How did you (or someone you know) break that bad habit?

Cold turkey. I smoked a pack a day and this was back when smokers could smoke any place they wanted to. So I smoked at my desk. It bothered the guy that sat beside me. One day he came up to me and threw down a 100 dollar bill. He said “that’s yours if you quit smoking.” I said let me finish this pack and you’re on! I quit a few days later, cold turkey. It was not easy, but after the first week it wasn’t too horrible.
Edited to add: 7/11/88

I have had some experience breaking bad habits. For me it is always a two step process.

1. Come to a gut realization that a habit is killing me and things won’t change unless I quit completely.

2. Stop completely, “cold turkey”, knowing I will be uncomfortable for a short amount of time.

That worked for me to stop drinking (4/22/86) and to stop smoking (8/22/88). Did the same thing with sugar and carbs to drop 60 lbs in 2013.

Repetition. It takes something ike 28 days for a new habit to become engrained.

Numerous attempts and the will to do so. Pack a day habit, quit cold turkey around 1999. Basically just sucked it up and went through the withdrawal. When I got really bad to the point of losing it and buying a pack or bumming one I would go run my guts out jogging or on a treadmill.

Cold turkey, smoking, 5/24/2016.
Greatly reducing intake of added salts, and sugars, October 2016.
Close to totally quit intake of chocolate, September 2015.

Meh… why bother? I’m gonna die anyway, if smoking doesn’t get me something else will. I heard about a guy who succeeded in quitting cigs, a year later the guy was out with his wife, horseback riding on his ranch, and died instantly from a brain aneurism. No one can stop the Grim Reaper.

@NomoreY_A True, but dying of lung cancer is a long, slow painful process. I know. I watched my mom die of it after losing her bladder due to cancer caused from smoking, COPD and having to drag an oxygen tank around with her for years. I’d rather be the guy that died suddenly and quickly from a brain aneurism. Also, it takes a huge toll on the people that love you that has to watch you slowly die.

I know this is a limited sample, but the successes noted above all dropped a habit by going cold turkey; no weaning.

Weaning always seems to be suggested by those who are not hooked on something.

@NomoreY_A “Meh…”

But how did you break a bad habit?

This question is not asking opinions about smoking.

Acute enterogastritis helped me quit drinking ice water every time played basketball. Thanks a lot.

My mum gave up smoking after her best friend died of a smoking related illness. She had some help from her GP. She said it was hellish, the hardest thing she had to do. But she knows that she not going to ever smoke again because she doesn’t want to go through that hell again.

I quit smoking cold turkey after one heart attack. That did it for me.

I didn’t do it to avoid death. Death is inevitable. It was to live out the rest of my life at a higher standard of health and stamina. —and to avoid the humiliation of being trapped for years in a bed in a nursing home in my forties unable to move, being spoon fed and having someone clean me every time I had a bowel movement in said bed. Death is merciful compared to that.

I used to drink 14+ sodas a week and one day I decided to quit cold turkey after watching a segment about soda on Dr. Oz. Haven’t had soda in 8 years.