I did roughly the same thing about 5 years back after 30 a day for 40 years.

I had tried cutting down in many ways - fix the max number per day etc. But you always end up staring at the closed packet.
I also tried vaping some of the time as an alternative, worked quite well.

One morning I woke up and decided to just not buy any more, that worked fine.
I do vape and I smoke a cigar down the pub about once a week.

My doctor tells me that doesn't count as smoking.
I did get an enhanced pension though.

So my experience is not buying cigarettes (f a g s in English) is much the best way to stop smoking