This is hidden brain.
I'm Shankar Vedantam.
Several months ago, I noticed one of my colleagues taking breaks from work during the day.
At first, I thought Max Nestrack was trying to build some exercise into his schedule.
Good for him, I thought.
But when I asked him about it, he confessed that he was stepping outside to smoke.
We did a podcast episode about New Year's resolutions and Max's resolution to quit smoking at the start of the year.
It's 2016, and I have not smoked for two minutes.
Lots of you have written and phoned and emailed to ask how Max is doing and whether he's managed to stick to his resolution.
I really want a cigarette.
Yeah, about that.
We'll get to it in a few minutes.
Today, we're going to talk about Max's story and three interventions I suggested to help him quit smoking.
You can apply these ideas in your own life, whether that's giving up smoking or that three latte a day Starbucks habitat.
When Max decided to quit, he and I sat down to chat.
I asked him how he became a smoker and what cigarettes meant to him.
So you told me that you started.
Smoking when you were 14 or 15 years old?
Yeah.
That seems shockingly young to me.