I'm rooting for those trying to quit too!
I smoked from age 13-31 - crazy, eh? Had made a couple of half-hearted attempts to quit cold turkey, but never lasted long. Then I decided to try weaning down. Very.Slowly. First went from 1 pack a day to half a pack, which just meant I couldn't smoke two cigarettes in a row, and had to space them out a bit. That wasn't too onerous, and didn't take much adjustment. Although I did quickly notice that I had more money in my wallet at the end of the week than I was used to. A month or so later I took it down further - 6, I think? Which was much more of a stretch but still allowed me to smoke at my "usual" times. I was never an early morning smoker, but had gotten into the habit of a smoke before starting work - I had to cut out that one, plus my after work and post commute home smokes. So it became: mid-morning break, lunch, afternoon break, then 3 left to get me through the evening. After several weeks I dropped the morning break, then the afternoon break, and eventually got down to 2 smokes a day, both in the evening. Late evening was my weakest time, so I reserved those 2 smokes for then. Occasionally if out with friends and drinking I would allow myself 1 extra to have a smoke while with them. And then I stayed there for literally months before feeling ready to stop for good and never go back. Because I know (even now) that if I would have one drag on a cigarette, it would not take long for me to be back to smoking full time. I had to not need it at all anymore before I could quit totally. It's been 10 years and although I've had cravings, they are very manageable because I broke my triggers off one by one.
Bottom line, I am a big fan of weaning off rather than cold turkey. It worked for my psychology, where denial triggers rebelliousness, but "just holding out a little longer" is easy. And carolinakaren's boyfriend's strategy of tallying up savings to date is also very helpful to reinforce the forward momentum! When I hit my one year anniversary of quitting, I went out and bought myself a treat - jewellery! Except instead of buying actual jewellery, I bought good quality supplies - real gold chain and findings and some nice carnelian - to make myself a set of earrings and bracelets. Lovely!
