One of the things I am proudest of in life is that I finally overcame all the lies of nicotine addiction and quit smoking for good in July 2015. I had tried to 'stop smoking' many times before but it wasn't until I embraced the finality of quitting smoking that I was able to gain freedom from the addiction.

I got a lot of help at an active message board for quitting smoking.

There were many lies that I believed about addiction that kept me in the thralls of it for more than 3 decades.

One was that I was too addicted to be able to quit.

Indeed, I used to wake up in the middle of the night to go out for a cigarette. I had dreams of smoking after I quit...

but there is no such thing as being too addicted to quit.

A second lie was that I could have 'just one cigarette'. There is no such thing as just one cigarette. For someone who has been addicted to nicotine there is either no cigarettes or a lifetime of smoking.

Many people with mental illness smoke, indeed we and the poor and esp those who are both poor and have MI are the last bastions of smoking in North America...

I hope everyone who has overcome this addiction will join in this thread or start their own to encourage people to quit smoking.

You can do it. It is never too late.