Through determination and will and desire. I quit smoking a year and a half ago when my grandmother died of esophogeal (sp?) cancer. They used a scope to go down her throat and look at the tumor in her stomach and found the tumors in the esophagus - it was horrible, they showed us color pictures - they were gray and black and bleeding.

I threw the cigarettes out the car window on my way home from the hospital and haven't had one since, she died two months later.

That sounds like the easy story - the hard part is that now, a year and a half later, I still want one sometimes, I still think they smell good and crave a cigarette occasionally. But, I have made up my mind to NEVER smoke again. I don't allow the possibility to enter my mind that maybe some day I can "handle it" or just be a "social smoker" - I know for me it is not possible. I'm either a smoker or I'm a non-smoker and I choose to be a non-smoker.

When I want one, especially right after I quit, I would acknowledge to myself "yes, I want a cigarette, but I am choosing not to smoke one". We are NOT powerless over our addictions, we have the infinite power of choice!

Congratulations on your incredible accomplishment - You are a non-drinker!