Dave Winer writes about his experience quitting smoking, and it reminds me of my experience quitting. Many years ago I was a smoker, and it took a couple of tries before I quit successfully.
My first attempt at quitting was doomed to failure. See, I noticed that my cravings were stronger when my friends and I went bar-hopping, so I told myself I’d only smoke when I was drinking. The result? I drank more often. Duh.
So I quit cold turkey, and that was well over a decade ago. I’ve smoked one time since then, about three years ago – not a perfect record, but not bad. The thing that made it easier to quit was that I stopped smoking right after the end of a relationship gone sour. I figured as long as I was giving up one bad habit, I might as well give up smoking at the same time.