I gave it up cold turkey. I started at 16 (which was the legal age at the time) and quit at 21. I'm 30 in a few weeks, so it's going well. Always makes me laugh when someone says "yeah I quit... three days ago."

I think what helped me was never making a conscious decision to quit as such, none of this "YEAH TODAY IS THE DAY!!" kind of thing because that adds unnecessary pressure to do so. My girlfriend also smokes, as does my dad and sister, so I never felt pressured to quit at any time so the decision and the journey was mine to make and take alone. With most things of course it helps having someone cheering you on, but with smoking that constant reminder is detrimental to your success. Honestly it's a hell of a lot easier to tell your friends and family simply not to say anything about giving up rather than willing you on - the same applies with e-cigs, patches, help groups and all the rest of it in my opinion, they may be good for some people but they're all constant reminders that by god, you want to smoke.

Again with the idea of not setting a date to quit, I did it when I was unwell with a cold during the month of February. I hated smoking when ill so I didn't at all for two weeks, and when I felt better I decided to see how long I could go without having a smoke as the urge to never came back (and to this day still hasn't). I never smoked in the house which is why quitting in February helped as well, I remember the weather being awful as is the norm in the UK so the idea of going outside to have a quick smoke in the rain didn't appeal to me either, so that factor helped me a lot as well.