I am a 50 year old man. I started smoking somewhere around 13 or 14 and was a regular smoker by the age of 16. The only time I quit smoking was when I was 18 and in the USMC bootcamp. That was in 1982.

On Jan 2, 2012, I gave my first thoughts to quitting smoking. I googled quitting, and soon found my way over to whyquit.com. I read, I Read, I READ, and then I R E A D some more. At first, I hated that site. I hated what it was telling me about what I was doing, why I was doing it, and what it was doing to me. I kept reading any. I read EVERYTHING. On Jan. 04, 2012, I quit. I was done. Joel convinced me.

I put down the smokes and walked away. It was incredible. I had become a nonsmoker. I had stopped! It was so easy. There was no gnawing and gnashing of teeth. There was no horrible monster that came and ripped my head off. No! NOTHING! I quit. After two or three months into my quit, I became comfortable. It was not the inner piece that old nonsmokers with one or more years, but it was a comfort that I could see life as a nonsmoker. Most of my time was not worrying anymore about smoking nor non-smoking....I was just happily going about my life.

I was happily on my first forum of my life at ffn. I really enjoyed reading about other people's journeys and posting my own information.

Then, one fine late spring or early summer day, I was all by myself. I was in a happy mood, I was literally joyous, and then it hit from clear out of the blue 'Boy wouldn't a cigarette just go great right now?' Right then and there, without a thought, I said it sure would. I went through all the 100 plus conscious steps to get into my truck drive to the convenience store and buy a pack of smokes.

I didn't light up until I arrived back home. All the way....I'll just have one. It'll be good, and I'll put the pack away.

I did have just the one, and I put the pack away. About 5 days later, the same thought came....'Wouldn't another smoke be good just about now to top this off?' I said, once again, 'It sure would.'

It then became 3 days, 2 days and I held it at one a day for quite awhile. Then it became first thing in the morning and then late at night before the Mrs. got up and after she went to bed.

Needless to say, the Mrs. soon found out, and I was a full fledged smoker.

The journey to this quit is kind of long. I am going to spread it out over a couple of entries.