I hear you on that--how to start. I quit when I was 54 after decades of smoking and it felt very weird to be changing my mind about smoking. It felt weird to choose to quit, to deny myself smoking. Kind of like I was stabbing myself in the back. I felt that if I'd smoked for so long, every day, year after year--who was I to turn all this around and become a nonsmoker?
And trying to imagine myself as a nonsmoker felt fake. I thought that in choosing to quit I had to somehow get the whole quit picture right away, feel good about it and just quit in an easy breezy way because I'd made up my mind.
It doesn't help that there is a well known book out there that is incorrectly titled "The Easy Way to Quit." The reality is that quitting is doable, that it is an individual journey for each person and that there is no easy way to quit--some have an easier time than others. But in general, quitting takes work one day at a time. You grow into your quit over time, then there comes a time when you see that you don't need or want to smoke every again. The active addiction is over, all you have to do is take care to never again believe that smoking matters. It gets easier.
If you don't know how to start, then don't. First learn all you can about the addiction, read what other quitters have to say about how they quit, how they feel about quitting after succeeding. Question yourself. Try new things, like not smoking when you are most likely to--hold off for an hour. Think about your routines, your thoughts surrounding smoking. Take time to think about your addiction. Stop smoking for a day, a trial quit. Test, think, question. Don't get stuck in the emotional trap of believing you can't--that's addiction talking.
Deciding to quit is a big deal, but getting used to the idea that you want to quit--and wil--is just as big a deal. A quit date means absolutely nothing if you don't believe you can quit. One of the important things you can do today is start breaking your addiction routines.
One day at a time you can do this.
