Unlock Your Powerful Solution to Overcome Tobacco Cravings!

I know, I know! I used a plain picture of a blank journal and a pencil as the primary picture for this blog. Which, I feel like maybe it comes off a little bit boring because of it. Let me assure you, there is a reason for my madness! And I chose this picture for a good reason, and you'll find out why shortly.

Hey everyone!

For those of you that do not know who I am,

My name is Codie!

I've written and posted this blog about my very effective method for quitting cigarettes because I know the feeling of addiction and cravings, especially when it comes to nicotine addiction. I developed a unique, simple, fast, and effective method for quitting the use of tobacco in as little as three weeks, and I want to share it with the world, with hopes that it will be as beneficial and work as effectively for others as it did for me when I quit.

I will give you a very brief review of the method right now, but I cannot include all the important details since I'm making it brief. Just know that there is a lot more that goes into it than you would think. Because of the strategies and tasks within the method itself. I hope you find this information below useful, and wish you the best of luck in overcoming your addiction to nicotine!

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So, the simple part of this plan is that it is three total weeks, and each week you will lower your smoking amount by two cigarettes. The first week starts at five cigarettes per day; the second week you'll drop down to three per day; and the third week you will drop down to 1 per day. You will be given a set of instructions for the preparation before executing the plan. It will consist of mainly gathering a few supplies and completing some tasks in order to make the three weeks as easy for yourself as possible. For the journaling, you will be documenting certain details throughout the three weeks that will be used to finish the third week successfully and correctly.  

Every little step, with every small detail added into this plan, is mandatory for the strategies and tactics to work how I have designed them to. So please, stay conscious of that, and try not to skip any steps or tasks. There will be a couple of things I am going to add to this plan that are only recommended and not mandatory. The recommended tasks are still highly recommended for the best results or outcomes.

Note: I will make sure to specify by putting (recommended) in parenthesis next to anything that is not mandatory and (mandatory) in parenthesis for everything mandatory.]

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Let's Start Preparing!

"A goal without a plan is just a wish."- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Okay, let's start by making a list of all the materials and equipment you will need through the three-week quest to become 100% tobacco and nicotine-free!

Materials

1. A notebook or journal (even a notes app on your phone will be fine!)
2. Handy, dandy little pen or pencil if using a physical edition notebook and not a digital one.
3. Three different items that can distract you or occupier you (ex., fidget spinner, crosswords, dice, sketchbook, etc...)
4. Something like bubble gum or hard candy or anything that can fulfill a tasty sensation.

Preparing Your Journal!

In this plan, I chose to use journaling as the main strategy. I did this for a reason, and no, it's not just because I'm a writer and like to write. It is a little more complex than that, and really, even if I could not stand writing, I still had acquired a clear understanding of the plan and how it is designed, I would still consider trying it because it makes sense and is logical. Anyways, it is important to have your journal prepared and ready before you start the three-week plan because one of the ways you are using your journal in this plan is as a referral, so when you hit an obstacle or a challenge, you will have your referrals in your journal to remind you of different things that can help you through those challenges.

Below are the steps for preparing your journal.

Step One

First - The first thing you should do in your journal is use the very first page of it (or 2 or 3 pages) to create a checklist for all of the 21 days of the plan. make sure to separate each day by the week of the plan it is (ex. week 1, day 1; week 1, day 2...) Also, it might be a good idea to label each week by the goal amount of cigarettes you should smoke per day. I only recommended including the goal amount. It is not mandatory. However any little extra addition will keep you on the right track. So, it is important to try to stay focused and go out of your way to include the smaller things. The picture to the right will give you a visual understanding of how your list should look.

Note: This is an important step because it will allow you to keep track of your progress as you check off each day as you complete them. So be sure to have this prepared before you start your plan.

Step Two

Second - It is a good idea to keep yourself focused on why you have decided to quit smoking. So, to do that, you need to really think hard about why you are quitting smoking. Is it because of how expensive it is nowadays? Or is it because you are tired of feeling ashamed of smoking in public? Once you figure out your real motivation for quitting, break it down into as few words as possible and write the broken-down version at the bottom of each of the 21 pages in your journal you will be using for the 21 days of this plan.

My reason for quitting was that the thought of being at risk of developing cancer and other diseases scared me. When you think of yours, make sure to consider the emotions you feel that also make you want to quit. We tend to be closer to a memory or thought when there is an emotion to remind us how we felt or feel about it.

Step Three

Third - The last thing you need to do to finish preparing your journal is to think of the different tasks and activities that are accessible to you in your situation. This can be anything that you enjoy doing or just things that will help keep you distracted from the cravings. Here are a few standard examples of tasks and activities: a bike ride, baking, cleaning your room, writing a long email, calling your mom to chat, building a shelf, etc. Once you have a list of at least 10 different activities, you can go to the back of your journal to the pages after the 21 pages you will be using for the plan. Write them down there. This way, you will have a list of activities you can do when your cravings start to get rough and a way to remind yourself of them.

Note: It is best if you can think of things that you need to get done anyway, so you can stay productive throughout the 21 days of your life that you will be prioritizing and utilizing for quitting.

Final Preparation

There is only one thing left to do: to finish preparing for the plan, and it definitely should not be skipped. I know it's difficult to be patient when taking on something like this, but don't worry; this step should go by quickly.

For the final step of preparing, you just need to tell one person about your plan to quit smoking. I recommend that you do not tell more than one or two people, though. For me, it was hard having everyone in my life know about my plan to quit because it caused a lot of pressure on me, which turned to stress, and the last thing you want to do when you are trying to quit smoking is to stress yourself out, given that stress is one of the leading causes of making us smoke.

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Week 1: Identifying Your Triggers

"Order is the first law of heaven."- Alexander Pope

Key Priority For Week 1

Week one is not all about lowering the amount of cigarettes you smoke per day down to five. It is more about pinpointing the exact things in your life that cause you to want to smoke. For instance, let's say you have a grumpy grandpa who is impossible to impress and always makes you feel like you're not good enough. If this was the case, it would be very possible that every time your grandpa came around, it made you want to smoke a cigarette.

Or possibly you have a roommate who also smokes. If this were true, then it would be very likely that your roommate left cigarette butts outside your front door, so every time you went outside, you would see cigarette butts, which caused you to want to smoke. These are the types of things you want to focus on identifying during week one and will be the key priority of focus for week one as well.

While only smoking Five Cigarettes a day is the goal, it is still okay if you smoke one or two more than that on the first few days of week one. You can use your slip-ups to your advantage by making a point to write all the details about the events leading up to your slip-ups. This will allow you to have a highly developed understanding of your triggers and your responses to the things that trigger you to smoke.

Week 1's Key Priority: Identifying what triggers you to smoke.

How To Use Journal In Week 1

In week one, it is absolutely critical for you to use your journal. It is important to keep using your journal through the whole three weeks of the plan, but more so the first week than it is for weeks two and three. This is because the way I designed this plan is to use the information that you document in your journal on weeks one and two in the third week to stay on top of eliminating the things that trigger you to smoke and for other important purposes as well that I will go over when we get to them.

The main idea behind using a journal as one technique in this plan is to remembering critical details for overcoming your addiction and as a reference to stay in touch with your emotions, thoughts, and reasons that encouraged you to want to quit in the first place. If you have never seen journaling or writing to be a very effective tool, it still won't hurt to try and see what happens. I know that for myself, it took me to have to actually do it, and experience the effects it did on my life, to truly see how effective writing can be, for instances like this.

There are three separate ways you will purpose your journal through the first week of the plan.

1. First will be to document any slip-ups you have in terms of only smoking 5 cigarettes per day. (This includes documenting all the triggers you notice that make you crave a cigarette and any emotions you realize are involved with your cravings.)
2. The second is as a referral for utilizing the list of tasks and activities you listed in the pages after the 21 pages being used for the plan itself.
3. Third is to use it for nightly reflections of each day where you can document how you are feeling and doing each day. You can write your thoughts on why you slipped up, or just write about the challenges you had to overcome or whatever. Just anything that you can think of that would be worth writing, and is involved directly with your plan to quit smoking.

Tips & Advice

• The hard candies or gum I mentioned above in the "Materials" section is an outstanding method for delivering a satisfying sensation to yourself in two different ways.

1. By Treating yourself each time you notice that you could avoid smoking a cigarette.
2. For occupying your mouth with a distinct sensation other than the intake of nicotine.

• Keeping yourself constantly reminded of the things that motivate you to want to quit smoking is a must. I tried implementing a few ways of doing this into the plan, but explore other methods for doing this as well.
• By filling the void of smoking with other habits and rituals that are beneficial to you and your life, the odds of successfully quitting are a lot higher. The next time you feel a craving start to take effect, try distracting yourself by doing something productive, like sending out emails, watering your plants, checking the news, or even cooking a delightful meal.

Week 2: Ending Faulty Routines

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein

Key Priority For Week 2

Some examples of these types of routines and rituals are:

1. For some people, every time they get into their car, it is a habit to light up a cigarette. So in this case, people are making a routine out of smoking every time they go somewhere in their car.
2. For most of us, having a job we work at every day is a normal occurrence. Those of us who smoke usually smoke a cigarette on each of our breaks, which are scheduled at the same time every day. So, those of you who smoke a cigarette during your break every day at work will need to change up your routine for your breaks at work.
3. A big one for me that I really struggled with, was smoking a cigarette first thing after each meal and first thing in the mornings when I wake up. These are pretty common ones too, so there's a good chance for anyone who is reading this, that those are some of their smoking routines as well.

Using Your Journal In Week 2

In week two, using your journal should be easier and more comfortable for you to do if you happen to be someone who is not familiar with writing and using journaling as a tool to accomplish your goals. Now that it is week 2, and you have gotten through the first week, you should know just about all the things that trigger you to smoke and have them all written down and documented in your journal along with any other details that are in line with your triggers like emotions and specifics.

This week you should focus on documenting all your routines and rituals, as I explained above, in your journal. You want to also keep doing nightly reflections and keeping track of any slip-ups you have as well as all the specific details going into your slip-ups.

At this point, you should have enough information from your nightly reflections and documented slip-ups that you can start analyzing the information to figure out whether you are making progress. Or even all your emotions to see what days you were happier on compared to other days and what the differences were for the days you weren't as happy on. By doing this, you can start figuring out the best and most effective methods for keeping yourself away from cigarettes once the plan is over and you are not smoking anymore at all.

You can explore this in any way you feel you need a better understanding of in order to quit smoking. The amount of ways you can analyze yourself and your life is endless. It all depends on how much information you are documenting in your journal each day so you can have the information there to inspect.

Tips & Advice

• The more information you add to your journal, the better! You are going to be using all the information you document inside of it to reflect on as time goes on so that you can pinpoint exactly what you need to change or do in order to make your time quitting cigarettes easier.
• Keep a firm hold of those hard candies and bubble gums! I had no idea how much potential they have in terms of helping you quit smoking. I'm sure you have probably figured this out by now though.
• Start adjusting your life however, you can and need to in order to adapt new and more productive routines into your life so you can start breaking the old ones that were created by your smoking habits.

Week 3: Making Necessary Adjustments

Up to now, you have been using your journal to document information and basically filling it with data. Now, it is time to put all that data to use and start analyzing the last 2 weeks of your life. The whole point of using a journal throughout your plan to quit is so you can compare the data at the end (which is now) in order to determine things like, your weaknesses (when it comes to smoking), the best ways to base your counteractions against the things that trigger you, and how you are going to go about changing your routines and ritual's to be most productive in the case of not smoking anymore.

First, you are going to want to get a blank piece of paper and write down all your triggers and any details you documented with them. Then do the same thing with the slip-ups you had (including the details like emotions that you documented with them.) and any routines and rituals that you documented each in separate sections of the blank paper(you may need more than one piece of blank paper). Once you have all the information written down in front of you, start comparing all of it and look for the commonalities.

For example, say you had documented five slip-ups, three triggers, and three rituals. Four out of five slip-ups you documented feeling stressed about work which led to you needing to smoke, all three of your triggers you documented were caused by stress from your work, and one out of the three routines and rituals you documented were involved with your work schedule. In the best-case scenario taking time off of work for a couple of weeks or even finding a new job would probably be the best solution in this case.

The above example is just a really simple and rather boring example. It is only purposed to make sure you understand the concept of journaling in this plan specifically. Tips &

Tips & Tricks

• The more information you add to your journal throughout this plan, the more accurate your results will be when you analyze the information, and the better you can use the results to your advantage for staying away from tobacco after the plan has ended.
• Make sure you consider every angle when strategizing on how to counteract the things that trigger you to smoke. Sometimes it is necessary to go to the extreme to make sure you don't fall back into your old ways or pick up old habits.
• If you smoked in your house or room at all, I  recommend maybe even washing your bedding and wiping down everywhere there might be cigarette ashes or residue around so that you don't get a whiff of tobacco after the plan is over which can draw you to smoke again.

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End Note

There are many ways one can go about trying to quit smoking and this is just one idea that happens to work for me! If this plan does not sound fit for your personal conditions, that is fine and I would recommend that you keep searching for another way that suits you better if that is the case. But, if you have tried many times to quit and all your attempts to quit have failed, then you might want to consider trying this strategy or at least go through and pick and choose some of the techniques I use in this plan and use some of my idea's to start crafting your own strategy and plan and customize it to your likings. After all, I did write this whole plan out in hopes of helping others who struggle with nicotine addiction be able to beat their addiction. So whatever the case is, I would just like to see you overcome your addiction no matter what strategies or techniques you decide to use in the end!

I hope everyone who reads this, can gain something beneficial from it and anyone who is struggling to quit their nicotine addiction, I wish you the best of luck! Remember that no matter what, you have it in you to do it, it just takes a lot of commitment to follow through. but it's 100% possible and I believe in you!

- Codie D Wilkinson

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Resources

www.Smokefree.gov - This website, run by the National Cancer Institute, offers a wealth of information, including a quit plan, tips for dealing with cravings, and information on different cessation methods. It's a great place to explore different strategies

National Cancer Institute (NCI) - As mentioned above, the NCI is a reliable source of information on cancer prevention and treatment, and their smoking cessation resources are excellent.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) - The CDC also provides comprehensive resources on quitting smoking, including information on the health benefits of quitting and strategies for overcoming addiction.

The American Lung Association (ALA): - The ALA offers programs and resources to help people quit smoking, including their Freedom From Smoking program.

1-800-QUIT-NOW - This is a national quit line that provides free counseling and support to smokers who want to quit. You can call this number to get personalized help and connect with resources in your area.  

Nicotine Anonymous - This is a support group for people who are addicted to nicotine, similar to Alcoholics Anonymous. Connecting with others who understand the challenges can be very beneficial.

Copyright Info

Solution To Quit Smoking In 3 Weeks © 2025 by Codie D Wilkinson is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

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