5 Ex-Smokers Share The Strategies That Helped Them Quit Smoking

As you know (and as anyone looking to quit smoking will tell you), stopping is considerably more difficult than it seems.

To undo weeks, months and years of habit — as unhealthy as it is — requires serious mental strength and willpower. Even with scary headlines ('smoking a pack a day can cause 150 cancer-risking mutations in your lung cells', for example), people still struggle. Did you know that the average smoker takes up to 30 attempts to kick the habit? It’s unsurprising that some turn to professional guidance.

Quitting smoking has numerous benefits that go far beyond the obvious. By saying no, the 19 per cent of UK men that are still smoking will have improved fitness, better skin and teeth, more confidence in social situations and much higher levels of fertility. According to the NHS, just one year after quitting, even your risk of heart disease will have halved.

If that wasn’t enough, a few Reddit users have turned to the power of the internet to scope out the very best advice when it comes to quitting smoking without having to resort to vaping. Many of the tips, from better mental health to more cash in the wallet, make total sense. Have a read. They might just work for you, too.

1. “I quit cold turkey the next day”

Your close family are the ones who are most likely to recognise the impact smoking is having on you. For one Reddit user, he said “I knew I had to quit. My young son was getting older and was very aware. I kept putting it off because smokers are great at that. Then one day my 2-year-old picked someone's grubby old butt up off the ground, put it in his mouth and said ‘Look Daddy. I'm smoking too’. Heartbreaking.”

(Related: Why starting vaping to quit smoking was a huge mistake)

It didn’t take him long to quit. “I quit cold turkey the next day. So the moral of my story is that having a really great reason to quit smoking that means a lot to you is important.”

2. Re-wire your brain

“You need to rewire your brain to change the way you think about smoking and smokers,” said one Reddit user. “I found it helpful to be critical of smokers every single time I saw one (internally not vocally), reminding myself of coughing, sore throats, phlegm, bad breath, standing outside in the cold and rain, the cost and any other bad associations I could think of.”

(Related: How to reverse the effects of smoking)

For this smoker, the tactic had a two-fold benefit. It distracted the desire to join any smoking circles and quickly associated smoking with negative impacts such as cancer, poor teeth and skin. “Good luck. It's very worthwhile and will improve your quality of life," he said.

3. Don’t be a ‘smoker trying to quit’, be a ‘non-smoker’

Again, this is a mental game. But the post got some incredible feedback from people adopting a similar philosophy when it came to culling the habit. “You need to change your mind-set. You must change from being a smoker who is trying to quit to being a non-smoker. This is fundamental,” said one user.

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“As long as you regard yourself as a smoker, you will spend your time fighting the urge to return to type. If you think of yourself as a non-smoker who smoked for a while, then reverting to type seems a lot less daunting.” To double-down on this, tell the world you’re quitting. A University of Georgia study found that non-smokers-to-be sharing their plans via social media were more successful at quitting and, crucially, staying smoke-free.

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4. Recognising the nasty side effects

Truth hurts, right? For this Reddit user, he was diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer and posted a picture of blood that he had coughed up during a hospital visit. “This shakes me dude. Still on the fence about WHEN to quit but this sure makes me want to stop now,” said one user in response. “This post was actually the push I needed to quit and I was barely even considering it before I saw this post,” said another.

(Related: A new TV ad shows how quickly poisonous chemicals flood the body after smoking)

via Imgur

5. Reach new heights of fitness

Obviously, improving your fitness is a huge mark when it comes to motivating yourself to quit smoking. No more wheezing up the stairs or getting exhausted just walking to work. One Reddit user quit smoking in January to run a 10km race in August, finding a new passion for running and pushing himself to limits that would’ve been impossible if he was still smoking. Further down the line, another user had been sober for 1000 days (almost three years) and was regularly running “22 miles a week plus hiking 15,” he said. “This 57 year old couldn't be doing it without first quitting.”  

(Related: 7 easy strategies that worked for real people)

Two users even ran full marathons less than a year after smoking “Went from a pack plus per day for 25+ years to a smoke and nicotine free marathon finisher yesterday,” said one post. I started training to keep off the smokes. That’s 26.2 miles of determination.