So yesterday marked one year since I quit smoking cigarettes. I had been a full time smoker since high school, and was never able to be one of the chosen ones that only smoked a cigarette or two a day. Instead I smoked quite heavily, smoking close to a pack a day and when I was out partying that pretty much doubled.

In the last couple of years I was a bit concerned that if I didn’t quit soon I would never be able to quit, so last summer I finally found the motivation to make a big change. All things considered it wasn’t even that hard, I quit cold turkey no patches or gums were needed. The most important thing is finding the right frame of mind, where you aren’t going to let yourself back out after a couple hours. The first couple of days are the hard part, get past that and then you only need another week or so to get all the nicotine out of your body and get yourself used to the smell of other people smoking. I went out of my way to avoid going to drinking when I quit because that makes it all to easy to slip and have “just one cigarette.”

On the left is a screenshot from my iPhone, it’s a free program I downloaded to help me remind myself how much money I have been saving. Essential because looking in my wallet or bank account didn’t show any significant gains.

So that’s that, now I start working towards two years without cigarettes.