Hey Mira! Argh, smoking cigarettes!! I smoked for 30+ years (started in my early teens). After my first husband’s suicide and my own near death and all that went on after that, I was up to 4 packs a day for about a year and eventually settled back at 2 packs a day and then down to a solid 1 unless out drinking (which was often), then back up to two. This was all long before vapes and right around the time of patches, lozenges and Chantix (which I never took because of possible side effects and family history). By the time I was in quitting mode I was 100% sick of smoking and man did nicotine have a hold on me.
It took me 2+ years in a quit and relapse cycle to finally be done. One extremely helpful resource I utilized was the now defunct QuitNet, which offered community support, resources and information (much like here). The state I lived in the US also offered free patches for tapering. I lived on QuitNet and took to heart the suggestions of changing routine (to change associations/habits), finding new distractions (I took up running), finding replacements (I used sugar free LifeSavers).
Changing my habits/associations…get up, smoke, coffee, smoke, get in car, smoke…etc was hard and I came to HATE my car as it reeked of cigarettes and held so many smoking associations. It was also all dinged up from my drunk driving, but that is another story. Changing my associations was a big help…switched to tea and the ritual of making it, started journaling, ate earlier, drove a new way to work, etc.
Distraction of running, baking, reading…running was a big one for me, started small with a couch to 5k and I kept at it (still running 15 years later, I will get there eventually…haha runners joke!). That led me to a strength training class, which led to Jazzercise, which I adored. I had always hiked, snowshoed, skied, outdoorsy stuff grew up in mountains…but classes were new and I really loved them (would kill for a Jazz class nearbynow!!). Anyway…incorporating exercise was essential for me.
Sugar free LifeSavers…yes, they literally were!! I gobbled those! They were my go to for craves.
It was a time of many stops and starts (aka relapses). I would go a week or 2, then back at it, or a month, then back at it. I tried the patches, they were helpful for awhile. The nicotine lozenges…they also helped but literally rotted my teeth…so not a solution. But all the time I would relapse back to cigarettes. I was SO OVER MYSELF AND SMOKING and yet stuck in that cycle.
Then, I read Allen Carr’s Easy Way and realized that anxious gnawing feeling that I thought smoking was relieving. That anxious feeling that I thought was part of my make up…um, that was withdrawal from the nicotine…smoking wasn’t easing my anxiety it was causing it. Idk maybe folks know this now but to me, mind blown totally and I grasped all that smoking was giving me…bad health, anxiety, robbing me of time, life, etc. It was a mental shift.
Now I did not magically stop right then, but it was a distinct shift. I realized replacement with lozenges or patches would never work, that I had to starve nicotine out of me (and after 30+ years of it, there is a lot of nicotine in your cells). So I kept at it, quitting over and over til it stuck. Using the tools I had learned. Going straight back to quitting after each slip. NEVER GIVING UP. At the beginning of my last quit I started a low dose of Wellbutrin and took that for about 5 months I think. I suffered thru bad insomnia and constipation, but I do feel it helped me over some hump. That was all almost 15 years ago and I never looked back once the quit stuck. I don’t long for it, when I smell it it is gross and I am grateful I am done with that phase in my life.
However for me, I am a replace one with another and this was truly the beginning of my sober journey as well as I was oblivious and got deeper into drinking and drugs. Now of course I know all about substituting substances or behaviors and I have worked thru/continue to work on underlying reasons and trauma. But it was that quit that led to my healthy and positive life changes / journey to self and healing.
It was so hard and dragged me down so much. The key for me was to never stop quitting. I kept that near and dear always. I bargained and all that…had a friend parcel out cigarettes to me, all that stuff…same with drinking. But it clicked when it clicked. I often think it is the continuing on the path that is most important. Staying alive long enough to fulfill the quit and move forward.
Only my experience tho, I am sure others just stop. My grandmother did. Bless them and their process. Who knows how that felt for them. For me…a slog…but one firmly behind me. It was scary and emotional after…
Literally feeling emotions as an adult that I had always pushed nicotine at. I had literally never had an emotion without nicotine. And I can honestly say it took about a year to feel comfortable having emotions without nicotine and for nicotine to clear my cells. It was a process of meeting my self and what it feels like to live without nicotine in your cells.
Well that was long. 
I am passionate about our ability to change long held habits, ways of being, substance abuse issues, activity level, ways of thinking, opinions…our selves. It is never too late and you are never too old. 
Don’t give up. 
xo
). Anywsy, appreciate this. I am so ready, goinf to read Allan Carrs book soon and give it a go!! Xo.
