Day 29 after quitting smokingThe long tail

By Yevhenii, who smoked for 26 years · Updated 30 Oct 2026 · 2 min read

In shortLate lapses at three, six or twelve months are rarely about withdrawal. They happen in rare, charged situations such as a wedding or a funeral. Write one if-then line for each situation you have not yet faced without a cigarette.

What's happening in your body

The relapse curve flattens but does not reach zero for a long time. Follow-up studies keep finding people who return to smoking at three, six and twelve months. Late lapses look different from early ones. Withdrawal plays little part in them. They happen in rare, charged situations, a funeral, a breakup, a celebration, a holiday with old friends, that simply did not come up during the first month.

What to expect

Weeks in which you hardly think about smoking, and then one evening when you think about nothing else. It usually comes in a situation that did not exist in the first month, and it can be as strong as anything in the first week. That strength is not a sign that the work was wasted. It is an old cue meeting you somewhere new, as day fifteen described, and it passes the same way.

Try this

Take the list of unfaced situations from day fifteen and write one if-then line for each. If I am at a wedding and people go outside to smoke, then I stay at the table and get a coffee.

What else you could do

The format matters. A plan attached in advance to a specific cue starts by itself, at the moment when thinking clearly is hardest. In a pooled analysis of trials, plans of this kind helped people stop smoking, although the studies differed a lot and few followed people for long. Keep each line short and concrete, one situation and one action. Put the three most likely ones somewhere you will see them, and add a new line whenever life shows you a situation you had not thought of.

Sources. Hughes, Keely, Naud, 2004. Armitage CJ. A volitional help sheet to encourage smoking cessation: a randomized exploratory trial. Health Psychol, 2008. McWilliams L, Bellhouse S, Yorke J, Lloyd K, Armitage CJ. Beyond planning: a meta-analysis of implementation intentions to support smoking cessation. Health Psychol, 2019.