There are habits that aren’t just routines—they’re crutches, masks, even prayers. Smoking was never just about nicotine. It was silence, rebellion, punishment. It was a way to mark time, to stain the hours with something visible, something that burned when I couldn't. Quitting wasn’t noble. It wasn’t linear. It was like tearing a part of myself out by the root and hoping what remained could still stand.
When I gave up cigarettes, something else began to die too—my appetite for the unnecessary. The clutter in drawers, the promises I never meant to keep, the people I let stay just because I feared the quiet they’d leave behind. Minimalism didn’t arrive like a clean decision; it emerged like a bruise—slow, tender, undeniable. I didn’t want more space. I needed less noise.
There's a brutal poetry in abstaining. It doesn’t reward you. It confronts you. The mornings after quitting felt sterile. No ritual, no fire, no inhale to punctuate my isolation. But slowly I began to see: what I missed wasn’t the cigarette—it was the illusion of anchoring. That’s what minimalism echoed back to me. It asked: Who are you without your distractions? Without your small self-made altars to escape?
Letting go of things is easy when you're angry. Harder when you're grieving. Cigarettes were a form of self-possession. So were the books I didn’t read, the shirts I never wore, the opinions I held just to belong. I didn’t declutter to organize—I did it to mourn. To accept that almost everything I’d surrounded myself with had been a smokescreen. The clearing wasn’t a goal. It was an act of fidelity to my own inner silence.
Now, life is not purer. It’s raw. I walk through it with less to carry, but more to feel. I don’t claim peace. I claim presence. The cigarette left its ghost, but it took the excess with it. Minimalism wasn’t the after—it was the reckoning. Beneath the ash, there was no fire left to light. Only breath. And that was enough.
All photographs and content used in this post are my own. Therefore, they have been used under my permission and are my property.
Hey. I haven't read you before and don't know you at all, but I loved this post. I've just seen my smoker self pictured in it and also found in it some missing words to describe abstinence and kind of the loneliness cigarrete leaves behind after vanishing. I've always compared it with the grief after losing someone you love, that emptiness, that lack of desire, that heaviness, that cloudy horizon, that excessive and annoying energy I don't have use for and don't want around cause it shifts from energy to grieving anger.
I believe you have explained it real poetic but truthfully as possible. Loved wveey aspect of it. I feel the sa.e,I think we all (smokers) felt this way. What's really important is rebuild ourselves and try to be as good as we could. Thank you for stopping by and for read my words for the very first time.
Rebuilding ourselves after smoking ain't easy, specially when we have a relapse and know we have to go all the hard way again from the beginning. That's where I am now.
My words might have sounded poetic but believe me, it all comes down to that most of the times I quit it. The pure truth is carried by those words. Thank you.
One day you will reach there, you will quit smoking, friend. Little by little, step by step you will get there. Just don't forget your goal
This image belongs to millycf1976 and was manipulated using Canva.
I can't relate to the feeling but believe you made a smart decision at least for the sake of your health. Applying the minimalist values in coping with quitting is a beautiful one. Cheers.