How I managed to stop smoking and stuck with it

This is part 2 of my 'how I stopped smoking' post.

I woke up one morning, my throat felt like a fuzzy chimney and I really, really did not feel like a cigarette (the run-up to that is in part 1).

After thinking about it for half the day of dozing, I did decide that I was going to see how the next hour would go without smoking.

It went okay.

I cleaned out all the ashtrays, I found things to do to take my mind off it - and after that hour I decided that I wanted to do this 'not smoking thing' for another hour.  Again, no pressure, and just to see how it would go.

That went okay too.

By then I felt emboldened!  Maybe I could go the rest of the day and not smoke, and actually make it the first day of being a non-smoker?  Wouldn't that be something?

It was quite exciting, actually.

I went through the day after, a Sunday, halfway expecting for that excitement and resolve to melt away and vanish into nothingness, - or give way to overwhelming craving that I wouldn't be able to stand up to.

I always thought that you would have to muster a heck of a lot of will power and really fight against the craving - to get to be a non-smoker.  I have never done well when my hopes and ambitions go up against pressure and expectation.

I figured out that you can deal with a craving a different way:  wait it out.

It may sound a bit silly, but I found out that the passive way worked much better for me.  So much better that I did stop smoking that day and for the last six years (hah, and a bit!) I have not smoked.  Not even one puff.  How good is that?

And I think that my success is down to how I did it.

The waiting out thing worked for me like this:  the craving would come and I'd be afraid that it would build and build and build, as in get stronger, with me climbing the walls (I could literally picture myself spider-like stuck to the wall near its ceiling) and that I would then have to give in and light up.  To make the horrid pressure go away and stop the craving.

Well, I wasn't using will power, I wasn't fighting this.  Instead I let the craving wash over me like a wave and I waited to see what would happen.  Funny thing is: the craving did not get stronger, in fact it wouldn't even last very long.  Maybe two minutes at the most?  But I think most of the time it wasn't nearly as long as that.  More like half a minute, some times even just 20 seconds, at other times closer to a minute.

But I found it really doable to just wait until it passed.

You can do a minute or two at a time of feeling crap and horrible and feeling like you want to give up.  My nicotine cravings didn't stick around for very long, they never got stronger than when the craving first hit.

Over the years I've had a pretty bad attack of the craving maybe up to ten times.  I almost faltered at about four of those occasions.  I am a bit surprised that I didn't.

The other thing I did was research on the Internet: I found out what happens with your body 20 minutes after your last cigarette (the nicotine level in your blood goes back to normal), and what happens after so and so many hours and days, weeks and months, etc.

It was nice to check my progress against that sort of timeline.  I also found some quite supportive stuff that built my morale.

The biggest help was imagining the face of my father once he realised that I'd stopped!  My inner eye produced quite a picture!  That got me past many sticky moments.  I also marked each day with a big red letter in a paper diary.  Particularly up to Day 20 when I knew I would meet up with my Dad.

It was the funniest thing ever: he noticed immediately that I no longer stank of smoke but didn't dare ask me straight away if I could have possibly given up.  In fact he left it almost two hours and by then it had become very apparent that I hadn't lit up and wasn't going to any time soon.  And I wasn't going to tell him because I wanted his surprised reaction!  It was wonderful to get his very hesitant question if it was at all possible that I might have, possibly, at all, uh... given up? And to be able to answer: Yes! I have!

That was so good.

The other things I did was to go for a walk around the block: before I would have taken a quick cigarette break in the morning, and also during the afternoon.  I was worried that I would miss those breaks away from my desk so much that I might be tempted to pick up smoking again.  So I checked with the people at work to make sure it was okay to disappear for five minutes for my breather - in support of this whole 'giving up smoking' business!  They were happy to.

It was brilliant to walk round and be able to smell stuff that I hadn't noticed for years: the scent from a flower pot, someone's perfume, even the acrid smell of petrol from somewhere were all reason for celebration and joy!

I also kept a diary that I wrote in almost every day.  Just to put on paper how I was feeling, what I was experiencing, how it was going.  Sort of chart my progress and how things felt.  I also included my findings from the Internet: if something I'd found helped, if it sparked off any ideas or insights.  It felt like I was getting support from this, getting rid of some of the tension: by sticking it all down on paper.

These are the sorts of things that helped me.  It was a huge relief to find that the craving would remain at that intensity instead of getting worse, and would diminish relatively soon.  I found my walks a welcome interruption from work, and the anticipation to tell people once I felt successful enough to tell them: that was wonderful as well!

I reckon most of the things I did were setting myself up for success.  I managed to avoid the things that had often served to set things up for failure.  I don't handle pressure and expectation well, letting the craving pass by waiting it out worked so much better.

I hope this helps someone else.  You may find that there are other things that are useful to you but perhaps what I said sparks off something beneficial.

And I must say: I really enjoy being a non-smoker.  The money I save, the time I have available, the absence of the cigarette smell in clothes, hair and my home, the relief that I am no longer endangering my health but getting better every day - it is all good.  And I am so very glad that I didn't smoke that next cigarette on the day that became my first day as a non-smoker.  I would have gotten there but it would have taken so much longer.

Good luck to you! Take heart.

It is difficult but simpler than you think.  It is not as easy but also not as harrowing as we expect.