How I Quit Smoking (So Far)
Part II: My non-linear journey and the tools that have supported me
The day after my 30th birthday I quit smoking. Or at least, that’s what I thought, and intended. I had made the promise to myself after I failed to quit in my early 20s, that I would quit at 30. This age seemed virtuous and it let me off the hook for a good 6 years. As my birthday approached, I remembered what I had told myself and started to meditate on it: it felt right. I was really in denial about smoking for the past few years. I had definitely cut down, and had broken a lot of my old routines like the morning cig, and the walking cig - I really wasn’t smoking during the day or week, which was a win. But as I mentioned in Part I, on the weekends, when I had social plans I was literally counting down the seconds to buy a pack and light up, then would proceed to chain smoke all night catching up on my fix. I also had to get real with myself about the fact that I was putting so much work into my health and well being and that this ‘habit’ really wasn’t feeling aligned. I wanted to keep this promise to my younger self, and for the littlest me who never imagined that I would end up a smoker.
This quit felt different from the jump. Firstly, I smoked enough on my birthday that the thought of smoking repulsed me for a good week, but as the nausea started to dissipate, a feeling of loss started to set in. I began to grieve all of the rituals that had carried me through the past decade: no more sneaky work cigs, no more cig before you enter the party, no more cig when you sit down with a friend for a glass of wine, no more after dinner cig, no more mid-podcasting cig, no more airport cig or first cig when you get out of a long car ride, no more spilling out on the streets in front of a bar with your friends cig. These had all been very important markers to me that were now just gone forever? I realized that I was not only leaving an addiction behind, I was also shedding a version of myself. The upside to this was that I took it as a sign that I was actually done, but nevertheless, it was painful, and lonely.
I didn’t really make a plan for how I would follow through, or what I might need as support aside from downloading the stop smoking app. Everyone says you just have to quit cold turkey, which is true to some degree, but all of the quit narratives seem to focus on the physical and the mental, whereas I was in emotional and spiritual turmoil. I decided to read THE BOOK (aka Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking). This was my third time reading it, but first time making it to the end. Carr really lays down the facts that smoking is not indeed a habit, but a nicotine addiction - Nicotine is the drug for which cigarettes are the packaging - which helps to make the whole thing less chic (why I started in the first place). He also debunks the myth around willpower, and how this leaves the non-smoker feeling deprived, when we should actually view not smoking as a gift and be excited about our decision. One issue I had with Carr’s approach is that I found it to be shame inducing, which I think is counter productive to the goal. He also tells you to keep smoking until you finish the book, and though I hadn’t intended to, it kinda gave me permission to slip up at 22 days smoke free, and then I felt like absolute shit about it because of his tone. Confusing! But, I do reccomend it as anti-smoking propaganda.
Because I didn’t have a plan, a new pattern started where I wouldn’t smoke for 20ish days and then I would indulge in a few socially. I framed these moments as a farewell of sorts at the time, and looking back, I actually do think it was important to have closure in this way. Each time I would see a friend who I had shared many a cigarette with, I would come out as trying to quit, and then have a little smoking funeral with them. I will say that the number of cigarettes that I would smoke came way down at this point, I would have 1-3 as opposed to 8-10. But the problem was, I was still smoking. By this point, I was 2 months into my quit journey, and wanting to achieve 30 days smoke-free, so I enlisted the help of Young Ascension Hypnosis. I wanted some 1:1 support and had always been curious about the process. Andrea Young is trauma informed, pragmatic and a reformed party girl of sorts, which I tend to seek out in a practitioner…I like to work with people who understand the context of my social life and the realities of being an artist within a creative community who is also into health and esoteric stuff. Andrea and I did three two-hour long sessions where we would speak for an hour about my history with smoking, my triggers, and my goals, and then she would guide me through a 45 minute hypno pertaining to my past, present, or future self. My work with Andrea really took things up a notch because a) it was a financial investment that I didn’t want to go to waste, b) I started to uncover and process the reasons that I smoke (social anxiety, wanting to belong, wanting to stand out, trauma, suppressed emotions, communication issues etc.), and c) because Andrea’s work is trauma informed, I was able to start developing some compassion for myself, and all smokers – removing the shame helped me to break the cycle of self-sabotage. One of the strongest visuals from our sessions was when I was being led through a New Year’s eve party where I went through the entire night without smoking. This finally helped me to create a tangible timeline, and the vision was clear that I would be smoke-free in 2023.
Once I established that 2023 would be a no cig year, I smoked here and there for a couple months, but felt more and more detached and less enthused about the whole thing. I smoked my final cigarette on December 27th, and decided to hole up in the country for New Year’s Eve to remove myself from any temptation. I also stopped drinking in January which made things way easier for me because the actions were linked, Carr call’s this the combination cigarette. Once my app hit 30 days I was so proud and excited, it felt like I could finally imagine breaking free for good. Achieving this goal also gave me confidence and trust in myself to get to my next goal of 90 days. Now that I’ve surpassed that, I’m working on a goal of 6 months, and after that will be a year. Breaking things up into segments has felt more manageable and enjoyable as I’m able to reach multiple milestones as opposed to just not smoking into the abyss. It is also incredibly humbling since I have a lifetime to go. I definitely feel like I’m in a zone that I can’t turn back from now, and more assured that I’ll be able to keep up with the momentum, especially since I did and continue to do a lot of processing around the emotional attachments I had to smoking - journaling is key! The other folks who have helped me along the way have been my naturopath, my therapist, my acupuncturist, and my kundalini teacher (shout outs to kriya for addiction and sitali breath). It really does take a village!
The best parts of not smoking so far have been: increased energy, clearer skin, waking up after a night out and not smelling like smoke, better oral health, having less garbage in my purses, and the money I’ve saved, but I have to say, accomplishing what has always seemed like an impossible goal (that I failed at multiple times over) takes the cake, and I can’t wait to support other people in doing the same.