I smoked cigarettes for 14 years. For the first 8 years I was a pack a day smoker. To me smoking was partially a social activity – it went hand in hand with friends get togethers, camping, bbq’s, and having a few drinks. I also found it to be a stress reliever. But driving was definitely the time when I smoked the most. During this time, I tried different kinds of cessation products on multiple occasions – patches, gum, lozenges. Some of the products didn’t work because I just didn’t like them ƒ?? like the gum and lozenges. The patch didn’t work because I didn’t use it correctly. I know that the biggest reason that none of these worked is because I wasn’t ready to quit – not because the products weren’t or wouldn’t have been helpful to me. I just enjoyed smoking. About 6 years ago I switched to flavoured Cigarillos for about a year and a half until the tobacco companies were required to stop putting filters in them. These Cigarillos actually helped me cut down the amount that I smoked from a whole pack to a half a pack per day within the first month of switching. I actually didn’t have any regular cigarettes for that whole year and a half that I smoked Cigarillos. I stuck to the half pack a day when I started smoking regular cigarettes again because I had at least changed some of my routine during that year and a half. A year and a half ago I tried e-cigarettes. While it definitely helped to deal with the nicotine part of the habit, the one that I used was not really helpful with the hands-on part of the habit – the holding of a cigarette between my fingers. This part of the habit was oddly comforting – especially during stressful situations. The e-cigarette that I used was far too heavy to hold that way and didn’t feel anything like a cigarette. To be fair I didn’t try any other brands of e-cigarette though. However, when I look honestly at the real reason it didn’t work, I do realize that these were lame excuses to cover the fact that I just didn’t want to quit yet. On February 4, 2013 I decided to give the nicotine patches another shot. I was hoping to start trying to have children soon and this gave me extra motivation to quit but I knew I would need some sort of assistance. Part of me felt I would fail – a lot of people who knew me didn’t actually believe that I would be successful in quitting. I almost set myself up to fail. I didn’t start with Step 1 – I started with Step 2. I even bought the store brand nicotine patches instead of the brand name ones with the notion that they were cheaper so I wouldn’t feel like I wasted so much money when I failed and still had some patches left over. So it was a bit surprising to find that I must have actually been ready to quit and therefore, with the help of the patches I found it relatively easy to actually quit. The patch gave me that bit of nicotine I needed so that I did not have the nicotine cravings. Without that part of the craving, it was easier to change my daily routine to eliminate the act of smoking – my going outside schedule every few hours during the day, smoking after meals, and while driving. Within a couple weeks I had developed new routines that didn’t involve smoking. I wore Step 2 patches for 6 weeks and switched to Step 3 for 2 weeks. The switch to Step 3 wasn’t even noticeable at all. Then while wearing no patches there was maybe once or twice a day that I got a fleeting will to go outside and light one up. But it would only last about 30 seconds and then go away. The Nicotine cravings were a little difficult but I found that with the changed routine, they didn’t affect me like I thought they would. Today I am still successfully quit. My husband still smokes – he didn’t try to quit with me. My friends that I see every weekend still smoke. Of course I still have cravings but they aren’t bad enough to change anything. Honestly I barely notice them anymore. Its definitely a bit difficult when I do something for the first time as a non-smoker, when I used to do that something as a smoker – such as play a round of golf, go on vacation, take a road trip. Next up is camping season, which I expect to give me a tiny challenge but I also expect to conquer that challenge. I succeeded when most people didn’t think I would. And I feel good about myself. The nicotine patch worked perfectly for me when combined with my will to quit, because they helped me change my life in stages rather than trying to quit the nicotine and the routine of smoking all at once. I will admit that no products worked for me when I only had a half-will to quit. I had to be ready. But I’m glad that I used a cessation product that gave me a better chance of being successful.