I quit because I couln’t afford it anymore (that was when they were $1.15 a pack)…plus I couldn’t breathe.
My mother said, when I was a child, that she would give up smoking when a packet cost 5/-. Australia went decimal in 1966 and she died (stroke, which may or may not have been smoking related) in 1998, still puffing madly. I guess the financial imperative just wasn’t great enough for her.
- 5/- = 50cents.
i voted for future health and cost.
i switched to swedish snus, a smokeless oral tobacco product that goes in the upper lip and doesn’t cause you to spit. it’s also cheaper than cigarettes.
Someone stole my favourite pipe, and I never found another one I liked as well. Tapered off over the next two-three years, and finally just quit.
Early 1999 (I was 32yo), I got sick with a cold that turned into a sinus infection that turned into some brutal bronchitis. I woke up in the night coughing and couldn’t stop for a long, long minute. Then I wheezed for about five more minutes. I remember saying to my then-fiance, “I don’t want to die gasping for air like this.” That was it. I was very lucky. The only time I’ve had a serious craving was during the first few months after Hurricane Katrina. I still joke that my post-Katrina PTSD didn’t make me want to drink (I’ve been sober since 1991), but DAMN I wanted a cig.
Just because, I guess. I like new experiences, and not smoking was one I hadn’t tried. It was fun, and just became a habit, the not-smoking thing.
I was 38 when I quit. My doctor told me that my blood pressure was borderline high and that I had to quit smoking and lose weight or she was going to start me on blood pressure meds.
And I was NOT going to go on blood pressure meds at 38.
So, I asked her which one was more important, cuz if I have to quit smoking and diet at the same time I’m gonna kill a muthafucka.
She said smoking, so I quit.
(My blood pressure dropped into the normal range almost immediately after quitting and has stayed there ever since. Which is ironic considering I gained 30 lbs after I quit. I think my doc just didn’t like fat chicks ha.)
I had a few reasons to quit. I never liked smoking around my kids. I was also becoming distressed about the health effects. I was becoming increasingly short of breath, and showing signs of having high blood pressure. Then there was the high financial cost of smoking. I also didn’t like yearning and stretching for that next break at work so I could get my next fix. There was also the fact that the last time I tried to quit was my fourth. I was damned determined there wasn’t going to be a fifth time. I used patches.
Nearly two years and I haven’t smoked since. I have superb lung power, no blood pressure issues, and am steadily losing weight and building muscle. Those last two would have been damn near impossible without quiting. I’ll undoubtedly be more attractive to the opposite sex now too, I’d reckon. 
I didn’t answer the poll as I never smoked, but my SO smoked rollies for 10 years. He was waking up unable to breathe and had had enough of the whole thing. I told him it really frightened me that he might die when we were in our 50s and I might have another 50 years to go, and he quit then and there.
So for him a combination of being generally fed up and doing it for someone else.
I didn’t like being owned by the Tobacco Lords. I also did it to spite Tim Pawlenty.
I quit the day after my teenage son was diagnosed with a genetic heart condition (in no way related to my smoking). The thought of him having to re-orient his life and give up some activities he truly loved due to a heart condition he had no control over made me feel like an idiot to voluntarily risk heart problems by smoking. It’s been almost 6 months and although I have had cravings so far no relapse.
I quit a lot of times, the physical withdrawl from nicotine was usually a breeze. The problem usually came at the 3-4 month point where I had forgotten the bad part of smoking and started only remembering the great parts. First bout of feeling sorry for myself and feeling like I deserved something nice and boom…smoking again. So what got me over the hump was when the place I work at started charging 5 bucks a week more for insurance if you smoked. I was sort of quit at the moment and signed a paper stating that I was a non-smoker. The 2 or 3 times I relapsed after that I was so paranoid about getting caught and losing my job I couldn’t enjoy it. Yes, I could have gone to HR and changed to smoker status and paid the five bucks a week but I’m too stubborn…and cheap. Been clean about three years.
I chose too expensive and other reason. I lost my job after my work related injury repair surgery wasn’t as successful as hoped. While still waiting for the healing to finish, I was unable to get another job and my worker’s comp payments didn’t leave enough extra money to afford cigarettes.
When I quit in 2009, I was living about 15 minutes from an Indian reservation and I bought unboxed generics so I’d get a carton worth of cigarettes for about $15. But, after losing my job, I moved back to MA and had no Indian reservation option. I was horrified to find out how much they really cost and quit cold turkey the same day I moved back.
Other.
In March 1997 I was listening to an episode of Weekend Edition Saturday in which Scott Simon was reporting on the recently disclosed industry coverup and settlement with Liggett. I was so disgusted, I crumpled up the half pack next to me and never gave the tobacco industry another dime.
My wife was about 8 months pregnant with our first child when I quit. She didn’t like me smoking (I never smoked at home or around her, just in my car and on breaks at work). At that time, I got promoted at work and started working in a different office, away from my usual smoke-break partner – in an office where hardly anyone smoked.
Once there wasn’t a guy sitting next to me always ready to go for a smoke, it wasn’t difficult at all. That’s been about 6 months ago, and I haven’t had a single cigarette since – not even when drinking. I wouldn’t beat myself up if I randomly bummed a smoke at a bar or something as a one-time thing, but I’m definitely never becoming a smoker again.