C

The Survivor

Cole Hartman

Author of "Once a Smoker, Never a Smoker Again"

I started smoking at 9 years old outside my dad's church, smoked for roughly 24 years, and quit at 33 after a 911 call that ended with an EMT saying "jesus christ" at my nicotine intake. I'm not a doctor and I don't pretend to be — I'm just a guy who survived it and writes the raw truth about what quitting actually looks like.

I smoked from age 9 to 33. Here's what finally worked.

No doctor wrote this. No clinic funded it. One ex-smoker who lost years, jobs, and almost his life — telling you the raw truth so you don't have to learn it the hard way.

Part I: The Hook

How a nine-year-old kid outside a Virginia church ended up a two-pack-a-day smoker for 24 years.

  1. 1

    The Lipstick Cigarette

    I'll just open with my first cigarette. Seems too obvious, but here we go. I am 9 years old, outside the back door of my Dad's church.

  2. 2

    The Basement Cartons

    My brother and I shared a bedroom in the basement. Behind the wood paneling I kept cartons of cigarettes. Full cartons. I was eleven years old.

  3. 3

    The Chimney

    The day I walked out of that school in Idaho, my buddy bought me a pack of smokes. Three years without a cigarette — gone in one drag.

Part II: The Trap

The lies, the plotting, and how a Netflix documentary sold me the worst decision of my life.

  1. 4

    The Lies We Tell Ourselves

    I refused to date a girl who smoked. I thought it was disgusting. I was smoking two packs a day. Let that sink in for a second.

  2. 5

    The Two-Year Plot

    You can't quit until you want to quit. Not just want — until every bit of your being wants to. That took me two decades of smoking to figure out.

  3. 6

    The Juul Documentary

    I watched a documentary on Netflix about Juul and realized it was basically a commercial disguised as a warning. And it worked.

Part III: The Break

Christmas Day, a Juul, and the 911 call that ended it all.

  1. 7

    Christmas Day (The Last Cigarette)

    Dec 25, 2019. I had some adult film stars to my house and we ate a bunch of mushrooms. That was the night I smoked my last cigarette.

  2. 8

    The Knight in Shining Armor (The Juul Trap)

    In comes Juul. The beginning of a straight up nightmare. I had quit smoking. I was consuming five times more nicotine than when I smoked.

  3. 9

    The 911 Call

    They asked how much I was using. I told them. They said 'jesus christ.' Game over for me mentally. This is the story of the last day I used nicotine.

Want the full story + the how-to?

Author of "Once a Smoker, Never a Smoker Again"

The memoir above is Parts I–III. The quit playbook — the methods, the war council, the real tactical guide — is in the full book.

Get the full book + quit playbook →