How I Stopped Smoking

I had been smoking cigarettes for about 9 years before I became disgusted enough with myself to decide to quit. I had several attempts before I figured out what worked: a real reason that motivated me to stop.
I was at a weekend training (the Soft Addictions weekend workshop that my company runs) and we were all metaphorically releasing our particular soft addictions - mine was hard. I had my hands on my pack of cigarettes hidden in my pocket and when the group broke, I snuck off to have a "final" cigarette.

I lit the cigarette, took a puff and got so dizzy that I lost my balance and stumbled to the side, off the path I had walked down. It then struck me. Cigarettes were literally keeping me off my path in life. It was then that I decided that I wanted to know who I was in each moment, to have every feeling available to me, to not use cigarettes to numb myself.
This is what I focused on as I used the other tools to quit smoking that I had previously used with failure.

The powerful decision I made to know myself worked better for me than worrying about getting cancer in the future. This is one of the moments in my life that I remember as a milestone in my growth and I also remember how difficult it was. If I made it through quitting, I can make it through anything.