Hi, welcome to the You Can Quit Smoking podcast, where we go over stories of success with overcoming smoking addiction. Many people have moved through this radical transformation and use smoking as an opportunity for inner growth, with deeper self-awareness and a greater capacity for compassion. So many have done it and you can quit smoking, too. I'm your host, Jessi Hartnett, founder of Honor Your Heart.

Jessi:

Hey everyone, welcome back. I'm here today with Richard. Richard, can you introduce yourself?


Richard:

Hi everybody. My name is Richard. I'm a husband and father. I am middle-aged and I have enjoyed listening to the show and I am happy to be a guest here. So, thank you for having me, Miss Jessi.


Jessi:

Thank you for being here. I'm happy to talk with you and hear your story. So, talk to us about smoking. What's your story?


Richard:

I don't remember when I had my first cigarette, but I was pretty young. I was probably in the eleven to twelve range. I remember being in middle school and having it. But I started smoking when I was sixteen.


The reason I started smoking is work. My first job was at McDonald's. They would always send me out to take the trash because everyone else smoked and they knew that I would come in quicker than everyone else. I eventually, I think like most people do, rage quit that job.


Jessi:

Same here. [laughter]


Richard:

[laughter] Anybody who's been in fast food, either you have or you have seen somebody just be done and just leave. But my second job was at a Taco Bell. So I was sixteen or maybe seventeen. If you were a smoker, you got extra breaks.


So I decided, “Everyone around me is smoking. My mom smokes. All of my friends smoke. All of my aunts and uncles smoke. Most of my cousins did. Why not?” I started smoking at work. And eventually that went from just smoking at work to just being a smoker.


And truth be told, I had a lot of fun with it. I found a lot of community in it. The thrill of knowing which gas station to go to just so I could buy cigarettes or beer for that. Eventually, that turned into getting to know people at the gas station. And I think that's a relationship a lot of smokers have. Going into their favorite gas station, talking to whoever it is behind the counter that you see every morning or however often you buy your cigarettes. That's how I ended up smoking.


And I smoked for a good eleven years. Quitting, it was a challenge. I, like just about everybody, lied to myself about quitting. I lied to other people. I rationalized when I was going to quit and how I was going to quit.


But the motivating factor behind it was ultimately my children. My wife didn't like smoking. She didn't want me to be smoking around her. So I smoked at work. I smoked when she was gone. When my kids were born, I knew that I never wanted them to see me smoke. And so I never smoked around them.


There was a lot that went into it, but I found myself dealing with some pretty deep depression. It's a tough subject to approach. But I'm a veteran. I was a first responder. I worked EMS, and worked as a firefighter. I got exposed to a lot of things.


And then before that, I grew up in a pretty abusive household. And I was homeless for a little while. When you're homeless when you're seventeen or eighteen, you get into a mindset of grinding and pushing forward. And no matter what happens, you just have to keep moving forward.


And cigarettes were part of that. It helped me stay awake at night. It helped me take a minute to myself whenever I was upset about something. That mindset eventually led me to a pretty dark place.


I was out of the military. I was dealing with some injuries. I went to the VA for help and I hadn't signed up for the VA healthcare. So, when I walked in, they told me I wasn't a real veteran. And I was just just kind of flabbergasted by this whole thing.


And I realized right then and there that I had lived through a lot of things. I shouldn't be alive, but I survived a lot. And depression wasn't what was going to get me. So, I decided that I needed, “Am I the type of person that I need to be? Am I getting the right help that I need to get?”So, I started to address my mental health and then I started to address my physical health.


I ended up going to therapy. The first therapist I talked to, she was my age. And she was a veteran specialist. I don't think she'd ever talk to a veteran a day in her life. I remember like at the end of the first session, she looked scared. And I was just like, “There's no way.” And so, I fired her, so to speak.


I shopped around and finally found a therapist that I could talk to that seemed like she knew what she was doing. She helped me start dealing with a lot of the trauma I had dealt with in the past. And that helped me to recognize that I don't need cigarettes and so I was able to put them down.


Jessi:

I think that story is amazing and I just want to thank you for sharing vulnerably. It sounds like you've been through some rough things. Facing those parts of ourselves that we don't want to deal with is, I think, very effective in helping us overcome these addictions when we're looking outside of ourselves instead of looking within. And it can be very painful.


And so I just admire you for doing that work. Were you able to just quit smoking on one try? What did that kind of look like? Is that something that you wanted for a long time?


Richard:

I quit smoking probably four times. The first time I quit smoking, I was forced into it. So it's when I joined the military, I went through basic training and it was 3 months and I was smoke free. I wanted to get in better shape, put myself in a better position.


But when I finished that two-month long process of joining the military and being in basic training. When I got to the fire academy, the very first thing I did was try to celebrate with a cigarette. That's when I recognized that I didn't actually want to quit.


One of those things where you're kind of lying to yourself about wanting to do it. That's kind of where my mind was.


Jessi:

Didn't really have your heart in it.


Richard:

No, it it wasn't there. And then I tried quitting when my daughter was born. So, she was born in 2013. And I quit for quite a while. I switched over to vaping for a little bit and I was off cigarettes and vaping for about a month or month and a half.


And then I don't remember exactly what happened, but there was a problem with the in-laws. It was an incredibly stressful situation and I went back to my crutch of smoking. One cigarette turned into a pack. Next thing you know, I'm smoking again. That stretch there was probably a couple of months smoke free if you include vaping as smoke free.


And then the final nail in the coffin was COVID


Jessi at Midroll:

Before we jump back to the show, I have an important announcement for those of you considering a permanent shift. I want to talk to you about Personal Coaching.

As we look ahead to 2026, I’m planning some incredible expansions to my one-on-one program to help you quit smoking for good, and because of this, the investment for Personal Coaching Packages will be increasing starting January 1st.

If you've been listening to these stories and realizing you're ready to commit to the deep, personalized work required to finally move on from smoking, this is your chance to lock in your coaching at the current 2025 rate.

Don't wait until the New Year; start your transformation now and save. You can find the link to book a free connection call and learn more in today’s show notes.

https://www.honoryourheart.net/schedule

Now, let's get back to the episode.


Richard:

So, I had decided that I'm only going to smoke at work. And so I wasn't smoking at home and I was only smoking for a portion of the day. COVID hit, the children came home and I was just like, "Okay, well that's it. There's no place for me to smoke."


And so now I'm off. And that was I guess it's been five years now.


Jessi:

You kind of got pushed into that situation where you had to make a choice.


Richard:

And I mean, truth be told, I love smoking. I hate what it did to my body. It’s the rationally insane side of every smoker. You know, it's bad for you, but it's something that you enjoy doing. A lot of us enjoy doing, I should say. And so that was there.


And then in that process of during COVID quitting, I realized one thing that I didn't actually know how to meet people outside of smoking. Aside from some people I knew in high school and stuff like that, like just about everybody I knew I've met through smoking. And still to this day, most of the people I know either are smokers or were smokers.


So I started doing a lot of reading. I decided that the type of person I wanted to be wasn't a smoker. And the type of person I wanted to be is somebody who would read. And so I started reading a few self-help books.


Which by the way, anybody listening to this, be careful with self-help books. Some of them are kind of culty and they try to get you to like, “Join my Facebook group.” The next thing you know, they're trying to sell you something. Just be mindful of that.


But I read a book. It was How to Talk to Everybody. It was like 92 ways. I don't remember the name of the author. But one of the tips that they gave was to have a “What's it?”. And a “What's it?” is just something that sticks out and can be used as a conversation starter.


So I started looking for those on people. So, if I saw somebody like at the gym, it's like, "Hey, can you give me some advice on how to do this lift?" If it's a woman I'm talking to, it's like, "Oh, hey, I noticed that you have these really cool sneakers." Or, "Hey, those nails are pretty cool." That is usually a gateway into a conversation that I get to have.


And so, instead of like, "Hey, could I have a light?" It was, "Hey, that's pretty cool." That helped out quite a bit.


And then like to help me stay off cigarettes, reading was a big thing. I put a lot of value on learning new things and keeping my mind busy. And so, one of the things that I found was music that's very relatable to me.


I owe a lot to a couple bands out of Maryland. There's a band called Pasadena. Their lead singer, his name is Joey Harkum. He's on a solo act now. And there's a band called Bumpin’ Uglies. They're all out of Maryland. And they sing a lot of songs about being broke and like living through things. And there's some of them that talk about depression. I know I sent you a song called Optimism in F#.


That's helped me out a lot. Just taking a minute to where I would go smoke, I would now take a minute and go listen to a song and recenter myself.


Jessi:

And connect emotionally.


Richard:

Yeah, it's there. Instead of me just trying to run away and do something bad for myself, I'm running away and doing something that prepares me to go back into whatever stressful situation or life situations there are.


I also found a couple of fun guided meditations. There's a good one, it's “Fuck This Shit.” It's that instead of the normal like gongs playing in the background.


Jessi:

[laughter] Yeah, I wasn't expecting that!


Richard:

Yeah, and that's something that I can relate to. Seeing people who were like me or familiar. People that seem like they're relatable and listening to what they've gone through has helped out quite a bit. And so that's one of the ways I've been able to help stay off and then replace cigarettes with something semi-productive anyway.


Jessi:

Do you still have cravings or are you over them?


Richard:

I still do. We've got a school situation going on right now. There's probably a week where I was like, "Okay, I know my neighbor smokes. Let me just go like, "Hey neighbor, how are you doing? Do you mind if I get one off of you?" But I've gotten to the point where I'm no longer doing that.


So, the last cigarette I had, it was probably three or four years ago. I'd quit smoking for probably a year or two. Somebody close to me had passed away and I went and bought a pack of cigarettes. And I took two of them out and I threw the pack away.


Which was a very dangerous game for me to play because I know that I come from a long line of addicts. And when we start something that's usually our personality.


Jessi:

All in, yeah.


Richard:

I smoke those two cigarettes. I felt like shit. My lungs hurt. I felt like I quit on myself. And so there was a little bit of shame involved with those two cigarettes.


I mean the thoughts are still there. I don't think they're ever going to go away. I still think about drinking every once in a while.


I think that there's events that we have where there was life before and there's life after. And once I was done with cigarettes. And I had enough time for my body to chill out from the cravings, the day-to-day addiction process of it. It feels like I'm in that life afterwards right now and I'd like for it to stay that way.


Jessi:

No, I think that's real. Thanks for sharing that. And yeah, I'm kind of wondering more, just to press a little bit. When you had those two, did you have any relief in going back?


Richard:

No. No, not at all. I had expectations for the first drag. I did. I was like, "Oh, this is going to be fucking great." And no, it wasn't.


I had very violent hiccups like an hour later and I was just like, “I guess mentally I was going through it.” But my body was just like, "No, dude. This is lame." So, it's one of those fun situations.


Jessi:

I think those can be helpful moments for us to hold to when we think we want one. Remember that disappointment. Yeah, because I've been there. I've been there many times. It probably took me a hundred times to really accept that disappointment.


But that was something that was motivating to me is to be in that desperate situation where you're just like, "Hey, I just need a relief.” And then not being able to get it from smoking. So that's when you have to look within and try a different way.


You actually provided a lot of tools there that you use to keep your mind busy. What do you do for the emotional stuff? When you're feeling you're in a grief, you're in that anger, you're in that sadness to have tools for that to kind of keep yourself feeling all right?


Richard:

So, that's something that took a long time. So, I come from a house where my mom drank heavily. She was a drinker, she's a smoker. And so, I was raised in an environment where the only emotions were 100%, it was usually anger, it was usually some type of rage. I grew up thinking that this is how I should respond to things.


Eventually, when you're exposed to enough of the world, you find out that you can't just walk around angry all the time. And so, that was one of the things that I needed to address when I went through therapy. And she specialized in cognitive behavioral therapy.


And one of the things that they preach in that is, emotions aren't bad. We have them and we have them for a reason. It's how we recognize them and how we behave when we're having them. It's having a better relationship with my emotions is what I ended up walking away with.


For me, at the very beginning when I started recognizing I didn't like where I was at in life, I did need to go on an anti-depressant for a little while. And I was on one for probably a year while I got out of… I hate to say funk because that's not the right word. But the funk that I was in.



Because the truth is, I mean, I have literally everything I've ever wanted in life and I was unhappy with myself. I went from homeless to homeowner. And there's a place out where I'm from called the Iron Steamer. I was sleeping there at night and taking a shower on the beach when I was seventeen. And then I bought my house when I was twenty-five. I have a great wife. I have wonderful children.


And so understanding how to function as a proper adult when I didn't have a lot of guidance beforehand, that's where therapy and that medication really came into play. And that's what helped center me and help me have a better grasp of my emotions.


And yeah, I recommend therapy to just about anybody as long as you can afford it. I know times are tough right now.


And then reverting back to some of the tools I picked up in some of the books that I've read over the last couple years. It's just a matter of taking a minute to breathe before you respond to anything. And so like when anger drives up or there's a stressful situation, recognizing that it's not the end of the world and that I can just breathe really brings me back.


Jessi:

I think that's super empowering, especially from where you said you were when you were seventeen. You've come a long way from then and have really taken ownership of your thoughts and your behaviors.


Because I think that's a really pivotal moment for people with smoking. That a lot of us, we smoke because we have these underlying thought patterns where we're kind of self-sabotaging ourselves in a way and playing out what's going on in our minds.
So, I'm wondering about your self-talk. Has that changed?


Richard:

I very much need to call myself a jackass every once in a while. Like that is something that I need to do. I think it's moved more from a negative self-talk to more of like an angry football coach trying to press the right buttons to motivate myself.


Rather than saying, “I am a fuck-up”. It's, “I am fucking up.” I apologize for swearing to anybody out there. But that's a huge difference between calling yourself a failure and realizing that you're failing at this. It's two very different things and it's a small shift. I didn't even realize I was doing it until somebody pointed it out to me. That's helped out quite a bit.


I'm glad you brought that up because there's Tom Coughlin. He's a former football coach and one of the books he wrote was Earn the Right to Win. In it, he talks about how he was a complete hard ass and it took people coming to him saying, "Hey man, we have to make a change.", for him to recognize that he wasn't preparing himself or the people who relied on him in the right way in that moment.


And that ability to listen and to change your mindset for a stubborn old man. If he can do it, why can't you? Why can't I? It's a lesson to take away there. Just recognizing that, “Hey, maybe I do need to make some changes.”


Jessi:

Absolutely. And it starts from within, not from around us, from our environment, from other people.


Richard:

There's a great song called “Miracle”. And it's, “Don't get caught up in waiting on a miracle to come and save you from yourself.”


For us who are quitting smoking, it's like, “Well, no one's going to stop you. You have to stop you.” So yeah.


Jessi:

You're the miracle you're waiting for. Yeah, I like that.


So you got a lot in there that's really helpful. But if you're talking to somebody right now, they're struggling, they want to quit, they've tried, they've not been successful, what key advice would you give to them?


Richard:

Don't let the fear of failure stop you from trying and trying and trying. One of the things that I think a lot of people, not just myself, feel. Especially like when they try to quit. They go a day or two and then they start up again.


There's no direct path to quitting. Everyone's going to be a little bit different. So, take it one day at a time. You'll get there eventually.


And if it's something you can't quit cold turkey, do what I did. Start compartmentalizing smoking. Only smoke at work. And so, when you get home, quit smoking. So, now you cut down smoking from 24 hours a day or 18 hours a day, whatever it is, to just that 8 hour window you're at work or the 10 hour window you're at work. And then, you know, whenever you're ready, cut that part out.


Something else you can try doing is changing your habits as well. So like when I quit, I could no longer go to the same gas station. Because I knew as soon as I walked in, the lady or the guy behind the counter would give me the pack of cigarettes I was going to buy because they knew I was showing up to buy cigarettes. Small things, switching to a different gas station just so you're not in the habit of buying something. There is something that would probably help out with people. Helped me out quite a bit.


Jessi:

Yeah, that's solid advice. Thank you. And I just want to thank you for coming on and speaking from your heart. For telling us what you went through because I know that's not easy.


But we all need to hear different stories because we identify with different pieces of it. And just thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your time with us.


Richard.

So, I will say before we go, I've really enjoyed listening to your show. And hearing people go through the exact same thing. It's quite amazing. It's quite powerful.


I know that I haven't had a candid conversation about quitting or the irrational stories you tell yourself about quitting with any of my friends who have quit before. And that's probably something I should do. But hearing other people talk about it, it's nice knowing we're not alone.


Jessi:

Yeah. And I love it. I love talking with people about it. There's something so connecting about it. That we all kind of did this crazy thing to ourselves, but we went through to the other side and found out who we really are. And there's just something that's so powerful in that and deep in that.


I talk about it in my work as quitting smoking is an initiation. It's like you've been through it and then part of that initiation is you come back to the community. So it's all us that have been through it. You know? We have a bond here. So it's awesome.


Richard:

Yeah, hearing people talk about like quitting weed and then quitting drinking at the same time. I think so many of us we've all been there. I think because we're all smokers, we know a community of smokers. Thank you for what you're doing.


Jessi:

I love it. Thanks for coming on here and for listening. All right, everyone. Take care. See you next week.


End of Interview


Hey, you made it to the very end. If you're still listening, you likely heard my announcement earlier, and you're seriously considering change. Don't let this be just another thought. I know that you can move past your deepest blocks and fully enjoy your life without relying on smoking anymore. I am ready to support you through the tough stuff in coaching. Remember, prices are going up after the New Year, so please book a free connection call now to secure the current rate. You'll find the link in the show notes. Thanks for listening.

https://www.honoryourheart.net/schedule