I quit briefly many times, and once held out for a stretch of 2 years, but I always thought of myself as being a smoker, until:

I was at a relative-of-a-friend's wedding reception in a small hall filled with chain-smokers. I only had 3 cigartettes all night. Saturday night.

My chest hurt until Tuesday. I was coughing and trying not to scream.

Wednesday, I lit one of the remaining cigs in my pack. It tasted wrong. I put it out. I decided to try quitting again. That was about 10 years ago.

It's different this time. I had to avoid all of the usual smoking cues, which meant that I stayed out of bars for 3 weeks (no bad thing in itself), and it helped that I worked in a place with a no-smoking policy. I was down to less than half a pack a day when I stopped.

The main thing now is knowing just how disgusting smokers smell! I'm amazed that my parents didn't kick me out of the house back when I started smoking at age 15. Calgary is one of the last bastions of public smoking. I don't go out much, because I get nauseated by the stench in the bars, and I have to scrub myself raw when I get home, to get the dirty-ashtray reek out of my skin and hair. And I have to seal my clothes in a plastic bag so they don't stink up the house, until I can get them into the washer.

I don't plan on gigging in this town until it goes smoke-free. :p