I smoked for about 7 years...I quit about 6 months ago.

Here's what I did:

-I smoked a lot at first. Probably about half a pack a day at my peak (I think that's a lot)
-I gradually reduced the # of cigs I smoked until I was literally down to 1 a day that I would have after dinner
-This process of reduction took close to a year in total (I wasn't doing it with quitting in mind, it just sort of happened. Opportunities to smoke became more rare, girlfriends didn't like it, didn't smoke in my house, etc)
-Before I realized it, I was only smoking 1 a day, and at that point I just said "to hell with it" and quit

Honestly, I don't think quitting smoking was that hard. Not compared to quitting hard drugs. I've heard people say that quitting smoking is harder than quitting heroin. Those people don't know what the hell they're talking about.