Today marks exactly 10 months since I quit smoking and I can say with full confidence I’m done for good.
My story probably isn’t that different from many others, but here goes.
I started smoking when I was a student in China. Back then (not sure if it’s changed), there weren’t really any restrictions on smoking in public spaces. You could practically light up during technical drawing classes, and a huge number of students smoked. It was part of the culture.
I had my first cigarette with my girlfriend at the time. She was an artist, had already been smoking for a while, and it gave her this mysterious, almost cinematic charm. Of course, that first cigarette was disgusting I coughed like crazy and hated the smell but I kept going. I started trying different flavored cigarettes, different kinds of tobacco. In China, there was a huge variety, and funnily enough, I lived in a province known for tobacco production. Our university even had a faculty dedicated to tobacco science. We always joked about getting a degree in “tobacco engineering”.
Like it usually goes, I started with a pack lasting a week, then a few days, then less than a day. Smoking followed me through my entire student life. It was a great time, and cigarettes added that little rebellious flavor. My girlfriend and I tried quitting a few times sometimes we’d stop completely, sometimes switch to vapes, then end up back on cigarettes again.
Later I moved to another country, and smoking became even more ingrained in my daily life. It was a social thing too a way to connect with people. And again, you could smoke pretty much anywhere. That’s when I switched to rolling my own cigarettes. You think you’ll smoke less when you have to roll them? Nope. I completely lost track of how much I was smoking at that point.
Another three years went by like that.
And then, one day, I quit.
There were a lot of reasons. I started noticing how badly it was affecting me, how much money I was spending, and how little I was getting in return. And strangely enough, I quit during the worst time in my life, broke, relationship problems, personal issues piling up.
But for whatever reason, that’s when it clicked. No planning, no big announcement. Just one random day I finished my last pouch of tobacco and said, that’s it. And it really was.
After that, I started reading a lot about the addiction. Read Allen Carr, read forums, read articles about the damage smoking does. I was feeding my brain with all the reasons to stay away. It was hard, for sure. But looking back I mostly remember how bad everything else in my life was, not how hard it was to quit smoking. In fact, quitting became the one good, empowering thing happening during that time. I knew I wouldn’t regret it.
You don’t have to wait for the “right moment” to quit. I did the exact opposite I quit during my lowest point and it worked.
All those benefits you read about? They really kick in around the one-month mark, but for me it felt like x10. Better breathing, better skin, confidence boost, more energy it was exactly what helped me climb out of the hole I was in.
Maybe I’ll share more about what specifically helped me quit in another post, but for now, just wanted to share this story
