I can finally with a true heart say that I've quit smoking. Not without its hardships. This is probably my 5th time quitting. It's been a long journey but I feel like I'm finally in a place where I've permanently quit.
I feel like it's storytime because before we get into the tips I've found useful on how to quit, y'all need to know what kind of smoker I was.
I started smoking when I was 17 - my friend Gabi was the one to give me my first stoge. We were at a party and she and the other girls I was with went outside to smoke a cigarette. I tagged along, she offered me one, I took it and then about a week later I went to the gas station and got my very own pack. And that was that. I've smoked ever since. I went through some bad phases too - times when I was smoking a pack a day, sometimes two a day (vyvanse will do that to you). And I really enjoyed it. As as awful as cigarettes are, I feel like I got some benefits out of them. I met so many cool and interesting people over a cigarette outside a bar, I realised I love to just be outside and sit outside whenever I have the opportunity to and I learned that I can just sit somewhere by myself and just be.
I've tried to quit many times. Most were cold turkey. I like to test my willpower so quitting cold turkey always felt like the only way to go for me. I do also think that it's the best way to go about it if you're going to quit because I tried the whole I'm going to smoke a juul and then quit juul after that and what I found out is that it was so much harder to quit smoking my juul than cigarettes. I think the accessibility of being able to smoke anywhere with a juul creates connections in your mind of doing everything while smoking so then breaking so many rituals when you quit takes a toll on your mind. I've even tried electric nicotine-less vapes like Ripple and tobacco-less cigarettes. None of it really helped though and ultimately every time I went back to my Marlboros.
So what was different this time? A bunch of things came together and so it happened. I decided to go on a 70-day sober journey (read about that here) and Nick decided to go on it with me and the more days of me not drinking went by, the less I wanted to smoke. I smoked twice and then realised that I didn't really want to do it anymore.
Tips on quitting
Break the habits: coffee and cigarette, morning cigarette, cigarette after sex, cigarette after food, I get it but that's where
Chew gum: sometimes you just need an oral fixation and being addicted to chewing gum is not as bad as cigarettes (just make sure it's sugar-free!)
Do cardio: doing exercising that'll make your heart pump and your lungs expand, will remind you of how lucky you are to be breathing and having functioning lungs and never want to touch a cigarette especially once after a while you notice your lung capacity improve
Cheeky tip: keep one cigarette somewhere in your home because there will be days when you are going to want a cigarette, it's unfortunately inevitable (my mom used to smoke and she told me she still has dreams of smoking) so by having one at home, you'll have access to one if need be but because there's only one you'll probably question if you really need it and the hope is that you'll remind yourself that you don't need it
Do you have any tips on quitting? Share with us below!
Until next time,
Stay present in the now and quit smoking ~