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I smoked from high school until age 37, when I quit to start training for triathlons.

I quit a million times, for as long as a few weeks. Once I was on a flight to Navy OCS and when they served the meal, a free 5 pack was on the tray, along with free drinks. You could smoke in airplanes back then and didn't have to go through a metal detector either, 1966 or so. I lit up all 5 of them on that flight. When the plane landed, I went straight to the cigarette machine and smoked almost the whole pack straight-away.

In 1969 I had a collapsed lung, had the surgery, and when I was released, went straight to the hospital exchange for a carton of Camels!

So when I was feeling lousy, like I was in my 70's, at age 37, my SEAL bro-in-law, one of the founders of triathloning, got me started running, then lent me his back up bike and finally, the first Monday of the new year, I took the $25 I had been spending on cigarettes each month and paid dues at the YMCA where I could swim every morning, as much as I liked, or could stand.

The secret was finding something I would rather do than smoke. I also did not drink alcohol for more than 6 months, not that I am a heavy drinker anyway, but avoided any obvious relaxation of discipline, will power etc. That was that. It's been more than 30 years.

Starting smoking was among the really stupid mistakes of my life, maybe even more so than giving up Scouting a few Merit Badges short of Eagle, an unforced error I lament to this day, more than 50 years later.