How I Quit Smoking

Cigarettes were once my constant companion, my trusted ally in the battle against boredom and irritation

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Growing up, I was never around anyone who consumed tobacco products. As a child of the 90's, I was made well aware of the dangers of smoking. I remember reading an article in fourth grade in Scholastic News, detailing the multitude of risks to your health that cigarettes posed. Cancer, emphysema, heart disease, yellow skin, wrinkles...the list seemed to go on forever.

For much of my childhood, I pondered how anyone in their right mind would ever consider starting such a destructive habit. It seemed so blatantly obvious and apparent that this behavior was a road to misery, one that any rational human could certainly avoid.

And then life happened

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I remember the first time I ever had a puff of a cig. It was freshmen year in the back of my older brother's car. He was not a smoker himself, but the girls he was giving a ride to were. They let me have a hit off their Marlboro Red, which I inhaled much longer than is desirable.

I coughed for about 5 minutes, immediately regretting my foray into the world of nicotine. I'm not sure if it's possible to have a pleasant experience the first time you taste tobacco, but mine certainly dissuaded me from trying it again for a long time.

It wasn't until college that I would pick up this self-defeating habit. Actually, it was during a semester-long break that I took away from college when my smoking addiction began. I was seriously depressed, perhaps in my darkest period outside of my senior year of high school.

I had given up marijuana, as it began to make me feel anxious and paranoid, but I still craved the act of smoking. I also started dating someone who was a regular smoker, which made this unfortunate habit all-the-more easy to dive into. All of these things added up to the perfect storm for my smoking addiction to kick off at lightning speed.

The many rationalizations we tell ourselves

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Everyone and their second cousin will consistently remind you of how destructive and pointless it is to smoke cigarettes. Our culture has gone to great lengths to remind us of the dangers of tobacco, yet it still doesn't stop approximately 38 million adults in the US from smoking, according to the CDC.

Each individual has their own personal reason for why they continue to smoke. It's a coping mechanism for stress. It's a convenient way to break up the day. It's the ultimate compliment to drinking, going out, driving, and practically any other activity you want to associate it with.

The rationalizations for why I smoked were plentiful. I became a fan of Bob Dylan, who could be seen smoking during his heyday in the 60's. Even if we tell ourselves we aren't susceptible to the power of suggestion, I'll be the first to admit that I was under the spell of this influence.

It's convenient to glamorize a destructive habit, as it's much easier than facing the reality of what it is doing to our body. Our 'idols' did it, so we believe we're in good company.

Perhaps the rationalization that kept me smoking above all others was the defeatist idea that our world was on the verge of ending, whether through economic or environmental collapse. Researching these topics can be a minefield to trudge through, and it's easy to end up feeling utterly disempowered and hopeless when facing certain realities.

When you become aware of the unsettling parts of our world, it can feed your addiction like none other.

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The 'fuck it' mindset can completely overtake our reality, as we feel like we might as well live like there's no tomorrow since certain factors seem to indicate as such. Why worry about getting cancer or emphysema when we won't get to that stage in our lives? Why focus on self-improvement if we're standing on a powderkeg that could blow at any minute?

Impending apocalypse, whether valid or not, was my kryptonite to quitting. It gave me an easy way to abdicate my personal responsibility. Focusing on the dark parts of our world fed my addiction like nothing else.

And the most insidious part of the whole thing was that I felt justified in smoking, as if the act of lighting up was a sign that I was aware of the impending doom and wasn't afraid of the consequences to my health because...fuck it.

Focusing on the present was my antidote

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After a large amount of introspection and self-reflection, I came to the realization that these ideas about our world were destroying my experience of the present. Focusing on some future reality, especially one largely out of my control was doing nothing other than disempowering me and giving me an excuse to continue my destructive habit.

The future is, to some extent, fictional. In terms of our experience of life, we never actually experience the future. We conceive of it, we plan for it, we dream about it, but it can never actually exist in the present.

Constantly worrying about the future or using it as a justification for our present actions is a copout and a convenient self-deception. The same is true for people stuck in the past, ruminating on events and old experiences as justification for present behaviors.

For me, the most empowering act, the thing that ultimately drove me to change my course of action, was to focus on the present moment, my day-to-day existence. Smoking won't kill you in a day, but it will reduce your ability to breathe, your ability to smell and taste, and will shorten your patience and increase your irritability.

By concentrating on the ways in which smoking was harming me in the present and the ways in which I would immediately feel better if I gave it up, I was able to move beyond my complicated rationalizations and finally head towards a smoke-free existence.

How I quit

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Halloween of 2015 was the last time I would smoke an entire cigarette. I didn't necessarily have the date in mind ahead of time, I just remember waking up the next day after a night of drinking and excessive smoking and feeling awful. A tobacco hangover can often feel much worse than the alcohol-based version, as you feel dirty and disgusting.

Focusing on how I felt, I made the decision to give it up for good. After nine years of constant abuse, I was committed to creating a new reality for myself, one where I didn't segment my day into smoke-sessions. One where I was able to experience pain, frustration, sadness, and anger without resorting to a cigarette to cope.

I had made half-hearted attempts to stop in the past, but this time was different, primarily because I didn't allow myself a single puff off of a cigarette. Past quit attempts involved the 'weening method', where I would allow myself a cig or two a day to transition away from the addiction, which inevitably led to a night out or a rough day at work that would prompt me to go into full-on smoker-mode yet again.

I downloaded an app 'Quit or Die Smoking', which kept track of the time I had gone without cigarettes, the number of cigs I hadn't smoked based on my daily consumption patterns, and the money I had saved as a result. This tool was a form of self-gamification and turned the quitting process into a tangible trial of my will.

The act of not smoking at all created momentum and as the days passed without a single puff, my psychological reserves increased. As the smoke-free streak increased, so did my resolve to stay on the path. Having any tobacco at that point would break the streak, forcing me to start over again. It was this element that I believe really put the nail in the coffin on my time as a smoker.

Everyone's path to quitting will be different. We all have our own reasons for starting and rationalizations for continuing, so I'm not going to simplify anyone else's situation and say this will work for them. But a great place to start is to ask yourself why you started, why you continue to do it, and focus on the present above all else as a motivator to stop.

The 'buzz' you receive from your addiction will pale in comparison to the one you receive from your willpower. And that's a worthy habit to pursue.

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All uncredited pictures from pixabay.com or my personal account

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