This week I’m turning 62, and it’s a great time to celebrate the two years of smoke-free life. I decided to be a non-smoker before I turn 60. I was smoking for 43 years around a pack a day. I found it very hard to stop smoking or even imagine life without my cigarettes. But I knew that I had to change things before my 50th birthday. I have achieved many things in my life but smoking was one of those things I couldn’t do, and I didn’t know why. The only thing I knew for sure was that I didn’t enjoy smoking anymore. It was a strong habit that was impossible to break for good.
But that wasn’t my first attempt. Few years back I quit cold turkey to prepare for major surgery. I felt a void without smoking, but I tried my best not to smoke again. Unfortunately, my smoke-free life didn’t last long. One evening I was with 2 of my smoker friends, and I smoked one without thinking about it. I thought that just one cigarette won’t matter, but in the next couple of days, I smoked again and again until I ended up buying my own pack.
Although I was angry at myself for smoking, I didn’t feel strong enough to fight it at that point. I felt I had no willpower over my smokes. Later I made multiple attempts to quit that only lasted a few days. The stress, boredom and the habit of relaxing in front of my computer with a cigarette were the biggest barriers that I couldn’t overcome. My wife and two sons were very supportive but tired of seeing me fail and relapse over and over again. So, I decided to try to quit without telling them about it.
After searching for hours online and reading dozens of articles and reviews, I found a company called Smoking Cessation Formula that helps smokers quit with a method called CBQ method that’s created by their team of quit smoking experts lead by psychologist Nasia Davos. I learned more about this method from a very popular TED talk that Nasia did on this method and how to become a happy non-smoker.
Briefly, CBQ stands for Cognitive Behavioural Quitting, and it enables you to change how you think about smoking so you can overcome the addiction to nicotine and also break the behavioral part of smoking which is the habit. It is based on Cognitive behavioral therapy and neuroscience.
As soon as I found this, I was excited, and I felt that I’ve stumbled upon something new this time, something different and it made so much sense to me. I dug deeper and read reviews about the CBQ method and also found that there’s a big community of ex-smokers who have quit using this method and swear by it.
They offer a lot of free courses like webinars and videos. After watching them all, I decided to buy the premium quit smoking program they have. I thought if I want to do this, I will need all the help I can get.
To be honest, I was a bit skeptical about buying something online because I’ve been scammed before into buying things I didn’t need.
But after I contacted their support team and saw they were legit and they had a money-back guarantee, thank God, I decided to go for it.
I followed everything Nasia shared in the program to the T. I did every single exercise, watched every video twice and the program was life-changing for me.
I smoked my last cigarette “with no regrets” like Nasia says, and this time I was not missing anything. I quit one week later than I had planned but what’s a week compared to a life without cigarettes?
The only thing I would have preferred to be different is to have fewer exercises, but I guess not every exercise is for everyone. Some will be ideal for me but not for someone else and the other way around. After talking to the support team, I kept doing the exercises that worked best for me, and I felt great without smoking. The nicotine withdrawal was not a problem for me.
What helped me the most was the accountability, the “smoking notebook” exercise and the videos that helped me understand why I was smoking and why I didn’t need to do this anymore.
After I quit, I started realizing how much more energy I had and surprisingly: less stress. All my life, I thought smoking helped me relax, but after I quit with the CBQ and I was in peace with my smoking habit, I was able to see that smoking was the thing causing most of my daily stress.
Also, I was able to surprise my wife with the good news. I did not tell her I quit. Instead, I showed her. We were having dinner, and I didn’t go out to smoke afterward. It took her a while to realize, but when she did, she was happy beyond words.
3 of my smoker friends have already joined Nasia Davos quit smoking program. Two of them have already quit, and the third is on the way. I do recommend it to all smokers who feel irreversibly hooked and desperate like I was because it will show you how to never need another cigarette in your life. Life is good when you don’t have to think about smoking!
