When you quit smoking, it's not as easy as giving up a vice. You have to become something else. You have to become a non-smoker. Just as the transition of non-smoker to smoker is often a complete life change (the differences being so subtle at first that we do not recognize it as such), so is it from smoker to non-smoker. When you decide you want to quit and you're just in the initial thought processes, you may notice the world around you. Many or all of your friends smoke. Few people you spend time with have made comments, whether good or bad, about your smoking. Most of the places where you go or hang out are smoker-friendly. These aren't coincidences; it's how the smoker world is constructed, just like drugs, alcohol, etc. You surround yourself with people who support or ignore your addiction.

As time goes by in the effort of quitting, it seems like everything in your life is subject to change. You become aware of all the places you can't go or the people you can't hang out with because they all tempt you to smoke. You seem to be tharted on all sides unless you take steps ahead of time. In order to quit smoking and stay a non-smoker, you have to expect most of your lifestyle to change.

I think that this is what trips most people up, aside from the addiction to nicotine. They don't want to upheave their whole lives because they don't see that smoking changed their lives to what they have become. By changing that much, the assumption is that the problem is bigger than it should be. No one wants to do that, and I don't blame them. But to an extent, it needs to be done.

It's the same deal with improving your diet. It can't help but infect your whole life, bleeding into areas you didn't realize were affected and dictated by food. If the reason for improving your diet is to improve your health, it's expected that working toward this goal would cause lifestyle changes.

As I struggle now to quit smoking for at least the fourth or fifth time, I am only now coming to realize what is involved and how hard it is to look at all that and still decide that it's worth going through. We all know how bad smoking is for you, but most side effects do not surface for a long time so that we are lulled into comfort with our environment way before serious physical problems arise. We all know that the short term struggles are nothing compared to the long term gains, but we have a hard time seeing that in any of our struggles, whether it's quitting smoking, college, careers, relationships, etc.

All that aside, I wish that there were something like AA for smokers. There may be an organization like that, but I've never heard of one. Smoking is not treated with nearly the severity that alcoholism is in our society, mostly because, I think, smoking is seen as an addiction that doesn't affect as many people per abuser. For example, a smoker that dies of cancer may be mourned by many but smoking isn't blamed for spouse abuse, car fatalities, or suicide. Smoking is considered a long term problem and is often treated as such. Society spends most of its time focus on smoking to prevent smoking before it starts, while drinking is seen as a healthy rite of passage. I could sure use an AA type program where I can gain the support of other people in my position.

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As this node is read currently, I realize that, according to people how have read it recently, that there is an AA sort of support group for smokers. I also will note here that while I did manage to quit for 6 weeks after moving to PA in the summer of 2002, I am still a full time smoker. Jake and I are moving to Harrisburg in a few months, and I am hoping to try again once we're in a new place. You know, that illusion of a fresh start.

I've heard it said that the most important thing when quitting smoking is wanting to do it. Really wanting to and not doing it for anyone else, but for yourself. I, however, had no desire what-so-ever to quit smoking, yet I did. I loved smoking. It made me cool and popular. It made me feel great and I was often told that my smoking style, the way I inhaled, held the cigarette, put it out, was graceful, elegant and altogether, Hollywood starlet-like. I made smoking look good.

I started smoking late, at 19, in my first year of university. I'd try to quit several times, was sometimes a heavy smoker, sometimes not. At the time that I quit, however, I was inhaling an incredible 25-30 smokes a day. The first cigarette was usually consumed moments after I woke up. This is gross. I couldn't climb more than a flight of stairs without cursing, all my clothes stank permanently and I was starting to look old. And I started to worry about cancer.

One morning after a particularly destructive weekend, I awoke with a lung infection. I ignored it at first, thinking it was just a cough, but as the week progressed, I felt worse and I imagined the Grim Reaper coming to get me. Breathing became difficult. I thought I was going to die and die needlessly from poisoning myself. So I stopped. Cold poultry like.

I didn't want to. I still wish I smoked sometimes and I envy people who are smokers and have quitting to look forward to. I know I can not allow myself an occasional cigarette, because I am an all-or-nothing type of person. If I have one, then I am doomed and the last 8 months will have been in vain. I could not handle the guilt.

So to add to this already long node, I will add three suggestions/hints for quitting. If they helped me, someone who had no desire to quit in the first place, they might help you if you are actively seeking an end to your self-destructive behaviour.

Short Term Distractions

You may or may not notice that the craving that overwhelms you to have a cigarette is not on all the time. It comes and goes. A very self-analytical friend once timed his cravings and found that they lasted on average 1-4 minutes. Point is that if you stop and think about your desire to have a cigarette and you analyze what you are experiencing, you will see that the feeling is a ephemeral one. It's there and then it's not there. You only need to worry about it when it is there. And since it is only there for a few short minutes, you can quell it with some type of creative exercise.

I took to imaging myself having sex with the nearest person to me at that time. You may need to be careful if you decide to do this because sometimes the person closest to you might be someone you would never want to have sex with?or worse someone with whom it is illegal for you to have sex with (ie. Your sister, your dog). At times like these you might opt out to imagine having sex with famous people. Either way, you stop thinking about the cigarette you want to have and start thinking about something more productive.

Of course, you could choose to do something completely different during these short craving episodes, but remember it is best if that is some sort of mental activity that you can travel with. Some people say take up a new hobby, but your new hobby might not be easy to transport or always on hand (i.e. Playing the baritone saxophone, reading the Encyclopedia). You could play word games, I-spy with yourself, rhyming games, I don't know, whatever. You?re all a creative bunch! I just liked thinking of sex with strangers. It was an easy option.

Long Term Endurance Development

This is vital. Take on a sport that challenges your endurance. As your lungs heal and recover from the destruction and torment that you put them through over the years, they will be capable of greater performance. You will notice this improvement within a couple of weeks, and although your first attempts at jogging or team sports will be tragic, stick with it. I took up swimming, a sport I was involved in pre-smoking. On my first attempt I could swim 40 meters before I started wheezing. I am proud to announce that I can swim 1.5 kilometers without taking a break.

Set up semi-unrealistic challenges for yourself and promise yourself a cigarette if you can achieve them. I told myself that I could have a smoke when I swam 2.5 kilometers without a break in under an hour. The thing is if I ever accomplish this feat, the last thing I will want is a death stick. I know this because when I emerge from a mere 1.5 km swim, I enjoy how invincible and strong I feel. I am super, sexy and powerful. I shine. This alone keeps me from smoking. I wouldn't sacrifice that feeling for 5 minutes of inhaling toxins.

Bet on it

Make a substantial bet with a friend that you can quit and tell everyone about it. They will be your watchdogs. It helps if your friend is also attempting to quit. Make it an amount that you can't really afford to lose, but that isn't unrealistic. I bet 100 US $. I could have bet 10 000 US $, but that would have been pointless because it would have been obvious that wasn't payable by either party.

In the first two weeks of quitting I experienced some life dramas that demand increased smoke inhalation. I found out that my boyfriend already had a girlfriend and I fell off a dirt bike, several times, on a 7 day hell journey into the jungle (I was a new rider and my confidence was shot). Several times, I convinced myself that circumstances being what they were, that I deserved to smoke, that I owed it to myself to have a cigarette. Life was being mean, so who cares! I'll quit later. I almost bought a pack at those times, but remembered that that one inhalation was going to cost 100 bucks and people were watching me who knew about the bet. So I started thinking about sex with the guy selling cigarettes.

And I did it. Here I am 8 months later and, although I still miss smoking like mad some days, I know that I am now a non-smoker and will be until the end of my time here, in this place.

I've gotta chime in here and retell the method my older brother used to quit. He was your typical Hicksian two-lighters-a-day smoker. I don't know if he just made this up or got the idea from someone else or what, but it seemed to work. And it sure sounds like it would work.

The Method is: Take a Mason jar/canning jar/mayonaise jar with some tight cap. Clean it if it's dirty. Put in, I dunno, a half-cup/cup of water. Then place an assortment of cigarette butts. Shake. Let it mature for a day or two.

Any time you get the urge to have a cigarette, carefully open the jar and take a wiff.

That urge will be short lived.

As someone who recently quit smoking, and is 100% sure he will never have another cigarette, I must say that quitting smoking really isn't that complicated, once you realize how unimportant your petty desires for a cigarette actually are.

I just plain woke up and quit smoking. It wasn't even that difficult. I just woke up, and the first thought on my mind was "I should quit smoking", and that day was the first day in five years I didn't have a cigarette. How did I do it?

It's really fucking simple, people: Don't smoke. When you want a cigarette, just realize that your body is being defective, lying to you, and that you don't actually want one, and that a part of you will hate yourself, deservedly so, for your inability to practice basic restraint and sacrifice for your own greater good. Realize that you have a higher, more evolved layer of thought going through your mind that caused you to decide to quit smoking, to go against what your body thinks it wants, and if you are truly a strong person, you will not need to do what your most banal desires tell you.

Keep in mind that it is very possible, simply by resisting all desire to smoke, not to smoke. This means that if you do decide to smoke again, it's because you think that you are unable to cope with the unpleasantness of quitting, when clearly it is possible. No matter how you look at it, you're smoking another cigarette because you believe that you are weaker than the cigarettes, not because the cigarettes are stronger than you.

I have my doubts as to the value of certain products and approaches to quitting smoking such as nicotine chewing gum, patches, therapy, etc. Perhaps they are all effective to an extent for some, but all of these make the basic assumption that a person can not quit smoking on their own. They promise to make the person able to quit smoking, to make it easier.

No.

If you think that you as a person can't hack a quit without "help", you probably aren't going to succeed. Thinking you can't is the barrier. Yes, you'll feel shitty. Yes, you'll be irritated. Yes, you may get a headache. Yes, you might have a slight urge to kill other people. But you don't NEED to smoke again. All of these symptoms are irrelevent, temporary, transient. They will go away if you are focused on your higher goal of quitting smoking.

Just fucking do it, and when you succeed, never have another puff again in your entire life.