I started paying attention to my smoking, and kept a journal of every cigarette. After a couple of weeks I was able to pick out the times I was smoking out of habit instead of actual cravings, and I started skipping those cigarettes. Then I slowly started experimenting to see how long I could ignore the cravings before I just HAD to smoke, and the cravings started getting further and further apart. It took months, but eventually the cravings were so far apart that I was down to 1 or 2 a day, then I set a quit date a few weeks away. And that time I was actually able to stick to it. But man it was hard to finally get to that point.