My decision to stop smoking and how I got to it

This is the big blog post that I was looking forward to writing since I started this blog.  I am hoping this may help someone else, or perhaps just spark off an idea to set you onto your own path to do things your own way.

I used to smoke quite heavily, 40 a day for the last two years or so.  I smoked for 22 years.  The daily number of cigarettes had steadily increased over those years and I was worried, and more and more anxious about my health.  I didn't like the fact that I would get a cold and keep the cough for six weeks or longer.  I hated getting breathless and feeling annoyingly unfit.  I wasn't keen on being the only one to leave a restaurant to stand in some doorway for the cigarette that I needed.

I wanted to stop for a while but couldn't see how.  I didn't think I would succeed if I tried before I was ready.  Worse: whenever I had tried to stop in the past I would smoke quite a lot more when I failed and I couldn't get that number back down again.

Even thinking about not feeling able to successfully stop made me more anxious.

I reckon now that all my attempts failed because, when it comes down to it, I hadn't really wanted to stop.  I did enjoy it and I resented other people telling me that I should stop.  But for the last two or maybe two and a half years I got closer and closer to knowing that I definitely wanted to stop and that I now wanted to figure out how I would do so.

When you get ready to think about the practicalities (would I try sugar free lollies to keep my fingers and mouth busy? Chewing gum? Patches?) then it gets easier and easier to consider that you might me successful.  That old obstacle, the fear of failure, doesn't sit quite as tightly on you with its stranglehold.


The day I stopped smoking (the first day that I didn't smoke anymore!) was a day I hadn't known would be the one.  Might be the best way.  I had no idea that I was smoking my last cigarette the night before.  I think that's a good thing: less expectation, less pressure, more likelihood of success.

Any time I had tried to stop before I had felt like I was climbing the walls.  I thought I had to exert a lot of will power to stop myself from giving in to the craving.  And I didn't do well in that.  At all.  The whole thing made me even more anxious.  When I think back I see it as horribly oppressive pressure.  It just makes you feel small and powerless when you feel in the grips of something that's stronger than you.  And all the worry, fear and anxiety just makes it worse.

I had completely overdone it the night before.  I must have smoked about 50 cigarettes if not more (I wouldn't recommend doing that at all), I added another two self-rolled ones when I got home: I'd run out all of a sudden and had to resort to a bit of old, dried up rolling tobacco.  Those two cigarettes were horrible!  Hot smoke hitting the back of your throat, bits of tobacco too, eergh, horrible.

Even though I didn't want to just yet, I went to bed rather than having another one like that.

Woke up next day and didn't feel like another one.  Funnily enough that wasn't the first time this happened: I used to light up first thing on opening my eyes but for the last month or so, some of the time, I had been able to put off the very first one in the day to later.

That Saturday, between dozing and waking, I wondered if this was a good day for stopping.  Discarded the idea: nah, wouldn't happen, and besides: did I really want to?  Couldn't make up my mind.  Fell asleep again.  Woke up, wondered a bit more.  Thought it was worth a go, changed my mind.  Dozed some more.

Then it was mid day and I realised: this was half a day of those horrible, difficult first two days of no longer smoking gone!  A quarter of the hardest time had passed already!  I knew that if I smoked another cigarette that day then it would take me months to get to the same point.  Months of black smoke going into my lungs, months of wanting to but feeling that I wouldn't be able to stop.

I thought it was worth a try - just for the next hour.  No sense in piling on the pressure (I do not do well under pressure!  Put pressure on me and I crumble, guaranteed!).  Just to see how that would be.

So I went and cleaned out the ashtrays.  I didn't have to breathe that in if I could help it.

That hour went okay.


To be continued in part 2.