1. Smoke 3 Consecutive Cigarettes the Evening Before Quitting

This is a trick I often do with current smokers. To understand you are addicted, and to embrace the reality of what a cigarette actually does to you, smoke three cigarettes in a row. The first will satisfy the nicotine withdrawal, a state that smokers are perpetually in, but are often ignorant to. The second, straight after, will clearly reveal what a cigarette is like when the nicotine withdrawal is satisfied.

If that still hasn’t done anything, surely, the third cigarette will.

Doing this reinforces your motivation to quitting cigarettes, as when you inevitably crave another cigarette, your rational mind will remind you how disgusting and nauseous smoking three consecutive cigarettes felt, and it will better help you understand how smoking is bad for your health once you no longer have an addiction to nicotine.

I would do this the night before you intend to quit, as it will give you an extra few hours of being away from nicotine cravings since you are sleeping!

No doubt you will be surrounded by cigarette smokers, and though they may admire your decision to quit, it is a crabs-in-the-bucket situation where despite their support, the very fact they continue to smoke, will be a temptation for you to smoke again whilst going through withdrawal. It is for this reason you need positive reinforcement from people going through the same journey as you. I used two resources — the Smoke Free app, and r/StopSmoking on Reddit.

The Smoke Free App is one I still have on my phone today. Not only will it help you track your cravings, but it will show you how much money you have saved from quitting, progress bars detailing how your body is healing from no longer smoking, and notifications on how many cigarettes you would have usually smoked. I found this app to be a fundamental reason why I quit. Nothing was more empowering then seeing my body regenerate after being without smell and taste for so long.

r/StopSmoking is also useful as very often you will find people who will encourage and inspire you to continue. I wasn’t so much an active poster on the website, but reading the thoughts of others was more than enough to persevere. Being around such a positive community, with people who understand the itches and scratches of this addiction, is a beautiful thing about the internet today.

3. Invest in a Zero-Nicotine Vaporiser

In the first four days, you are combatting the nicotine withdrawal. One reason I believe going cold turkey is extremely difficult for many, is that smokers are combatting both the nicotine and psychological addiction at the same time. There exist genuine physical withdrawal symptoms, alongside having to go against one’s natural schedule of having a cigarette after coffee, after food, on the way to work, etc.

For this reason, I believe investing in a vaporiser with zero-nicotine e-Juice is the way forward. It allows you to maintain the psychological addiction of inhaling and exhaling vapour, and deal with it after the nicotine is out your system, so you can keep the schedule you already have with cigarettes. You can still vape after a cup of coffee, or after food, or incessantly, knowing you are no longer damaging your body to the same capacity.

Of course, there is no nicotine. But it is a healthier way of maintaining the psychological addiction until the nicotine cravings are less prominent.

This way, you can manage intense cravings when around friends that smoke, when nicotine withdrawal sends you a little crazy, without adding more nicotine to your body. It will make things a little easier until you are better equipped to deal with it.

4. Intermittently Fast on Day 1

This might sound like a nightmare to many, but my strategy on overcoming nicotine withdrawal on the first day, was to intermittently fast until the evening. The thinking is that the hunger will be equal to, or even overpower the cigarette cravings, so by the end of the day, you will be looking forward to eating more than a cigarette. You can drink coffee, tea, and water, but don’t eat until the end of the day.

Going through intermittent fasting includes its own benefits. What’s more, is that your body is breaking its usual cycles and habits both by not smoking and not eating, and you will be surprised how easily you can adapt to drastic changes by making the conscious choice to take autonomy and responsibility over your actions. By the end of the day, you have proven to yourself that you have willpower, reinforcing the rest of your non-smoking journey.

You don’t have to necessarily do this, but it’s something that worked wonders for me and my friends.

5. Reward Yourself After Every Milestone

Again, it is all about positive reinforcement. Reward yourself every day you have gone without cigarettes with anything you want — maybe a cheesecake with your coffee in the morning, some clothes, a fancy meal at a restaurant. You deserve it. And with the money you saved, it won’t break the bank as much as smoking a pack of cigarettes used to.

6. Move Past the Four Day Hump

Once you are over the nicotine hump, you may still experience cravings, but you can rest easy knowing you no longer have any nicotine in your system. From here on out, the cravings and withdrawal are purely psychological, meaning you can better handle these difficulties with awareness.

Psychological cravings often occur when in the vicinity or encountering situations where you would usually smoke. Like after an argument, a certain location, seeing a certain friend, etc. But every time you say no to these cravings, you are consciously changing your mind to go against what you usually would have done, thereby gradually developing a new non-smoking version of yourself.

Even when you are past the hump, or it has been a month, be wary of your mind deceiving you into thinking it is now permissible to smoke as you are no longer addicted. Sadly, you are always addicted, and one cigarette will rapidly make you a smoker again.

7. Ease Off the Vaporiser

After a month of quitting smoking, I felt it was time to ditch the vaporiser with zero-nicotine juice. It revealed to me that smoking addiction is a strange thing, that I was fundamentally addicted to the action of breathing and exhaling some form of vapour in certain places and scenarios, and it was giving me absolutely nothing compared to other drugs. This made it easier for me to ditch the final shackles of this addiction.

By doing this, I left the vaporiser at home whenever I could for one week, and gradually adjusted to a life where I no longer smoked, and now, no longer vaped.

This was so much easier than I had thought.

Stopping vaping was nothing compared to the four-day hump. It was surprisingly effortless. It was a liberating and empowering feeling to finally embrace the new non-smoker I had become so quickly (and looking back, so easily).

People may want to ease off the vaporiser at different times and that’s ok. You have to find out when that is yourself.

8. Don’t Get Ahead of Yourself

Following this, you are now a non-smoker and though you may experience cravings occasionally, it is nothing compared to your old life. Your health has drastically improved, your smell is better, you can taste food, and you have never felt more relaxed.

The last bit of advice — don’t get ahead of yourself thinking you have overcome the addiction. Around the three month mark, it is extremely common for smokers to feel deflated with their success, as they no longer care as much as they did in the first few days.

It would be a terrible shame at this point, to cave in. But if you can resist it, you will remain a non-smoker for life.