Yeah - you're so right about this. It's all about just doing it (quitting that is). It's not complicated. You just stop smoking - da!! The problem I think is like your friend, we tend to over think the whole process and that's when the horrible doubts start entering into the equation, especially if we are planning it like we would plan a vacation or some other special event in our lives.
I had thought of quitting for probably 20 years. "I know I really should but ........ Well Christmas is coming and I don't want to be grumpy at Christmas ........ Summer is here and quitting now would ruin my summer fun. I mean, the list of excuses goes on and on. I'm sure you've all spoken most of them to yourselves at some point or other. For me, I don't know what it was exactly but when I decided to quit, it just seemed to happen naturally for me. I mean, it started as a realization one particular day that what I was doing was crazy and would most likely lead to my early demise. I quit the next day without any real planning and I felt even then that I just had to do this no matter what I would be confronted with. It almost immediately became a self challenge. Myself against the addiction (which I didn't even realize smoking was at the time - it was just a "habit").
I didn't really know if I would make it but I felt that I could. I was determined to do it. Every time I was close to giving up in the early part of my quit I reflected on where I was Jan. 28th (day before I quit) and where I had come to at that point and how hard it had been to get there. I just couldn't throw that all away. If I did, I somehow I knew I would never quit. I had to do this 1st time out of the gate or I would be lost to a shorter life filled with smoking.
Then I found this support site and that, unknown to me at the time, was the last piece to my puzzle. The perfect ingredient found at the perfect time for me. So far, I'm good. I still have work to do but as I have noticed since the back half of the first month of my quit, things really do get better and easier with time. It's so very slow that you can't perceive that it's actually happening but it is. Slowly, very slowly, it all becomes easier and the challenges become less frequent and easier to deal with.
That's the simple key to it all. Just commit to your quit completely from the start; keep that commitment as you struggle through the tough times early on and rely on others for your support.
