I have quit cold turkey and stayed off for 5 or more years three different times. I am now on year 8 of the third attempt; I think I’ve finally beat it. Of course, nearly $10 a pack will definitely keep me off of them!
I quit cold turkey the first time and it lasted for 3 years then I started back smoking but never smoked heavily again. Then I quit cold turkey the 2nd time 13 years ago and I can’t imagine I would ever start up again.
If you are really addicted like I was I would advise waiting until you are sick with a bad cold and don’t smoke for a week or so due to illness. By the time you feel well enough to smoke again you are past the worst part of the withdrawal already. Then its just a mental decision not to start up again. Thats what I did.
I quit “cold turkey” many years ago.
When I did, I finally recognized something that had been happening in my thinking, each previous time I had attempted to quit. I was convinced I would not be able to.
In other words, the thought that I was not capable of “beating it” was greater than my desire to quit.
I realized (or I decided) that I could control that thinking and “turn a switch” in my mind, in favor of quitting as well as in believing I could.
I convinced myself (or decided) that I could just decide that I could control my own behavior no matter what the addiction was asking for or how it was making me feel.
That was it.
I believed so much in the idea that “I am in control” that I carried with me at all times my last unfinished pack of cigarettes, for a number of months; making the option to smoke always available and handy, and never taking it.
It was part of my process of admitting and reinforcing that it was essentially NOT the cigarettes, and not even my mind’s or my body’s “feeling” but my own choice, as to my failure or success in quitting.