 and haven't smoked since.
Negative Consequences:
The first time I thought about stopping was at 19, three years before I finally did. There was a long succession of negative consequences that gave me the willingness to go through with it:
I couldn't take deep breaths without feeling a tickle in my throat
I would wake up coughing up tar that settled in my lungs while I slept.
I had to stop exercising. I couldn't breath well enough to do cardio. I always had an emphasis on fitness, and this was a huge blow. By 21, I was 210 lbs (approx. 30 lbs. overweight) and couldn't walk up two flights of stairs without being winded and a bit sweaty.
Obviously, the smoking was causing untold damage to my internal organs, contributing to potential future cancers, emphysema, and heart disease. (but to be honest, the superficial side effects of being overweight were more of a driving factor in my choice to stop)
Near the end, I had a palpable sense of self-loathing because I knew that I should stop, but I thought I would be unable to do so.
Triggers:
Smoking had become so ingrained into every aspect of my day that it is extremely difficult to list an all-inclusive set of triggers. I smoked when when it was sunny. I smoked when it rained. I smoked when it was warm out. I smoked when it was cold. However, I felt the strongest cravings:
When I woke up
After meals
While driving
At convenience store checkout counters
When my friends would smoke
Warning Signs:
Once I had the urge to smoke, it became a fixated idea. I would get thoughts like: "You're going to smoke eventually anyways so why do this to yourself? Do it, do it now. You need to. It will relax you. It is only going to get more uncomfortable the longer you try to stop." I put these statements in quotes because the thoughts were in the sound of my own voice, with a sense of urgency that is difficult to describe in text.
I would feel anxious and squeamish. There was a unmistakable nervous energy when the cigarette was calling me.
I would also smoke to suppress negative emotions. I turned to cigarettes when I was nervous, angry, sad, hurt, lonely, or bored.
Putting the patch on before I went to bed at night so the nicotine was already in my system when I woke up in the morning, and I wouldn't have that initial physical craving.
Using the patch as instructed. Weening off slowly (approx. 2 months). This took care of the physical dependency.
For the first week or two, I used the nicotine gum in addition to the patch only in cases where it was that or a cigarette. I do not recommend this strategy for everyone (especially anyone who is older or has a heart condition), as it is explicitly warned against on the box. It can cause undue stress on the heart. But I was 22, felt that my body could handle it, and thought that a life of smoking would be far more detrimental. This took care of the compulsive aspect of my habit.
To relax, I tried holding a pen like a cigarette at times, faking the physical act of smoking (bringing my hand to my mouth and slowly inhaling) to mimic the deep breathing.
Finally, a friend turned me on to tea tree oil toothpicks from Australia. They are minty/hot toothpicks that are supposed to help people stop smoking, and they worked as a great substitute for my oral fixation
By 3-4 months after I quit, the toothpicks were gone, and I was habit and compulsion free. I have been ever since.
NüHabits:
I held pens like cigarettes, I used toothpicks for a while, I tended to avoid the smoking sections in restaurants (no longer an issue in NJ), I prayed, I called friends, I breathed slowly and deeply, I avoided looking at the wall of cigarettes behind the counter at convenience stores (very early on).
More generally, I took up a healthy lifestyle & exercised.
NüLife:
I remember the first time I realized that my sense of smell came back. I was driving down the highway, and I was shocked. I could smell things from outside the car. The only time I could do this during the years prior was when I was caught behind a smoggy vehicle or driving past a skunk, bonfire, or sewage plant. It was like I had discovered some hidden superpower that I had possessed all along. Immediately upon quitting cigarettes, I took up a healthy and active lifestyle. I made exercise a priority and watched what I ate. As a result I dropped from 210 to 173 lbs. within three months. The notion that you will definitely gain weight if you quit smoking is untrue.
Sometimes I forget what it was like when I was smoking. But as for life today, I am certain that I don't wake up and need to cough in the shower, I don't smell like an ashtray, I don't get sweaty when walking up a flight of stairs, and I'm saving hundreds of dollars each month.
