Our Story

When I was a boy, my dad smoked cigarettes, and so did most of my friends’ dads. Back then children were allowed to buy tobacco, and every so often we’d be sent to the corner store to do exactly that. Copying the older boys on our block, a few of us — aged eight and nine years old — decided to pool our money and buy a pack to try smoking for the first time. Rather than risk getting caught at the corner store, we walked to a chain pharmacy on the far side of our elementary school, where we could buy the cigarettes and get a free book of matches, without being caught by our parents. Back on our block, we huddled behind a neighbor’s garage for what turned into a coughing, gagging, head-spinning, nauseating first attempt for every one of us.

The irony is that I grew up knowing smoking was harmful. So, I used to hide my dad’s cigarettes to stop him from smoking — only to become a heavy smoker myself.

Fast-forward two decades, and I was up to a carton a week, wishing I’d never started. I told myself I’d quit more times than I can count. Most attempts didn’t survive the first few hours; a few times I white-knuckled it for a few days, but lasting success never came.

Through it all, the false belief we tell ourselves when we first light up — “I can quit whenever I want” — never faded. So I set out on a bold course to kick the habit once and for all.

Once I realized quitting nicotine leaves you more like a sitting duck – than cold turkey, I stopped relying on willpower. I studied the science of cravings, following Psychology that motivates you into action to shield unwanted cravings, thoughts, feelings and habits. When psychology wasn’t enough to alleviate temptation, one-by-one I created systems to kill cravings & withdrawal symptoms in-the-moment, to identify and crush false hunger, and to reverse the paradoxical self-sabotage that kicks in from quitting going to plan. Collectively I strung enough small wins together that quitting finally held. The lie — “I can quit whenever I want” — gave way to something real: a method.

Quit by Heart is that method, turned into an app, so you don’t have to figure it out alone.