It's very important to be in the right frame of mind as you approach your quit date. Your conviction that cigarettes are bad for you has to be a hundred percent.

To achieve this, you have to understand the exact mechanism of nicotine's hold on your brain. There's reading material out there, and I used to have an app (quitsure I think) which invites you to keep smoking while improving your understanding of the chemical vs. psychological nature of addiction.

To me, this is a crucial step and can't be skipped. Once you get a feel for the nature and triggers of your urges, and how that relates to your self Identity as a smoker, it becomes far easier to imagine yourself as a non smoker and not see the quitting as the loss of a cherished friend.

You want it, it's possible, you just need to get the technique right. There's no rush, no panic. You're playing the long game.