How Ramadan Helped Me Quit Smoking After 14 Years

My name is Omar Hassan. I’m 38 years old, I live in Dearborn, Michigan, and I haven’t touched a cigarette in two years and four months. Before that, I smoked a pack a day for fourteen years straight. Camel Blues, mostly. Sometimes Marlboro Lights when the gas station was out. I wasn’t picky when the craving hit.

I started smoking at 24. I’d just graduated from Wayne State, landed my first real job doing HVAC installs, and everyone on the crew smoked. It was just what you did on break. You’d sit on the tailgate of someone’s truck, crack open a can of Vernors, and light up. I told myself I’d only smoke at work. That lasted about three weeks. Pretty soon I was smoking in my car, on my porch, after meals, before bed. The whole routine.

I tried to quit four times before it stuck. The first time was about five years in. I went cold turkey on a random Tuesday, made it six days, and then my buddy Tariq offered me one outside a restaurant and I took it without even thinking. Didn’t even hesitate. The second time I tried the gum, Nicorette, the mint flavor. It made my jaw sore and gave me hiccups, and I was still sneaking cigarettes by day three, so I figured what’s the point and stopped chewing the gum. Third time, I downloaded one of those quit smoking apps. I lasted eleven days that time. Eleven days felt like eleven months. I remember lying on the couch at night with my legs restless and my brain screaming at me, and I just drove to the 7-Eleven at midnight and bought a pack. The fourth time, I told my doctor I wanted to try Chantix. He wrote me the prescription, and I filled it, but then I read about the side effects online and scared myself out of taking it. The box sat in my medicine cabinet for months.

So there I was, 36 years old, still smoking. My wife Layla never smoked. She hated it. She’d been patient about it for years, but I could see it wearing on her. She’d spray Febreze on my jacket when I came inside. She stopped kissing me after I smoked unless I brushed my teeth first. My kids, my daughter Noor who was seven and my son Idris who was four, they’d wave their hands in front of their faces if I got too close after a cigarette. That hurt. That really hurt. But even that wasn’t enough to make me stop.

What changed everything was Ramadan 2024. Now, if you don’t know, during Ramadan you fast from sunrise to sunset. No food, no water, nothing enters your mouth. That includes cigarettes. I’d been observing Ramadan my whole adult life, and every single year I’d go through the day without smoking, then the second the sun went down and we broke fast, I’d eat my dates and drink my water and pray Maghrib and then step outside and smoke two or three cigarettes back to back. Every night for the whole month. I’d basically chain-smoke from sunset to sunrise to make up for the day. I know how ridiculous that sounds.

But that year, something was different. My imam, Sheikh Mahmoud, gave a khutbah the Friday before Ramadan about taking care of the body that Allah gave you. He didn’t single out smoking specifically, but he talked about how we’re supposed to be stewards of our health, and how fasting isn’t just about food. It’s about discipline. It’s about proving to yourself that your desires don’t own you. And he looked right at me. I mean, he probably wasn’t actually looking at me. There were 400 people in that room. But it felt like he was.

I went home that night and told Layla: I’m not smoking after iftar this Ramadan. She didn’t say anything for a minute. She’d heard versions of this before. Then she just said, “Okay. I’ll make extra tea.” That was it. No lecture, no celebration. She just offered tea.

The first three days of Ramadan were brutal. During the day it was actually fine because I was fasting anyway, my brain kind of accepted it. The hard part was after sunset. We’d eat, the kids would be running around, and every cell in my body was telling me to go outside and light up. I drank so much tea those first nights that I couldn’t sleep. I paced around the kitchen. I reorganized the garage at 11 PM. I did pushups in the living room until my arms gave out.

The hardest single moment was day four, after Taraweeh prayers. I was standing in the parking lot of the mosque and three guys I knew were huddled by the dumpster, smoking. I could smell it. That sweet, warm Marlboro smell. My feet started walking toward them before my brain caught up. I stopped myself about ten feet away, just stood there like an idiot. One of them held out a cigarette. “You good, bro?” I said no thanks and walked to my car. Sat there for five minutes with my hands shaking on the steering wheel.

I got through the first week. Then the second. Something started shifting around day ten. The cravings didn’t disappear, but they got shorter. Instead of twenty minutes of agony, it was five minutes, then it would pass. I started noticing things. Food tasted better at iftar. My morning cough was gone. Noor sat on my lap and said I smelled nice. That one almost made me cry.

By the end of Ramadan, I’d gone thirty days without a cigarette. Here’s the thing about Ramadan though: it ends. Eid came, the celebration, and suddenly I didn’t have the structure of fasting to hold me up. That first week after Eid was harder than all of Ramadan combined. I wasn’t fasting anymore, so my brain was like, okay, the special rules are over, time to smoke again. I remember standing in line at the Sunoco on Michigan Avenue, staring at the wall of cigarettes behind the counter. The cashier asked what I needed and I just stood there. I finally said, “Just the gas” and left.

What got me through that stretch was something Layla did. She bought a calendar and put it on the fridge, and every day I didn’t smoke she put a green star sticker on it. Like the kind you’d give a kid in school. It sounds silly but there was something about seeing that unbroken chain of green stars. I didn’t want to break it. I still have that calendar in a drawer.

I also started walking. During Ramadan I’d been too tired to exercise, but after, I began walking every evening after dinner. Just around the neighborhood. A mile, then two, then three. It gave me something to do with my hands and my legs during that restless post-dinner time when I used to smoke. Sometimes Idris would ride his bike next to me. Sometimes Layla would come. Sometimes I just walked alone and listened to podcasts.

The weight gain hit me around month two. I put on about fifteen pounds. I was eating sunflower seeds, pistachios, anything to keep my mouth busy. Layla started making roasted chickpeas with spices and I was going through a bowl of those every night. My pants got tight. I didn’t care. I’d rather be fifteen pounds heavier and breathing than skinny and coughing.

There were a few really close calls in the months after. The worst was at my cousin Faisal’s wedding, five months after I quit. Open patio, warm night, and half the guys there were smoking hookah. The smell of the apple tobacco hit me like a freight train. I actually picked up a hookah hose before catching myself and setting it back down. My hand was literally on it. I went inside and found Noor on the dance floor and danced with her instead. Badly. But she laughed and I forgot about the hookah.

Now, two years later, here’s what’s different. I can run. Not far, not fast, but I can jog a 5K without stopping. I did one last fall, a charity run for the Islamic Center. Finished in 34 minutes. My resting heart rate went from the high 80s to 67. My doctor was genuinely surprised at my last checkup. My blood pressure came down too. I saved up the money I would’ve spent on cigarettes and took Layla and the kids to Mackinac Island for a long weekend. That was about $3,800 worth of cigarettes over the first year alone. That number still shocks me.

The cravings are rare now. Maybe once every few weeks I’ll catch a whiff of cigarette smoke somewhere and feel a tiny pull, like a fish hook tugging at something deep in my chest. It lasts about three seconds and then it’s gone. My brain still remembers what it was like to smoke, but my body doesn’t want it anymore.

I’m not going to pretend that Ramadan is a magic cure. Plenty of people fast all month and go right back to smoking on Eid. I almost did. What made the difference for me was deciding that the discipline I practiced during fasting wasn’t temporary. It was a skill I’d built. Thirty days of saying no to my body’s loudest demand. I could keep doing that.

Here’s what I’d say to you if you’re still smoking. You’ve probably tried to quit before. Maybe a few times. Maybe a dozen times. Each one of those attempts taught you something, even the ones that lasted a day. You’re not starting from zero every time. You’re building something. Find your structure, whatever it is. For me it was Ramadan, but for you it could be anything. A month-long challenge, a bet with a friend, a promise to your kid. Something that gives you a framework bigger than just willpower.

And when the moment comes where you’re standing ten feet from a cigarette and your body is pulling you toward it, know that you can stop your feet. You can turn around. You can sit in your car with your hands shaking and drive home. You can do that. I know because I did. And I’m nobody special. I’m just a guy from Dearborn who got really tired of smelling like smoke.

You are not alone in this. Every person who’s ever quit has stood in that parking lot. Every single one. And the ones who made it just kept choosing to walk back to the car.