I have never smoked, but I have been addicted to something before. I won't say what it was because it's embarrassing for me to even say I was addicted to something so stupid.... but an addiction is an addiction. If it's hurting you financially, your relationships, your health, your job/school performance or just wasting a whole lot of your time, it's a problem. Outside of drugs and alcohol, people can be addicted to things like shopping, gaming, porn, the internet, tanning, etc. For all these people, quitting these things can be just as hard for them as someone trying to quit a drug.
For me, it took about 45 days for the craving to go away. It wasn't until about 80 days that I stopped thinking about it. It's been roughly 9 months now and it seemingly isn't a part of my life anymore. Here and there, I still get an urge. But I think about how much things have improved for me since I quit, and I know it won't be worth it to go back.
One thing that was important for me was to identify triggers which led me to my addiction. Boredom and anxiety were the two big ones. When I was bored, I went to it. When I was anxious and worrying about something, I went to it. So what I started doing was filling empty time with something else. If I had two hours, I's workout, clean, etc. If I was worried about something, I simply talked to somebody about it.
I made myself a counter like the one I had posted just to keep track of how I was doing. I did relapse a few times before I finally got it... but keeping track helped me not lose focus. Instead of relapsing and thinking, "****, I ruined my progress.... guess I can binge before I start again." I thought, "Okay, so I relapsed 2 times in 21 days. considering I used to do it every day, 2 times in 21 days is pretty fucking good. I got this."
So while I don't know how it is to quit smoking, I do know how hard it is to beat addiction. Good luck to all of you. With time, you'll all get there.
