Hello!
I put my last cigarette out on August 29, 2025. I really did think I was going to fail on the first day but I didn't. Or the second day. Or the third week. Here I am, five weeks plus later, still nicotine-free.
My reasons for quitting were all of the normal ones:
- After decades of doing it, I physically felt like garbage on a near-daily basis.
- Aside from feeling weak and unhealthy, I was lethargic and tired all the time
- I hated the way I smelled. My car stunk so bad of cigarettes it even bothered me, the guy who was smoking in it.
- I was embarrassed to be a smoker.
- I was tired of spending so much money on cigarettes. They average about $14 to $15 a pack in my area. At a pack and a half a day, I was spending $21 to $22 a day.
My inspiration to quit was... a bit shallow, perhaps, but it worked.
I'm a single, middle-aged man and I've been using dating sites. I hid my smoking status on my profile right from the start. I didn't claim to be a non-smoker, I just left that part blank. Kick the can down the road... give her time to get to know me and then drop that bomb, right? The right girl will understand...
That felt dishonest, but it's what I did. And then I found that I was having trouble bringing it up to women I matched with at all. I'm sure the ones I met in person could tell anyway. That telltale spot on my index and middle fingers were stained yellow on both hands and even though I hadn't smoked for hours before any date, that's a smell that lingers. How do you hide that?
I met a very nice lady and we began chatting. We met up and I told her the truth that first night. I had decided that I wasn't going to try to hide it from my dates from now on. She, surprisingly, told me it was not a deal breaker. And then a funny thing happened to me... I realized that it kind of was a deal breaker for me. I realized that I didn't want to subject any potential partner to the smell, the constant breaks for me to step outside, the coughing, the lethargy, the deteriorating health that is sure to set in soon, the waste of money - all of the crap I'd subjected my ex-wife to for years, stuff I now feel bad about subjecting her to. A week before our second date, I decided to quit. I didn't quit for her, but for the idea of having to go through the entire thing over and over again with the next woman, and the next vs. resigning myself to the idea that I could find a woman who didn't mind it, and possibly even one who smoked herself, which meant I could remain complacent and never stop.
I didn't quit for this nice lady. She was just the trigger.
Our second date was pleasant, but there was no real spark. We agreed not to pursue anything. When I got home, I thought about buying cigarettes. I wasn't upset that there was no future with this lady. We barely knew each other and we're both old enough to just be honest up front rather than dragging it out. It had been a week since I'd quit smoking, though, and maybe, I thought, dating just wasn't for me. Maybe it would be better to just stick to myself for a while and enjoy the things I enjoy, like smoking...
And THAT was when I knew that I had truly quit for myself. Because when I had that thought, I laughed at it. I recognized it for exactly what it was. My addiction was trying to make excuses for me to go back to smoking because smoking is a lot easier than not smoking when you're addicted. But the fact that I recognized what was happening gave me strength NOT to buy them. It showed me that I was serious about quitting.
That was all a month ago, and I'm still breathing free. I suspect I'll be breathing free in a year, too.
I'm sharing because, well, I had a long and very boring day at work, and boredom has been my worst enemy through all of this. I've come closest to giving in when I've had long stretches of boredom. Writing about how and why I quit helps to remind me why I don't want to go back, so I thought I'd introduce myself with my story on here. An hour ago, I wasn't feeling so confident in myself and my ability to stick with this. Right now I feel like I can conquer the world. If anyone is still reading this far, thanks for listening to my story.
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