For me quitting tobacco was easy.
I got a nasty cold/flu virus and was in a semi-coma for three days, barely waking up enough the rehydrate and urinate.
After the fever broke I realized I had gone three days without smoking. I also realized that quitting isn't an action but smoking is.
To smoke requires a series of actions: obtaining a cigarette, lighting it, putting it to one's lips and inhaling the smoke.
Quitting, on the other hand, requires nothing. Simply don't do anything.
Every time you put out a cigarette you've already quit. Just don't start again. Once I realized that simple fact. it was easy. I simply didn't smoke cigarettes any more. That was in February 1985.
I didn't suck out and be a crybaby by making a big deal out of it. I still used a pinch of tobacco in my hash doobs. I still sat in the smoking car on the train or smoking sections of restaurants because there were fewer children there. I simply stopped lighting cigarettes.
The desire to light a cigarette 20 minutes after a hash-tobacco joint lasted barely six months. After that, nada.
Very similar to my experience. I was told i am a non-smoker already, i just have to be happy about it and never ever light a cigarette again. Good old Allen Carr's book was gifted by a co-worker, and i stopped when i was halfway through.
It's simple. Smoking is a feedback loop. You smoke, 30 to 60 mins later the craving for another dose begins, you smoke again. Rinse & repeat. It does nothing else, only delay another round of withdrawal. That's the "relaxing" experience. The thing is, only days after quitting you're much more relaxed, more than any cigarette can give you. It became easier and easier to not smoke, and more rewarding. It's a clever mindset. Whenever i tried to quit before, i had "withdrawal symptoms", but the last time it was a ball.
You know i like to be honest, otherwise i'd not feel right, so here's how it continued:
I fell for it again 8-9 months later, by smoking a fatty at a party. Then i had two weeks with one or two joints a day, then i started smoking cigarettes again. Half a year later, i did quit again, this time for real, but only cigarettes. I still smoked weed with tobacco until my wife got pregnant, when i switched to smoke the pure herb. Shortly after, i don't exactly know how long, i switched back to the vaporizer again, because the smoking was too noticeable and the dirt pissed me off a bit.
I kept it this way, but something else happened. I was able to smoke cigarettes (when i was out, or fishing) and be totally aware that it's shitty, but i knew it won't continue the next day. It's about the same as with the alcohol. Sometimes i need to feel shit, just to get to the very bottom, so that there is only one possible way: Up. And then it gets easy.
I wouldn't advise that to anybody, but it works well for me.
My last cigarette was about six years ago (fishing).
My last drink about half a year.
Nicotine "hijacks" the body's system (nicotinic acetylcholine receptors) that signals, among other things, a "reward" via dopamine release.
I never smoked...but two of my children smoke...I guess i could not teach them to stay away.
My oldest one did vapes (to get a sense of being high, and because of curiosity), then he switched to nicotin pouches.
He insists that it helps him concentrate when he's studying, but i think he doesn't tell me the whole truth.
Anyway, at mid teen age, i can't do much about it that wouldn't break our connection, which is quite good, despite the strange neurotypical ideas and interests he's coming up with
The road from boy to man is quite bumpy and full of potholes...
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