Quit Day is what we call the day you stop smoking. For some, it can be a day of great importance, marked on the calendar and accompanied by solemn rituals. For others, Quit Day may be a circumstantial date, perhaps without planning, but as a consequence of the diagnosis of an illness, bad news, or a “sudden decision”. Both approaches are valid; what matters is stepping into your new smoke-free life.

People who prepare in advance to stop smoking, and set a date on the calendar, can give Quit Day greater significance. In life we need rituals and special dates to break out of routine and to close some life stages and begin others. In the past, rites of passage into adulthood were celebrated; nowadays we celebrate New Year, birthdays, retirement, or funerals, to mention just a few. These acts help to leave behind whatever one wants or needs to say goodbye to in one’s life, and to think about what other things one wants to bring into the life ahead.

Quitting smoking is, without a doubt, a hugely important life change, which, if you feel like it, you can ritualise with some kind of get-together, meal, celebration or reward, as long as that activity does not predispose you to smoke.

For Quit Day we recommend some strategies that will be useful to make this step a firm and solid one. These strategies will also be useful in the days or weeks after Quit Day, so you can reuse them at any point in the process:

Remove from your environment and clean everything that reminds you of tobacco: ashtrays, lighters, full or empty packets, photos where you are smoking, matches, rolling papers, promotional products… from home as well as from the car or anywhere else. We also suggest washing your clothes, perhaps even using a new detergent, with a different smell that helps you remember the change you have just begun. Air out the house and let freshness into your life. You can even take the opportunity to go to the dentist for a cleaning or oral check-up that gives you that feeling of cleanliness and serves as an anchor, a bodily reminder. Deep cleaning can act as a tobacco repellent for a few days, similar to how, when you brush your teeth at night, you avoid eating afterwards.
Set goals day by day. For example: The goal is not to smoke today; tomorrow we’ll see. The further away in time you place the goal (never smoking again), the further away the feeling of satisfaction and reward involved in achieving the goal will be, and therefore motivation will be lower. In addition, short-term goals are much more realistic and easier to achieve. It is important for successes to accumulate. That is, if you manage not to smoke today, you will have a slight sense of success, because you have fulfilled the intention you set in the morning. We encourage you to accumulate the QuitNow milestones that unlock as the smoke-free days go by, because they will feed the experience of achievement which, in turn, will feed motivation, consolidate your commitment to yourself to stay firm and abstinent, and strengthen your self-esteem. If you set yourself the goal of never smoking again in your life, and there is a relapse after 2 months, the feeling will be one of failure. By contrast, if you have been able to experience several feelings of success and different daily achievements, that process can be evaluated in a positive way and, therefore, it will be easier to resume. If the process and the relapse are defined merely as a failure, it will take more mental effort to restart it.
Create a CV of positive feedback. In the previous point we talked about the importance of feelings of achievement. In emotional terms, situations experienced as achievements tend to generate feelings of joy, and the need associated with joy is being able to share it with other people. Meet this need and share your achievements and milestones, both in the QuitNow community and outside it. Pay attention, and even write down in a notebook in CV format (date and person) all the positive statements about you that come to you from the people around you or your networks. It is important to collect personal appreciation in these first days, and there is usually a tendency to remember negative feedback more than positive. We suggest that you write down, throughout the day, everything positive that people say about you, whether it is related to tobacco abstinence or to any other aspect.
Establish new habits from the first day: a small routine that anchors abstinence to your life and your day-to-day and reminds you that your commitment to yourself is still in force: a brief shower outside your usual time slot, a different drink always at the same time, a different route to work, or carrying a meaningful object that functions as an anchor (it is an association between an object and the intention).
Rearrange the furniture at home, buy new plants, paint a wall, hang new pictures, or make any other change in the décor or layout of the home that reminds you that you are in a new phase. The context and environment must be part of that change. In that way we give life a new colour, a different, fresh and novel look. Abstinence will be easier to maintain if it is accompanied and sustained by other changes, than if it is treated as an isolated movement from the other areas of life.
If you have built associations between smoking and other activities, times of day, drinks or foods, we recommend introducing different activities at those moments. For example, after meals, brush your teeth immediately and, if possible, go for a walk. Or else, swap coffee or beer (alcohol reduces self-control) for another drink. Or, if you used to smoke at the bus stop, take the Underground, etc.
If the people you live with smoke, you can ask them not to do it in your presence, or to do it outside the home.
If you can, clear a bit of your work schedule for the first few days. Avoid stress.
If you were filling in a consumption calendar as a way of preparing for abstinence, keep marking each day in green to signpost and visualise smoke-free days.
Write a farewell letter to tobacco, in which you address the cigarettes directly, as if they were a person you are breaking up with. Describe the moments you have lived through, the good and the bad, and the reasons why you are quitting. Thank them for their company, if you think it is necessary. Let them know your reproaches, if you feel it is appropriate. Accept ambivalence: it is a letter without censorship and without correction. You can talk about the relationship you have established with tobacco, as it may have become a central element of your life, present in important moments. It can also be good to refer to your own experiences, make explicit the need for change and for a break with the cigarette, and express grief and loss and expectations for the future. You may feel anger, sadness, ambivalence, joy or fear. For example, you may feel afraid of living through an ordeal or of not being able to do it (how am I going to be able to live without tobacco? What happens if I fail? What could happen if I keep smoking?). It is natural to feel different emotions, and it would also be natural not to feel anything in particular, although usually, in order to move forward, you have to touch the emotions, since emotions allow us to identify dangers, bond with each other, love ourselves and others, defend ourselves and, in short, make us human. Finally, the goal is to say goodbye to tobacco. You can reread this letter in difficult moments. Or burn it. Reading the letter in front of important people often strengthens commitment, for example family, friends or group therapy peers. You can also put a stamp on it, and when a month, or three, or six, or twelve have passed since Quit Day, send it to yourself by post. If you are still abstinent, receiving it through the letterbox will be a reason to celebrate. If there has been a relapse, it can be a way to motivate you for a new attempt.
Write a commitment contract with yourself, which includes your name, identity document, date of birth, and the written commitment not to smoke again from the indicated date. In addition, we suggest that if later you consider smoking again, you only do so after terminating, even temporarily, this contract in writing. For example, by adding a small clause according to which you exit the contract. The goal is for the commitment contract to have remained in force throughout the entire period of abstinence, and for relapse to occur within a framework of interruption of the contract. That will preserve the usefulness of the contract if later you want to rethink that commitment. On the other hand, having to terminate the contract in writing makes relapse more awkward and gives you more time to think about it, which will reduce impulsivity and may perhaps help to avoid that relapse. You can sign the contract alone, or with a friend or family member, who must never take on a controlling role, but who can appear as a symbolic guarantor of that contract, and sign it with you. It is a way of making commitment a shared process.
Find distractions for the mind: watch a film, go for a walk, listen to music, draw, go to places where smoking is forbidden, etc.
Find distractions for the body: breathing exercises, sport, a cold shower, etc. For the mouth: breadsticks, cinnamon sticks, carrot sticks, chewing gum, toothpicks, water (drinking plenty of water speeds up the elimination of nicotine), etc. For the fingers: pencils, paper clips, stress balls, etc. There are precisely activities that you will be able to do better and better, such as breathing or exercising. Try to take deep breaths every morning, holding the air for a few seconds before letting it out.
Carry out activities that give you pleasure: try to live as hedonistically as possible. The body itself can be a source of pleasure: you can play with temperatures, textures, massages, or give more space to sexuality and introduce tasty foods, etc. We recommend avoiding alcohol and caffeine. This suggestion is related to the fact that when you stop smoking you may have the feeling that you are losing something in the realm of pleasure, although later we will explain that smoking is not pleasurable, but rather relieves withdrawal syndrome.

Many people have achieved it. You can too. It is important that you know two things about cravings to smoke: the first is that they are not forever; they lessen. The second is that a thought or a desire is not the same as behaviour. Wanting to smoke or thinking about smoking does not necessarily lead you to smoke. Those cravings can be unpleasant, but they do not invariably lead you to the act of smoking.