1 Year

It’s been exactly 365 days since I’ve quit smoking, and I had to hunt around for an image of my (former) favorite brand on the Web for quite some time. The one empty package I’d saved to be scanned for the purpose has long been lost somewhere.

I started smoking when I was 16, and pretty much constantly smoked between 20 and 40 unfiltered cigarettes per day. There was one brief interruption, for about 6 months, when I managed to quit and then started again (with the occasional cigarette borrowed from some colleague).

This time, I spent some three weeks thinking about starting again, and then never wasted a thought on it again.

So how did I manage to do it? I believe it was actually because I somehow realized that quitting is, in fact, no big deal. (That, and some food poisoning to spoil a few days of my life where I felt like everything but smoking). And I don’t even feel so much better, or healthier, and run around claiming I’m reborn now — it’s just a lot easier from a logistical point of view to not having to quit meetings for a cigarette break, not having to make sure I have the amount of cigarettes I need for the day with me, not stepping outside into the cold in the middle of winter … Prolonging my life for a few years as a side effect doesn’t hurt, of course.

Don’t think. Just quit. No big deal. That’s the secret, you know.