Coughing, hacking, and gagging, yet you still light up your cigarette. Each time you do, you think about quitting. But how do you quit without expensive aids? It's easy to want to quit, but to do it on your own almost seems suicidal.

I was nine years old when I started smoking. I was cool and neat at least everyone thought I was. I used to drag my lawn mower around my neighborhood and mow their lawns with a cigarette in my mouth. That was how I managed my addiction. Back then, you did not have to by eighteen in order to buy tobacco products. As long as you had money, you had cigarettes.

By the time I was fourteen, I was smoking two packs a day and continued to until I was twenty-five. When the stores finally stopped selling them to me, thanks to my mother, the bar would.

When I was twenty-five and I quit smoking without expensive aids: I realized it wasn't cool or neat. How did I quit? There is no true simple answer. A lot of will power, for starters. I drank warm soda to scratch the inside of my throat when I had an urge to smoke: this seemed to help me, but not my brother. I began smoking a weaker cigarette until I was used to it, then a weaker one once more, until I could not find a weaker cigarette available. Look on your pack. How much tar and nicotine is listed? Get a weaker type.

Why? If you get used to a lesser amount of nicotine it will be easier to break your habit. According to www.lungusa.org, 45.7 million people have already quit smoking, and many of them failed before they quit.

Do not get me wrong. Nicotine is extremely hard to break. It is as addictive as heroin or cocaine. Many ex-heroin users have stated that nicotine was harder to break than heroin. Be patient, your goals will be reached.

A second thing I did was stop all activities associated with smoking. When I went out to eat I sat in a non-smoking area, I stopped smoking in my car, and I avoided my smoking friends. I told them why and they understood and supported the idea.

I became more active by using my bicycle. When I wanted a cigarette, I would jump on and just go it didn't matter where. When I was at work, I wouldn't take a break. I would clean my house until it was spotless. The next day, I would do it again. Why? Because when you are busy doing something, you don't think about smoking as much.

The hardest part, for me, was the first three days. Once I got through those, it was a lot easier but still not considered easy by any means.

So, do yourself a favor and quit smoking. Tobacco use is the number one preventable cause of death in the United States today.

Learn more about this author, Robert M.
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