Failed to Quit Smoking 5 Times? I Stopped Trying Harder and Tracked When I Smoke
After 27 years and five failed attempts to quit, I stopped relying on willpower and started logging when I smoke. Eight cigarettes, eight scenes in my day.
JAE Dokgo6 min read
Failed to Quit Smoking 5 Times? I Stopped Trying Harder and Tracked When I Smoke
I smoked my first cigarette in 10th grade. I counted on my fingers the other day: this is my 27th year as a smoker.
It's not that I never tried to quit.
Six months in my twenties.
A full year in my early thirties.
Six months in my mid-thirties.
Three months in my late thirties
Six months in my early forties.
I quit five times, and five times I went back.
Every time, I told myself the same thing:
"I guess I'm just a weak-willed person."
So this time, I tried something different. Instead of promising myself I'd quit, I just started writing things down.
How many I smoked. And when.
1. It wasn't just about willpower
Nicotine is addictive. When you quit, your body has to adjust to life without it, and that brings strong cravings and discomfort. The first few days to weeks are usually the hardest, and it gets easier after that.[1]
But it didn't end when the nicotine left my body. All five times, I didn't break during the worst of the withdrawal. I broke long after, when I thought I was already past it.
Smokefree.gov, run by the U.S. National Cancer Institute, explains that the urge to smoke gets attached to familiar situations: meals, coffee, stress, being around other smokers.[2] My body could forget nicotine. But certain moments in my day still remembered the cigarette.
2. The same moments and places kept coming up
I logged my smoking in MOAVO Habits for about three months. When I laid out a typical day, my pattern in a day looked like this:
| Moment | Place | Cigarettes |
|---|---|---|
| On my way to work | Outside my home | 1 |
| Before going into the office | Outside the office building | 1 |
| After lunch | Outside the office building | 1 |
| During the afternoon slump | Outside the office building | 1 |
| Just before leaving work | Outside the office building | 1 |
| Before going inside at home | Outside my home | 1 |
| After dinner | Outside my home | 1 |
| Before bed | Outside my home | 1 |
| Total for this typical day | 8 |
Eight cigarettes, with the same two places appearing again and again: outside my home and outside the office.
I often smoked between one part of my day and the next—before starting work, after eating, or before heading home.
Until then, I had mostly thought, "I smoke too much." Now I could see something more specific:
I often reached for a cigarette as I finished one thing and moved on to the next.
3. What did I actually want in that moment?
Habits are often described as a loop: Cue → Action → Reward. In my log, the cues (after lunch, right before leaving work) and the action (smoking) were crystal clear.
The reward, though, I still don't know. Did I want a short break? A breath before the next thing? Or was it just the nicotine talking? Probably all of the above.
I don't have the answer yet. But I have a question now. Next time I finish lunch and think about a cigarette, I can stop and ask what I really want.
4. The numbers gave me somewhere to start
At eight cigarettes a day, that would add up to 2,920 cigarettes in a year. (That isn't a measured yearly total—just a calculation based on the daily pattern I'd noticed)
I was almost afraid to think about what that might mean over 27 years, although I hadn't smoked the same amount throughout that time.
The old me would have seen that number and beaten myself up again. This time felt different. 2,920 wasn't a number scolding me. It was a number telling me, "These same scenes repeat 365 times a year."
Which meant what I needed to change wasn't 2,920 acts of willpower.
It was just eight scenes in a day.
5. Logging changed the question I asked myself
To be honest, I haven't quit yet. So this isn't a quit-smoking success story.
One thing has changed. When my hand reaches for a cigarette, I pause and ask:
"What scene is this? What did I just do? Am I just following the habit?"
Through five failed attempts,
I always asked myself, "Why can't I quit?"
Now I ask, "When do I smoke?"
The first question made me blame myself.
The second question helps me prepare for the next try.
6. Write down one moment from today
Think back to a moment when you smoked or wanted to smoke, and try writing down three things.
You don't have to smoke to log it. The moments you wanted to but didn't count too.
| What to write down | Example |
|---|---|
| Time and Place | Walking back to the office after lunch |
| Craving and how I felt | Wanted a cigarette and felt like taking a short break |
| What I actually did | Smoked a cigarette / Didn't smoke and took a short walk instead |
After a few days, you'll start to see your own "smoking scenes."
Pick just one and decide what you'll do instead.
Like walking the opposite way from your usual after-lunch smoking spot.
And you don't have to do this alone. Quit-smoking counseling and medical support improve your chances. Nicotine replacement therapy and quit-smoking medications are options you can discuss with your doctor.[1] You don't need to wait until you've logged enough to ask for help.
7. MOAVO Habits isn't just for your good days
MOAVO Habits isn't an app where you just check boxes. It's a habit journal where you capture what you were thinking in the moment, in a line or two. As your entries add up, AVO, your AI coach, looks at your patterns with you.
"Failed again today" is a fine entry. But a little more detail goes a long way. Write down which scene broke you, and what helped when you held out. That becomes your map for the next attempt.
MOAVO Habits isn’t a quit-smoking app. But after five failures, it was the first thing that helped me look at something other than willpower. It isn't a treatment and doesn't guarantee you'll quit. It's a journal for looking honestly at your own behavior.
Write down one moment that repeated today.
It might give you a useful clue for your next try.
Download on the App Store · Get it on Google Play
Sources
- Smokefree.gov, Managing Nicotine Withdrawal.
- Smokefree.gov, Know Your Smoking Triggers.
