Hi everyone,
At 43 days, today marks my most successful quit ever. Yes, like so many others, there have been several attempts from which we learn a bit more each time. There are no "failures," only rungs on the ladder of learning.
I'm a 40 year old male who started up the habit 20 years ago. Over time I ramped up to a little over a pack a day. I promised myself long ago that I had to be quit by 40, so here I am.
Everyone has their origin story of how they started, and for me it was important to comb over that to better fine tune my quit attempts. I started without peer pressure. I was a poet and novelist, and enamoured with the silly trappings of being as such given those long dead writers I admired. Youth and folly are frequent companions.
And then I became an academic, with most of my heroes being long dead French thinkers who chained their smokes like trains. Socioeconomically, grew up lower working class, so I suppose I had all the stars aligning to make me another silly statistic.
Today, I am a professor and run a thriving consultancy business on the side.
Fortunately, I am in good health. Even as a smoker, I did strength and weight training 3x a week, martial arts 3x week, and spend my weekends hiking and breaking rocks in search of fossils. I am strongly built and tall, with a diet that is mostly chicken or fish and lots of deep greens + additional proteins (and lots of mixed beans - can't get enough fibre!). But I was lucky, but the thing about luck is that old concept of what is called "gambler's ruin" - eventually if you take too many risks, your luck runs out, and you lose.
In preparing for my quit, I did so for several years in a strategic way. The one thing I did was get hooked on - of all things - menthols. I knew my province was thinking of banning them. It meant that I could not smoke a regular cigarette and feel satisfied. The ban came in January of this year, but I had planned for that by buying a large supply. The supply ran out. I was done.
I did not quit cold turkey. I have in the past and it didn't work for me. Initially, I used patches and vaping. Now I just vape at a very low nicotine amount. I know there are very strong opinions for and against vaping as an alternative. But whatever gets us to quit has to be good. Whether it be cold turkey, patches, lozenges, inhalers, vaping, gum, hypnosis, counselling, prescribed meds - whatever gets the job done. I am all about optimizing and maximizing the chances, and joining a forum such as this is just another bit of ammunition I can use to STAY quit.
In this process, I decided this time around to confront my triggers. Everyone's mileage may vary, but I refused to change certain habits in my life if I was going to make my quit sustainable. I had the coffee in the morning without smoking. I busied myself with writing projects where I would always be smoking, but did not - check. I love beer, so I drank without smoking - check. I hung out with smoker friends without bumming one, nor did I feel tempted (oddly enough) - check. The last hurdle was returning to work and lecturing again. A few weeks in - check.
And so whatever your journey, however short or long, I'll count myself as rooting along with everyone else.
