I’m in the process of quitting smoking. I’m on day 5 of using Zyban and so far so good.

I’ve been smoking since I was a teenager, so I guess I’ve been smoking for more than 20 years, and while I started off as a light and occasional smoker I now qualify as a heavy smoker at a pack a day.

I’ve tried quitting at least three times in the past. Once cold turkey .. with little success and well, the other two attempts were with my sisters help when we both had our how jewelry trade related businesses and worked together in the same office. She paid for a Hypnosis treatment for me and later for a laser ear therapy treatment.

I think all in all my three past attempts were the equivalent of going cold turkey. The longest I managed to quit was for three months.

I decided to use a medication to help me quit this time around because in my past three short lived attempts I went through pretty bad withdrawal, anxiety and well – anger. I actually broke a chair in my office during one of my quitting smoking attempts in a fit of rage. My sister immediately asked the next customer that walked in our door if they had a cigarette for “her sister”. LOL

I’m still smoking, but I noticed on day three (Monday) that every time I lit a cigarette it didn’t taste right. It was like sucking on hot air or like trying to smoke a cigarette that had a rip in the paper. Kind of useless.

On day four I continued to smoke as much as I normally did, but as on day three, each cigarette was just like hot air. So today I decided to at least consciously try to cut down. I’ve been up since 9 am and it’s now 5:30 pm and I’ve only had 7 cigarettes today so far. That’s about half of what I would normally have had and I don’t feel too bad.

I’m not feeling anxious or angry. Of course I’m still getting my nicotine fix to some extent, so we’ll have to see what happens when I totally stop in a few days to a week or so, but I think it will be a lot better than when I’ve gone cold turkey.

In all my years as a smoker I’ve never been this determined to quit smoking. I think I really have a chance of being successful this time. I just keep reminding myself of all the bad things about smoking – all the terrible health problems it causes, and all the health benefits I’ll get from quitting. Plus … now if I want to apply for life insurance I’ll be able to get any kind, not just no exam life insurance as I’m sure insurance companies like non-smokers best.

My husband also smokes, but he’s the kind of smoker that can just stop for months at a time and when he starts up again he only smokes about 5 cigarettes a day. Of course, this time around, I told him, if you quit you can never start up again, or at least you can’t start up again as long as I’m quit and I’m determined to quit and stay quit.

So … with some hard work, determination and probably a little luck, we’ll both have totally stopped smoking by the end of the month. We’ll also be saving a lot of money when we do finally quit. Hundreds of dollars actually. That’s another thing I’m looking forward to – extra money to put towards bills, or to save, or to perhaps use for a holiday.

Are you a smoker or an ex-smoker? Have you tried to quit in the past? Were you successful? How did you try to quit? Any tips?