Despite decades of public health campaigns, smoking remains stubbornly persistent. Around 10% of American adults still smoke cigarettes, while millions more use e-cigarettes and other nicotine products. Nicotine is among the most addictive substances known, altering the brain’s reward pathways and making quitting notoriously difficult. 

Most people who smoke want to stop. Many try repeatedly before they succeed. 

I first tried to quit smoking when I was 24 years old. By then, I’d already been smoking for 13 years; I’d started when I was 11 years old by picking up discarded cigarette butts in the neighborhood while I was out wandering. This was made possible because I was left home alone for exceedingly long stretches of time. I was mostly very lonely and lost. 

Smoking was my small yet very satisfying declaration of war. Against the people who didn’t love me the way they were supposed to. Against a childhood that didn’t look like other kids’. But most of all, I was declaring war against myself. After all, no one can kill you if you beat them to it.

In college, my smoking habit hovered at a solid two packs of Marlboro Lights a day. I do remember a very dark period when I was........

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