What is the best way to quit smoking?

I quit cold turkey, which worked well for me, but you have to want it. I'd develop a mantra: 95%+ of people who quit without aid relapse in the first year. I'd repeat to myself, if I could prove I'm in that upper fifth percentile, I could debunk any other figures people tend to throw in my face. (such as: 50% of businesses fail in the first year, 95% within five years? I'm better than that!)

It was a silly trick, but it worked for me, and helped motivate me in other parts of my life.

You could kill two birds by getting regular cardio exercise. I've always been into mountain biking, so whenever I started smoking a bit, I felt it big time on the next ride and never wanted to smoke again. If you can find a way to have fun exercising, you're set, and the post workout buzz is better than nicotine anyway.

Cold turkey. No tobacco ever again. No pipes, cigars, cloves, dip, snuff, chew, gum, patches, pills, or water vapor substitues. Not one smoke. Not just a drag. Not even breathing heavy around someone else who is smoking. You have to toughen yourself mentally, and stay that way. It takes around ten years to totally get over smoking.

You absolutely have to make a decision to quit and stick to it. I was a pack a day smoker for 16 years and quit cold turkey at the beginning of June. For the first few days, while my body was in nicotine withdrawal, I tried to sleep as much as possible. To battle the psychological addiction I drank a ton of water and chewed on tea tree oil toothpicks. After about a month I started doing cardio 3-4 times a week and feel better than I have in years.

This is kind of silly, but it might be the single most important thing I did to not relapse: I installed an app on my iPhone called Quitter which tells me how many days it's been since my last cigarette and how much money I've saved. I live in Chicago and a pack of smokes is $8. That dollar figure is a huge daily affirmation to keep on the wagon.

It sounds stupid, but I just quit buying cigarettes. I've told several people about this and they all laugh, but a couple of my friends have been able to quit the same way. I don't hang out with many people who smoke, so there wasn't a lot of temptation to continue or get back into it.

How I quit...

Basically, ever time I wanted a cigarette, I would just make myself cough and cough until I made myself nauseus. I soon psychologically associated "smoking" with "nausea".

The first 3 months was just constant obsessing. "Am I really NEVER going to have a cigarette again?"
Then, at about the 3 month mark, the "not smoking" became the new habit and i didn't think about it anymore.

Even now, if I smell second-hand smoke, I get a bit nauseus.

Cigarette smoking is usually a force of habit for some people, especially when they feel stressed or carefree. The fact that nicotine can be paired so well with coffee, caffeine or alcohol makes it even tougher to quit. Just the very act of smoking becomes addictive, as you feel sophisticated and thuggish all at the same time.
I won't lecture you on what patch to buy or what psycho-babble works, but what I will say is this: only Barack Obama can get away with smoking a cigarette or two a day and still have perfect teeth. This is because he is a public figure and probably has excellent dental work done routinely. To quit smoking, one does have to actually truly desire to do so. One part of that desire should and can stem from the simple fact that you decide to look your best, not your worst, to the world every day. In this instance you should and can be vain.

It can't really be said enough, you have to want to quit. i was feeling increasingly shittier every morning and vowed i would quit everytime i got out of breath going up a flight of stairs. i realized that it would be ten years since i had started so i decided the day after my 26 birthday i would stop. i was staying with my mother who has always been vehemently anti smoking and told her about this. she kept an eye on me to make sure i didn't try to sneak out for one but to be honest, since it had been my decision i was never all that tempted. susre, i missed them, but a lot of it was to see if if i had the strength and discipline to give up. i perhaps didn't quit the healthiest way, i simply replaced one vice with another, sipping a half shot of scotch everytime i felt a craving to smoke. Its now two days short of nine months since then and i have only caved in once, on holiday, drunk out of my skull, i tried some caramel flavoured rolling tobacco that my dive guide was smoking. it felt great, but the feeling in my chest the next morning just served to remind me why i quit in the first place.

Wanting to quit is a start, but you need to learn how to do all the things you missed when you were smoking. You might not know how to deal with stress because you have been smoking instead of finding a nicotine free solution. Believe it or not, you might not even know what it means to feel 'happy' because you are letting the nicotine replace that too. This is addiction. Join Nicotine Anonymous. When you learn you can't smoke even one, you won't even slip if you go out for a drink. 10 years of heavy smoking... nicotine inhaler, gum, nasal spray, patch, Champix/Chantix, Zyban, dip, snuff and even nicotine hand gel... I didn't know how to be me until i tried Nic-A one month ago. It was harder this time than any other time because I dealt with my feelings.
Meetings are conducted online too. Its easy. Try it.

Woah, this is weird. I'm a Ryan Barrett too.
And I agree with ryan barrett, No nicotine is the way to go. No replacements either.

I quit over a year and a half ago. Using Allen Carr's 'The Easy Way to Stop Smoking'. Most libraries have it.

I know at least 5 other people that have read it and quit (none that read and didn't).

I quit in college, which was by no means easy since you're surrounded by it. How I did it? I had an a-hole friend who kept throwing out my packs, even out the car window once while I was driving. It got to the point where I just couldn't afford to keep buying them.

My point is to get your non-smoking friends to help. Most non-smokers are actually anti-smokers so I bet they'd be more than willing to help kill that nicotine addiction.

Also, just avoid places where there's lots of smokers. This will help a lot.

I would say that one of the easiest ways to quit is to try NLP (neuro linguistic programming). It eradicates the usual problems that are associated with quitting smoking such as cravings, short temper, hunger and weight gain. You can find out more here: http://su.pr/2vX6Ys

Look at the people you love and that love you. Then think about the difficulties smoking introduces everyday to them. Now think of the long-term problems you will cause the people you love.

If you can't see these, you need to quit more than ever.

A few people in my family have had ENORMOUS success with Chantix. The only thing they didnt like were the weird dreams, but they quit. They said they would have never been able to do it without the Chantix.

The cold turkey answers are correct. I would add one thing, though, that worked for me. Quit on vacation. For me, smoking was as much about routine as anything. Go do something out of your routine for a week, get away, and one you get in the car or arrive at the airport, say goodbye to cigarettes. It will be toughest when you get back home and into your routine, but by that point you've already been tobacco-free for a week, and that's a big psychological barrier.

I have to agree with Richard about quitting smoking on vacation. The first few days totally suck and are full of anxiety. Not having to deal with work during the first stages is huge. If you want to try products, check out http://www.myquitsmokingdiary.com. They have a non-sell approach to listing products, what they contain, and how they work. Also, look at the withdrawal symptoms they list out so you're prepared to deal with them and understand why you're feeling the way you do when you quit.