If you want to never smoke again. This is the way to go.

I tell a story of how I stopped smoking and how I spend two years trying to quit and I did. How I started smoking at 14.

The most interesting part about smoking is that you can quite and you will have the experience of quitting something that is so sticky that can take years to quit.

Why would you quit smoking ever?

I started smoking seriously when I was 14. I’ve tried marijuana and cigarettes when I was 12. At 12 I wasn’t serious about smoking. But I remember when I was 14 I made a decision that I would smoke. I went to my mom and told her that I intend to smoke and I was just trying to be as honest as possible.

I was influenced by other smokers at my school. It was a collective habit. I kind of knew that I don’t have to smoke but I did it anyway thinking that I can quit at any moment. Gosh, I was so wrong.

Now, at 17 I suddenly realized that my smoking habit has made me a slave. I literally felt like a slave. When I didn’t smoke I would think about cigarettes. At night, if I didn’t have a pack I would go to the store ever in winter and even if it was really late.

I didn’t like that at all.

I had no idea how to stop smoking. I didn’t know about habits. I only knew that I want to stop. There are two things that I had been telling myself at the time: “I will stop smoking tomorrow” or “I will stop smoking when I finish this pack.”

There were periods when I didn’t smoke for a week or two. But then I would return to smoking again because I would someone smoking and it triggered my craving.

Once, I set a bet with a smoker friend that the one who will start smoking first will give another person 1000 rubles. 1000 rubles right now is like 15 bucks. It was more than 15 bucks back then.

Can you guess what happened next?

Each of us didn’t smoke for three months. The longest period that I didn’t smoke. But during that time every day, I would think about cigarettes. When I see someone smoking I wanted to smoke too. It was hell. So, I just told my friend “let’s start smoking again, together” so neither of us would lose the bet. He agreed. He is still smoking, by the way.

So, how did I actually stopped smoking?

At 19 I had to go to the Russian army. I knew how I can escape the army and not go there. I had to show that I am nuts. It’s a whole another story.
I got into a psychiatric hospital for three months.

I continued to smoke while I was there until one night. There were others smokers as well. I guess I had accumulated some energy from not doing anything and that helped me. I’m not sure about that though.
But what happened was this. One night I just couldn’t fall asleep and I was thinking deeply. I was immersed in thought. I thought, “Why am I smoking? What is a cigarette? How do I stop?”.

Now, I just understood that cigarettes made me a slave and that cigarettes were a bottleneck for me. They didn’t allow me to do some things. They were blocking my energy and potential. I had to make a decision not to smoke. But not just to smoke. To never smoke. That was really important. I don’t know how do describe that internal process of that decision. It was a very deep thinking and the decision was made on a deep level. The next day, it was 19th December of 2009, I felt freedom. I would see other people smoking and feel freedom. I didn’t have cravings that I had when I made a bet with my friend.

It has been 9 years since I didn’t smoke.

Share this article with your smoker friend. I would like to inspire people to quit smoking.

Related posts:

Lifestyle has a major impact on our health. But not all lifestyle choices are cures or risks. Today, more than ever, we are learning about many lifestyle tips that affect our health. Yet many of them…

I love my father. My life would be easier if I did not love my father, but I do. My father taught me Howard Zinn and activism. My father introduced me to folk music and singing as a form of healing…

Five worthy reads is a regular column on five noteworthy items we’ve discovered while researching trending and timeless topics. This week, we explore the growing need for data security and what it…