I quit a few years ago and never looked back, even made a pet app for quitting smoking as I was learning iOS development. Check it out, recently switched from UIKit to SwiftUI: https://apps.apple.com/app/id1459979131
When I was quitting smoking I found 2 things useful:
1) Alan Carr's book, which in essence is designed to convince you that you actually don't enjoy smoking. I completely agree, when I first started it gave me the sensation, then I had to smoke every half an hour just to stay functional.
2) The cigarette prices. There was no way I can sustain smoking when first move to London. A pack of cigarettes was the same as my food budged.
So, I just quit as a chain smoker. It was bad for a week but I kept observing myself and surely Alan Carr was right. I wasn't getting any boost from the nicotine, I was simply getting rid of the cravings for a brief period of time. In a month all the cravings disappears, in less than a year I had no desire to smoke even among people who are smoking. These days the cigarette smoke is simply something I try to avoid when exposed.
This was not my first time to quit but on the previous occasions I had the wrong mental model. I was thinking of it as stopping doing something that I enjoy, like quitting chocolates. In less than a day it would have turned into torture.
Just observe yourself to see if smoking actually gives you any pleasure or does smoking simply make you functional again. Then remember that non-smokers are functional without the cigarettes and their clothes and hands don't smell horrible.
Notice that there's no boost once you get addicted, it's more like removing tight shoes when your smoke break comes. Would you wear tight shoes only to experience the pleasure of removing them?
Everything gets so much better once you quit. You remember that the streets have a scent, the weather has scent. Just take note on yourself and there's no way going back to smoking, it's just a tremendously bad deal.
When I was quitting smoking I found 2 things useful:
1) Alan Carr's book, which in essence is designed to convince you that you actually don't enjoy smoking. I completely agree, when I first started it gave me the sensation, then I had to smoke every half an hour just to stay functional.
2) The cigarette prices. There was no way I can sustain smoking when first move to London. A pack of cigarettes was the same as my food budged.
So, I just quit as a chain smoker. It was bad for a week but I kept observing myself and surely Alan Carr was right. I wasn't getting any boost from the nicotine, I was simply getting rid of the cravings for a brief period of time. In a month all the cravings disappears, in less than a year I had no desire to smoke even among people who are smoking. These days the cigarette smoke is simply something I try to avoid when exposed.
This was not my first time to quit but on the previous occasions I had the wrong mental model. I was thinking of it as stopping doing something that I enjoy, like quitting chocolates. In less than a day it would have turned into torture.
Just observe yourself to see if smoking actually gives you any pleasure or does smoking simply make you functional again. Then remember that non-smokers are functional without the cigarettes and their clothes and hands don't smell horrible.
Notice that there's no boost once you get addicted, it's more like removing tight shoes when your smoke break comes. Would you wear tight shoes only to experience the pleasure of removing them?
Everything gets so much better once you quit. You remember that the streets have a scent, the weather has scent. Just take note on yourself and there's no way going back to smoking, it's just a tremendously bad deal.