I'm at a month and a half smoke free after having smoked a pack a day - on and off (mostly on) - for approximately 10 years. While I'm far from out of the proverbial woods with cessation, the following are some tips and (hopefully) helpful lessons learned through many previously failed quit "cold turkey" quit attempts:
1. SLEEP. You can say it's stress, you can say it's you "just wanted one," but a lot of smoking relapses are a result of too little sleep. If your number one goal is smoking cessation, you really have two goals: Smoking Cessation and Sleep. This is why it's good to start some sort of exercise as soon as you quit as one hand washes the other, so to speak, and you'll have an easier time sleeping.
2. Especially if you've struggled with quitting for a long time, you're going to be tempted to try to do a bunch of other stuff when you get past the physical withdrawals (72-96 hours). Refrain from doing so. It's tempting because - especially if you have to step outside to smoke - you immediately have an extra couple hours a day. For the first two weeks at minimum (but really the first month), just focus on cessation, exercise, and sleep in the context of day-to-day life. Unless you really don't have shit to do, that should be quite enough.
You don't have to turn into a monk, but you don't have to
not turn into a monk (especially for the first couple weeks to a month). The new habit of exercise and good sleep takes a month to form, to try and add a bunch of other shit is only going to impede the process, make you frazzled, and then, "Oh, I'll just have one..."
At the end of the month, you have essentially done a deal where you exchange smoking for good sleep and exercise. It's shocking how much better you'll feel.
3. I can't drink. Like if I drink I'll get so fucking faded it's sad. Still, as others have said, I think drinking and having a cigarette go so well together that I don't think it's possible to seriously quit one without the other. Same goes with herb, but to each their own.
4. I mentioned this D&P post in another thread and it really helped me:
http://www.dangerandplay.com/2014/11/02/kill-mr-maybe/
5. Don't tell people that you're quitting. Don't talk about it, be about it. The person who
talks about how their going to do this, quit that, go here... how does that work out for them? Of course, I don't mean avoid the quit smoking forums or whatever, but I think everyone reading knows what I mean.
It may take people a little while to notice, but eventually they'll ask, and you'll tell them when you're already in the process of quitting and not before.
6. For all that's written above, the main thing (in addition to sleep) is determination. Especially in the first week you're somewhat, ahem, irritable. You just need to push through. Simple advice but really hard to follow in the moment. More than anything, determination separates people who are able to quit from people who return to the habit.
TL;DR Get sleep, swap bad for good habits, a D&P post that is helpful, don't talk about it like a social media dork, and determination will get you through the irritable times.
