What about gradually reducing the amount you smoke each day?

I actually tried this once, and it basically worked fairly well for me. Here is exactly how I did it:

First, I measured how many “episodes” of smoking I was engaging in each day. This was fairly easy to calculate, simply by starting each day with a fresh pack of cigarettes (20) and counting how many were left before I went to bed at night.

Turns out that I was smoking between 16 and 20 cigarettes each day.

What I did next was to start budgeting the amount of cigarettes I smoked each day, and gradually reduced it by one cigarette each day. So I started out smoking a full pack, then the next day only 19 cigarettes, the next day, only 18, and so on.

Now at first this is really easy, to simply knock a single smoke off of your day’s tally. But it got trickier as I got down past 15 and even more so when I dipped under 10.

But I found an awesome strategy that got me all the way down to 2 cigarettes per day, which I did for a few days in a row. Then I dropped to one, and then I quit entirely (unfortunately, in this case, I eventually returned to smoking, but this technique is still valid…read on!)

My first idea was to increase the length of time between smoking each cigarette (duh). But I found this to be uncomfortable, as it basically kept me in perpetual withdrawal all day. So instead, I came up with the brilliant strategy to put each cigarette out after smoking half of it, and then save the rest for later. Many people do this anyway, but they do so as a cost-saving mechanism, not with the intention to lower their Nicotine intake (as you will do). The idea is simple: if you smoke 20 times per day, how much Nicotine will you put into your body if you smoke a full cigarette each time versus only smoking half of a cigarette each time? The answer is obvious. Smoking only 10 cigarettes throughout the day, even if you have 20 “smoking episodes,” will reduce your Nicotine intake by half.

Eventually, I was putting out each cigarette several times, and re-lighting it later, and eventually made it to where I was only smoking 2 cigarettes over 14 “episodes” in a single day….simply by taking only 2 or 3 puffs each time.

I developed this strategy naturally as a result of limiting myself to a certain number of cigarettes each day.

If you object to the constant extinguishing and relighting of cigarettes as being nasty, you need to wake up and give yourself a reality check. Smoking, in general, is nasty. You are administering the drug Nicotine in a really disgusting manner. Putting it out and relighting the nasty thing hardly changes the nature or level of the nastiness that is smoking.

This gradual reduction technique simulates the “stepping down” of the Nicotine patch, but with infinitely more “step down” levels. I was honestly amazed at how well the reduction in Nicotine worked for me. There was no withdrawal at all, until the very last day when I finally quit smoking completely, and that was a very tame withdrawal based on the fact that my Nicotine levels were already very low.

One huge benefit of this technique is that it can be combined with other techniques. For example, if you’re using Chantix or Wellbutrin, you can still use this gradual reduction method in combination with the medication. Or, you could use the gradual reduction, and right on your quit date, go get hypnotized. (Obviously, gradual reduction doesn’t work with Nicotine replacement therapies, as it essentially replaces them).

Good luck to you on your quit! If you found this helpful, please share it with someone.