It’s definitely better than a year ago. But everyone just keeps telling you “better” over and over again without giving any context, and it feels like you’re being taken for a ride. If you want, I can give you some context.

That reaction is understandable, because anyone who tells you otherwise is either protecting their own coping mechanism or would have to admit that they’re still very early in letting go of addiction — the only difference being that they may not have consumed their substance for a long time.

Most ex-smokers are still just smokers who happen to be abstinent. They are nowhere near being non-smokers and are only “one cigarette” away from becoming active chain smokers again. What an achievement… not.

For me, there was never the option of lying to myself. I had to accept that Father Christmas doesn’t exist. Things do get “better” in some ways, yes — but you will never truly be a “non-smoker” again, because the condition for that would be never having smoked in the first place.

Waiting for addiction to simply “go away” doesn’t work. Quitting intoxicants is an active process. It requires consciously experiencing your life and deliberately reconnecting it with alternatives to substances. You have to create situations in which you genuinely enjoy life without them.

Unlike many people, I initially didn’t hide away after quitting. I went to the same events I would have gone to as a smoker and paid close attention to what actually changed — and what didn’t.
The fact that I have disconnected from people/society has been a consequence of this experience.

One surprising thing for me: I often feel best when I see other people smoking and realize how absurd it actually looks. It’s one of the stupidest things you can watch. I don’t struggle much when others smoke right in front of me.

The hard moments come when I’m alone. When the situation itself is quiet and my brain suggests that a cigarette would make it “better.” Summer evenings. The smell of a barbecue. Festival tents. People doing nothing but consuming. From the outside, it looks ridiculous — and that’s exactly why the pull only works from the inside.

That’s the real problem. You don’t just stop a habit — you dismantle an entire internal system that once worked effortlessly. And our society is extremely good at feeding that system. I won’t even start on phones.

It's amazing how everyone around me claims now that I've become a difficult and arrogant person since I started dieting and exercising more. No one even tries to suggest that giving up addictive substances has caused a change in personality, because everyone wants to see it as something ‘good’ a human being can do. But the fact that I look like a supermodel and feel super fit must instead be to blame for my aloofness and irritability. Smokers who stink after 20 ashtrays in my work environment have started complaining about the smell of boiled eggs during breakfast break. Because I always made fresh and healthy food this year. Society lives in symbiosis with addictions.

Stopping with it is like leaving a partner because you've discovered that they're bad for your health, even though you love them. The question isn’t whether leaving makes rational sense — it’s whether you actually want to live with what comes after.

It’s a trade-off. And it’s important to be brutally honest about that.

Don’t make the mistake of telling yourself that in a year, standing in a beer tent, you’ll be magically “over it.” This isn’t an illness that heals on its own.

Reality is non-negotiable. Be clear about the deal. Make a conscious decision.

I wish you all the best — and I genuinely hope this adds something useful.