– If you really wanted to quit you would just quit. –

This is profound and fully true. The problem is that saying, “I don’t want to smoke anymore,” isn’t going to do the trick.

A pros and cons list won’t work. It won’t add up and will never make logical sense.

The reasons for quitting are so obvious and cold and hard, while the reasons for smoking are warm and fluid.

The feeling of sitting around a campfire entranced in unbroken conversation while chain smoking cigarettes, or setting up for a long drive with a sweet tipped cigar and a fresh cup of coffee, have immeasurable sway.

For everyone the sources are different, but the importance is the same. They create subliminal want.

It is obvious that the habit of smoking is shit and none of us want that, but there is still something we want.

I don’t believe that addiction is a simple equation of mechanics. Desire is at play and it is like a hook through the nose. It feels like a physical addiction because we are lead without thinking, but it is far more than skin deep.

To kill the want, the only option is to completely change who your mind says you are. Otherwise, it will always live on deep in there somewhere.

I know. Over the 14 years I have smoked I have quit for up to eight months before having it sneak back into my life.

I am not even that far in as I write this, but this time I can feel a major difference.

I am a no longer the person. My wants have changed. I still love sitting around the fire, but something bigger and more important has come into my life.

It is not that I don’t want to smoke. I just want this other thing more.

It is weird because I would have sworn up and down for at least 10 of the years that I smoked, that I didn’t want to smoke, but now that I have this other thing I can see the truth.

For me this bigger want is to be fully in touch with meaning and spirituality. However, this is not the only thing important enough to change a person’s direction and make him/her quit smoking.

I know people who have quit when they were going to have a kid or because they got sick and simply didn’t want to die.

Or, it doesn’t even have to be that deep. Hitting a wall in life and saying that you are sick and tired of not having enough money, would be enough.

The important thing is that you hit that wall, and you change life paths.

Your whole perspective on life changes and all of a sudden one thing isn’t so important anymore and another thing is.

After hitting the wall, all your priorities go up in the air and come fluttering down in a new order. Social activities, friends, alcohol, coffee, etc, all get readjusted and measured for their worth without cigarettes.

My life is different now. I only get one and I want to go in this direction and nothing is going to stop me.