One method I came up with, which a friend tried successfully (she doesn't smoke anymore) is to distinguish and separate the trigger from the habitual reaction.

One method I came up with, which a friend tried successfully (she doesn't smoke anymore) is to distinguish and separate the trigger from the habitual reaction. So for example, if you always have a cigarette the moment you get off the bus, force yourself to wait 10 minutes before sparking up. Do that for ALL your triggers. And always go outside to smoke, regardless of the weather - no comfy couch or office desk. You want to separate that bit of comfort, too. As a side-effect, your home will smell less like a disgusting ashtray even before you finally do quit. Sometimes 10 minutes after the trigger and initial urge passes, you might not feel like smoking at that moment, or you are onto something else that needs to be done. Too bad - spark up. This is to make the physical act of smoking a bit of a nuisance instead of an instant reward. If it gets in the way of something, great. If you REALLY don't feel like smoking at that moment, definitely force yourself to finish it. The more unpleasant or unwanted that smoke is for you, the better. After you get used to the 10 minute delays, make it 15 minutes. Then 20. Once you can last 20 minutes from the urge or trigger moment, you can decide to skip the cigarette. You probably don't really want it anyway, and if you can last 20 minutes from the onset of an urge, you're well on your way to quitting, and can now start to focus on having fewer cigs per day. Anyway, it took her a couple of months, but now it's been a couple of years since she's smoked. She only had excessive urges for the first few weeks, and didn't experience actual withdrawal. She just got to the point where she didn't care about it anymore, and then stopped. The hardest part for her was breaks at work, but she compensated by only having a single cigarette timed to coincide with the end of her break.