I originally started smoking in school, in particular when I got my first job in a video store that sold smokes. That made it really easy for me to access them and it seemed like a pretty cool thing to do at the time. I used to laugh when people wouldn’t think it was awesome, and when they would say, “You’ll be hooked before you know it” I just though “Nah, not me. I’m a sensible kid who can give it up any time he wants”.

Well fast forward ten years and approximately $41,000 later and I was still smoking. By this time I knew I was hooked. I wanted to give up because I couldn’t afford it. But I always seemed to be able to stretch out until payday to buy another pack. And if not I always seemed to find that $2 down the side of couch that gave me enough to buy another pack. So it really didn’t seem that bad. I wanted to give it up because I wanted to get fitter, but at the same time I was completing Olympic distance triathlons or 100km bicycle rides having a few smokes on the way to the event. So it didn’t really seem that bad.

And when I would give them up, even if it had been for a few weeks or not even the whole day, there would always be a reason for me to start again. “There’s a party this weekend it’s stupid for me to quit today, I’ll start Monday” or “College assignments are due in two weeks I’d be a idiot to give up now while I’m under so much stress”. See there was always a reason to quit, but there was always a (what seemed like a better) reason not to quit. That was just me making excuses. The mind is an amazing thing that can play tricks on you. And because of the addiction it was always coming up with a bunch of reasons for me to keep smoking.

Eventually I did quit – cold turkey. I wanted to get fitter and improve my run times since I had been training regularly and I could also do with the extra cash. I honestly can’t say what was that different this time around except for the fact that I honestly didn’t want to do it anymore. So I can’t really give advice on how to quit the habit but I will say that every time those little excuses come up for you, just think to yourself whether they are really your own original thoughts or are they just elaborate ways the addiction is trying to get you to keep smoking.