You and I are on our way to becoming exsmokers!!! Good for us!!!!! We are going to do it this time. Here is what we are going to do. We are going to systematically cut down our cigarettes.
Smoking is a psychological addiction as well as a physical one.

First we are going to discover and break the psychological urges (referred to from now on as triggers) before we actually quit altogether.
These triggers are actually as powerful as the physical addiction, and much easier to break, when we aren't going nuts.  

Week #1 Establish a base line. Smoke all you want, but record every cigarette because you want to know when you smoke the most and what triggers you need to work on.

Week # 2 through 7 Systematic cut down focusing on hardest triggers first. For most people the hardest triggers are right after you get up in the morning and right after eating. We start with these, each week prolonging the wait interval. By the time we actually quit, we will be smoking only one or two cigarettes per day. Ok Here goes: Why use the cig. counting chart I have found this to be the most useful tool of all. I was just counting my daily number of cigs, but it wasn't giving me the incentive I needed to postpone smoking. To not smoke for two hours is inconceivable to me, but to wait 5 or 15 minutes just so I can have a blank interval on my chart is something I can do. Just using the chart, I have cut down today and it hasn't been hard. The other thing the chart does is really let you see when you smoke the most. By identifying your triggers, you know what you have to work on. Last, but not least keep your charts and compare them, you will be able to see in black and white that you are making progress. I am going to post at least once a day in the newsgroup.

Good luck to all of you and Good luck to me too!

1. Establish a QUIT DAY eight weeks from now and put on your calendar.
2. Make a cigarette counting chart. Here is what I am using. If you can print it out, take it to some place to reduce it to fit around a pack of cigs. and make several copies, you will need one for each day.  

DO NOT BEAT YOURSELF UP ABOUT HOW MUCH
YOU SMOKE THIS WEEK, YOU ARE DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

If you choose to wait an interval or two or three before picking up that next cigarette, then focus on that and PRAISE YOURSELF. If you focus on your successes, rather than your failures, you are going to be encouraged to continue.
3. Everyday, write down at least two reasons to quit.
4. Start thinking about what to do with the money your are going to save, write down those ideas too This is ALL you do week one, next week we will begin cutting down.

1.Continue counting cigarettes.
2. Now that you know your true daily totals, figure out exactly how much money you spend, continue to plan how you will use that money to reward yourself.
3. write down reasons to quit daily.
4. Beginning of cut down No cigarettes for 15 minutes after you get up and wait 15 minutes for a cig after each time you eat something. Give yourself permission to smoke as much as you like the rest of the time.

Since you won't be smoking at all, you might want to try the medical smoking aids now if you need to. I plan to use the gum if I get a real craving, I would check with your Doctor on that one. Congratulations, let me know if it works for you. I sure hope it's going to work for me.

Interesting side note, I used the spell checker, the word I didn't know how to spell is cigarette. The damn things are killing me and I can't even spell the word.