How I quit smoking

I started smoking cigarettes when I was 16 years old. It wasn’t an unusual thing to do at the time I grew up in the 1970s in the Southern tier of New York state. Both of my parents smoked and so did almost all of their friends. My aunts, uncles and paternal grandparents smoked and all three of my brothers smoked at one point in their lives. This was back in the day when high schools had smoking rooms for teachers and people could smoke in hospital rooms.

Even though I really enjoyed smoking, at some point fairly early on I became embarrassed that I was a smoker. For most of my smoking years I was a closet smoker. I didn’t smoke in public. If I had a hairdresser’s, dentist’s or doctor’s appointment, I would shower just before I went to avoid smelling like smoke. I always used body spray and breath mints to try to cover up the smell.

Over the years, I quit smoking seven times using various methods. I tried hypnosis three different times. It didn’t work. The nicotine patch gave me a terrible rash. The nicotine gum tasted pretty awful. Even so, I discovered that quitting smoking wasn’t the hard part. Sticking with it was the bigger struggle. I’d tell myself I could have just one cigarette and before long I was right back to smoking the same amount as always.

A Fateful Interview

Part of the problem was that I convinced myself that smoking filled so many needs. It was comforting when I was upset. It was the perfect way to celebrate a success. It was a better after dinner ritual than dessert. One of my brother’s friends coined the term “smoky treat,” and that seemed like such an apt description at the time, because that was how I used cigarettes. Just finished cleaning the house? Time to reward myself with a smoky treat.

In hindsight, it was a big mistake to label cigarettes in such a way. Who wants to give up a treat? I certainly didn’t.

But then, 10 years ago, I got a job as a healthcare writer. When you spend your days writing about how to stay healthy, it’s hard to justify smoking. But I still needed a bigger push. It came from a neurologist I interviewed for a story on the similar risk factors for strokes and Alzheimer’s disease.

I was halfway through an interview with Hyannis neurologist James McCarthy, MD when the topic of smoking came up. He stopped and turned to me and said, “You don’t smoke, do you?”

Even though I was embarrassed, I admitted that I did smoke. He made me promise to quit. He suggested that I choose a major holiday or event and plan ahead with the idea that I would quit on that particular day. New Year’s Day seemed too cliché and I tend to get the January blues. I wasn’t ready on my birthday in June either, but I did know that eventually I would keep my promise to Dr. McCarthy.

I eventually chose my wedding anniversary as quit day. For this final attempt, a combination of strategies was what finally worked for me. The first strategy was sparked by the sudden availability and popularity of vaping. I bought a refillable vape pod and some vape juice, and started with the level of nicotine I was smoking at the time. My plan was to keep lowering it until there was none present in the vape.

For me, making the switch from cigarettes to vaping was fairly easy. I actually liked vaping better than I liked smoking. There was no bad smell, no need for body spray or breath mints. You could just puff two or three times without the commitment of a whole cigarette. Plus, it was a lot less expensive.

But the point wasn’t to trade one bad habit for another one, so I kept tapering off on the amount of nicotine.

Help From Various Sources

When I did get down to zero, I faced the next dilemma. Smoking is not just about nicotine addiction. It’s also a calming ritual and an oral habit. Once I was off the nicotine, I had to wean myself from the actual action of smoking.

Two things helped me. First, I joined an online smoking cessation forum that served as a support group. This was especially important for me because all of a sudden I went from being a closet smoker to being a closet quitter. Having an anonymous support group to talk to really helped me quit vaping.

The second thing that really helped me was a book called Allen Carr’s Easy Way for Women to Quit Smoking. The title is a bit misleading, since there was nothing easy about it. But it did offer me some great tools that worked. The first one was to change the way I framed the problem. When you say to yourself or someone else, “I really want a cigarette,” your brain gets that message loud and clear, and of course you want a cigarette.

What the book taught me to say instead was, “I recognize that this is a moment where I would have smoked in the past, but I don’t do that anymore.” It was a very effective affirmation.

Carr wrote about the two monsters of smoking. The “little monster” is the nicotine addiction. That beast is actually pretty easy to kill. Just starve it for five to seven days and it will die. The “big monster” is the belief that smoking offers us pleasure or support and comfort when needed. That is much harder to tackle because it’s psychological, not physical.

To kill the “big monster,” Carr offered the following things to think about:

• “Remember a time when you were a smoker and had a mini-drama or major ones for that matter. No doubt you did light a cigarette, probably several, but can you ever remember thinking, ‘Isn’t life wonderful? I’ve smashed up my lovely car, but who cares? I have this gorgeous cigarette to smoke.’”
• “The only pleasure in smoking is ending the aggravation of the body craving nicotine.” In other words, the only calm it actually offers is the calm of ending the jitteriness of the nicotine withdrawal that occurs when you’re addicted to it and haven’t had a cigarette in a while. A cigarette wouldn’t “calm” a nonsmoker.

I’ve now been nicotine-free for over eight years. The next time I interviewed Dr. McCarthy for another story, I told him that I quit smoking because of him. He was so delighted, he called a colleague into his office to tell him that he was responsible for me quitting cigarettes.

Thank you again, Dr. McCarthy. You gave me just the push I needed to finally succeed on my eighth try.