I quit.
It was before the stuff was available to help, and I did it pretty much cold turkey. I'd tried a few dozen times, made it an hour here, a few days there, woke up each morning intending to make today the day. Then one day I had a health care provider (PA) checking me out for something else, and she was one of those thorough people who look over the whole patient when they're in front of her. She said, "I can give you this for the ear infection, but I'm more worried about your cough."
[hack]"What cough?"
"You have an infection in your lungs. I can give you antibiotics to make it go away, but if you keep smoking, it will keep coming back."
And somehow those were the magic words that I needed to hear. Reality was staring me in the face, and I had to admit this was stupid. I decided to quit.
I offer that not as anecdote, but as central to the whole thing. Once I decided to quit, the rest was just details. Once I made that decision, I'd gotten through the hard part.
I tapered off over the next week. I'd light up 3-4 times a day, smoke half a cigarette, throw the rest away. Did that for a few days, tapered down to a few puffs each time. Then no more. I spent a lot of time in places I didn't smoke--bathtub, bed. I brushed my teeth a lot. I ate a bunch of tangerines and drank grapefruit juice, because the idea of puffing up after the citrus was pretty yuck. I drank a lot of water. I took vitamins, especially C to help clean my body out, get rid of the toxins that were triggering the cravings. I took it easy on myself. And when the urge to smoke came, I learned to ride it out. I noticed it was like a wave on a beach. No matter how intense it was, it would peak and then pass. I grew more confident each time I won a small battle.
I noticed that when I was in social situations, I was more tempted to smoke. I still remember a friend coming over to my house, sitting down and taking out a package of my brand and shaking out a smoke. I looked at it wistfully and said conversationally, "I haven't had a cigarette for a week." He didn't say a word, just put it back in the pack, put the pack in his pocket. When I assured him it was okay for him to smoke, he just shook his head. A small kindness that reinforced my resolve. I prioritized what I was doing.
I did things that kept my hands busy, especially in the evenings. That's how you quit, in the end. You just don't light up the next cigarette. You do whatever it takes to not light up the next cigarette.
A few months later, I learned that my father had just died, and I got a cigarette, and lit up. I smoked it. I lit up another, and smoked half of it, looked at it, and asked myself, "What are you doing?" I threw it on the ground and stamped it out, and I was done.
For several years after that, I'd get the odd tingle--"Gee, it would be nice to have a smoke," but it was just a passing fancy, not a serious crave--almost like seeing a familiar face in a crowd. Surprising when it would hit. And then finally, gone.
