Originally Posted by
microtonal
I smoked for 15 years before I finally quit cold turkey. Here are a few things I did:
1. I made up my mind to quit (the most important thing).
2. I viewed myself not as a smoker trying to quit but as a someone who does not smoke.
3. Rode the bike, a lot.
4. Viewed smoking as disgusting, hurting my cycling, killing me, creating a tumor in my lung, etc.
5. Split myself into two people, one who smoked and one who didn't. Whenever the one who smoked wanted to have a cigarette, the one who didn't smoke laughed at the one who smoked (the John Cage method).
Good luck to you, I hope you quit. It really is much easier than you think. If you make it one day, you can make it two. If you make two, you can make three, etc. After one week the cravings were almost gone. I could taste, smell and breath again. It was like being reborn.
I wish I could say that after a week my cravings were gone. It probably took me about a year before I came to grips with the fact that I really could not ever see myself smoking again. Maybe it was the result of retaining a mono persona? Nicotine is one .hell of a drug. It also took my body a while to feel like a non smoker too. When I am around other smokers or walk by one I am also not a cig nazi either.