Today I’m celebrating two beautiful years since I quit smoking. Unless you also smoked and quit, it’s probably hard to imagine how proud you feel when you count the months and the years since your last cigarette. Personal pride is only one of the many benefits you will attribute to quitting smoking. Among other benefits there are: a healthier lifestyle, a less addicted life, more energy and more interest in sports and outdoor activities, less dread in no-smoking facilities ;)) and the list goes on and on…

I won’t ponder on the benefits of quitting smoking, as I’m sure you know them by now, either because you read about them or your friends who quit told you about them and frantically encouraged you to quit too. I won’t ponder on how I managed it and the withdrawal symptoms as I’ve already specified those in another article. I will, however, write about the leading steps (or feelings) towards quitting smoking and how to achieve it, based on my own personal experience:

Resenting smoking

This is the 1^st step! Judging from my own experience I can say that I would have probably never stopped smoking if I didn’t start hating it. As a smoker, you may come to a stage when you begin feeling you want to quit smoking and you don’t feel happy with your smoking habits. Lighting the cigarette doesn’t give you the enthusiasm it used to. Even more so, you look at it and feel unhappy with the fact that you’re addicted. It starts triggering more discomfort than the usual thrill.

Giving up the habitual smoking breaks

Before you know it, you’re quitting one or a few of the habitual cigarette breaks. Maybe lighting up a cigarette while waiting for the bus is not as appealing as it used to be. Resenting smoking can lead to diminishing on some smoking habits. For example, you go out with your colleagues to smoke a cigarette, but you don’t light one, or you don’t smoke as soon as your gym schedule finished. Or you simply start gradually substituting some of the smoking habits with healthier ones.

Felling bad to smoke near non-smokers

If you are one of the smokers who’re perfectly fine smoking a cigarette whenever, wherever, that’s probably going to stop once you start resenting that you smoke. The feeling that smoking is bad can become so strong that not only do you want to quit, but you also don’t want people around you to ‘suffer’ from your bad habit.

Looking for options to help you quit

You become more interested in research regarding quitting smoking. You are reading more about it and listening more to the people who quit and how they do it. You basically gather research to find out what works for you. You know you want to quit, you’re just afraid of that moment when you’ll be smoking your last cigarette and the days after. You already know by now how addictive they can be.

Trying things out

Maybe you read about patches that work, acupuncture, and electric cigarette… you name it! The truth is, if you are at this stage where you’re testing ways to quit smoking, it means you really got to the point where enough is enough. The only thing between your smoking self and non-smoking self is your own ambition and determination. Maybe one of the options you’ll try will be the one which will break the smoking habit, however for the others it may just be that…

Cold turkey works wonders

It’s the best solution I can think of. Just take it as a contest: who’s the strongest one? Is it you or your pack of cigarettes? Also, think about it: if you cannot quit smoking, how can you expect to achieve anything else in life that is even greater? Load yourself with all the reasons you need to boost your ambition, challenge yourself if you have to! Make it your no 1 priority to quit smoking. If the want to quit smoking becomes very powerful, I’m positive you will succeed! Cold turkey quitting smoking is the handiest solution to the one who is 100% sure he is done with smoking!

There you have it, guys. Maybe you will think: easier said than done. However, now that I look back, I think it was quite easy. The thrill of overpowering something that seems so difficult is priceless. Every non-smoking day is a reason for celebration. When I was a smoker, I had come to hate smoking so much, that I never want to smoke for the rest of my life.

Feeling festive,

Manu

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