PornMD

Granted I've never smoked so I don't know how well this would work for smoking, but at least for quitting soda this worked for me - give yourself other options and sort of step down using them. Once you quit, every time you feel the urge to smoke, do one of the other options instead, and if they are options involving nicotine or something else unhealthy, keep stepping down until you reach a healthy habit.

Like for soda, every time I wanted soda or was in a position to get a soda (i.e. at fast food places), I'd get diet...then every time I was in position to get diet, I'd get a fruit drink instead (yea still has sugar, but at least no caffeine), then every time I was in position to get fruit drink, I'd get flavored waters (i.e. Propel) instead. Then nearly every time I was in position to get one of those, I'd get water instead.

Slowly but surely I ended up with no addiction to any of them and drinking water 95% of the time. I still drink flavored waters a little bit on a regular basis and diet sodas very rarely, never any fruit drinks or sodas. And for most of my life, I drank at least 4-6 cans worth of soda a day, and at my worst probably more like 3-4 liters worth of soda a day...pretty much every day without fail.

I think something else that may have helped stepped down as well was that at some point I stopped keeping soda in the house and would only have it at work or on the road. I think the significance of that is that I didn't have it right there during late nights when I was usually most vulnerable to bad habits.

__________________