I used to smoke between 20 and 30 cigs a day. This was something like fifteen years ago. Over the years, I've been cutting down gradually. Five years ago I smoked maybe ten ciggies a day. Generally I feel that the first 10 cigs were rather easy to skip. The next 5 were difficult. And as the ciggies/day crept closer and closer to zero the more difficult it got.

The last three months I've managed to smoke a total of seven cigarettes.

Its a major pain. In reality my ambition was to quit completely but... when the craving hits me I find myself using my entire mind- all the logical skills I've learned over the years- completely focused on convicing myself why I should take that ciggie. That its ok. That its not _that_ bad for my health. etc.

And its almost impossible to resist.

At least for me, its this last cigarette I find the most difficult.

I've had the opposite experience. Whenever I was down to one or two cigarettes per day, I'd find myself using almost 100% of all my brainpower trying to convince myself to not give in to the craving. In the end, I decided that it would be more productive to smoke a few sticks a day and not have the craving run as a * * * * * /bin/trytosmoke cron job the whole day.

I've been able to keep it down to about 5 per day for a couple of years now.

Wow, good luck.

Nobody I know quit smoking by "reducing" it. It's always either you do smoke, or you don't.

I am 28 and have been smoking since I was 16, have "quit" two times counting something close to three years combined, but have obviously returned to it later. Both times I quit I simply:

1. Threw the cigarette box I had with me.

2. Did not lit a cigarette, no matter what strange ways my brain took in order to seduce me back to it.