One year, five months free here…
I’d say reading the aforementioned Allen Carr book would be your number one priority. It makes a huge difference to understand exactly why you want to light up, for there are psychological aspects of nicotine addiction which aren’t as obvious as might be generally thought, and Allen explains them very well.
The clincher for me was his patient explanation that when I am ‘desperate’ for a smoke, all I am actually desperate for is getting back to the same basic level of contentment that a non-smoker has all the damn time! Think about that for a minute. The insight was something of a revelation to me, and I properly saw for the first time what a titanic and evil con smoking is.
Quitting and staying quit… the thing that got me to quit was illness - a number of miserable weeks confined to bed with the very grandfather of all coughs. Endless nights (for the cough won’t let you sleep until you’re a long way beyond mere exhaustion) of wondering if you’ve got cancer or emphysema, and praying to a god you don’t believe in that you’ll somehow be OK… well, it’s not my idea of fun. I can’t really do justice to the misery and depression of it. It was a small glimpse into the abyss of how utterly awful having a terminal illness must be, and it had a profound effect. At least I had a good chance of recovery, and when I finally did recover I resolved not to waste my second chance and so I threw all my tobacco, papers, ashtrays, lighters, etc in the nearest bin and have never looked back.
Staying quit wasn’t too hard, but I couldn’t have done it if I hadn’t taken up playing acoustic guitar. I’m a natural fidget, always have been, and my hands have to have something to do at all times. In spite of having no musical training whatsover, the guitar (and some practice books and videos etc) was a perfect choice, and I’ve come to regard it as the second best I ever made, stopping smoking being the first. I practice about an hour a day and have even joined in the weekly Irish folk sessions at my local pub which is a lot more fun than it sounds!
So my second bit of advice is to pick a skill you’d like to acquire, one that involves using your hands a lot, and go for it.
Unless you’re extraordinarily lucky there will be ugly periods of emotional stress where you’ll have to get by on will-power alone - rows with your partner, deaths among family or friends, and so on. All I can say is just grit your teeth and live through it. Later on you can look back and say to yourself “Well if I got through that without a smoke, I must be bloody invincible!” and it’ll be a vital boost to your self-confidence.
Lastly, it’s not necessarily the case that you’ll continue to crave cigarettes years down the line. Just a few months ago, I was walking to work while reflecting on the argument I’d had with my girlfriend the night before. Suddenly I realised that not once throughout the whole emotional, painful experience, did I so much as think of wanting a cigarette. That glorious moment was when I knew I was free.
