I’ve tried to quit smoking on so many occasions before. With the exception of nicotine patches, I’ve used methods like decreasing the quantity through time, changing to a brand you don’t like and other tips in that fashion, but none of them really worked in the end. My many attempts of breaking with the addiction have taught me that the best method is “cold turkey”.
Doing it “cold turkey” is more effective than any other method. The other methods fail a lot because they don’t make you commit to actually quitting. You’re still smoking and waiting to quit. Maybe less quantity, but your body is still feeling the same. In the end you’re still going to have to go “cold turkey” anyway. Even if you’re just smoking one cigarette a month, you have to make the decision of stopping. It’s not going to magically happen.
The hard part is not the physical addiction either. The first three days are the hardest and you might feel dizzy, irritated and hungry, but it’s not something difficult to handle. The worst part is the psychological part.
If you been successful at quitting or were able to do it for a couple of months, you know that it had a more psychological hold on you than you imagined. For a lot people, smoking is so ubiquitous that it’s really hard to detach it from a lot of activities they do on a day to day basis. It’s more a habit than an addiction and like habits, they’re done unconsciously. Like brushing your teeth.
If you smoke, and are considering quitting, I recommend searching for more information on this to get a more medical perspective on it. I don’t know how serious it could get on an individual basis, but the following methods have worked for me:
It’s a Habit, Not an Addiction
Remember, habits are things that you do daily on autopilot. Getting rid of a habit is really hard because your psyche will scream at you when you take part of it’s cruise control. And when you get rid of a habit, you have to add a new one to replace that old one. Tips: Don’t decide to quit an still have a box laying around. Chew gum, drink a lot of water, and practice meditation. Seriously, for the first week or so your going to be really cranky.
Anchor it to a Purchase Goal
This method relates a lot to the next one. The money that you save when you’re not smoking can be used to buy something you always wanted. For example, a new Macbook Pro.
Add up how much your spending weekly, monthly and yearly. Put that information somewhere you see it everyday
When I did this for the first time it motivated me more to quit than the health issues. Some people are like that.
Use a Calendar to Check Off Dates
Tracking your ongoing progress is very powerful and a strong motivator. Like Jerry Seinfeld says, “don’t break the chain”.
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I believe that habits take around 21 days to break. So if you can just tell yourself that in 21 days, this will be much easier, then you give yourself that added bit of confidence in your strength to quit.
For me, the thing that solidified my need to quit was hiking. I wasn’t able to make it a quarter of the way with the rest of the people without having to stop and nearly have an asthma attack. Finding something that fully demonstrates the health benefits of not smoking is a great motivator.
Thanks for commenting. I’m actually thinking of starting jogging. I don’t do any kind of exercise, so I think it will be a good time to start.
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The thing that I learned from my successful quit experience is that no one thing works for everyone. In fact no one thing worked for me! It seems I smoked a lot of different cigarettes throughout the day for different reasons and in different situations. Quitting once and for all meant learning not to smoke in every situation, one by one.
It sounds dumb but the way to quit is to not smoke!! All the suggestions you’ll get are good ones worth a try. Test them all and see which ones work for you while you teach yourself the hard way not to smoke each cigarette… in the morning you have to learn not to smoke the morning cigarette. After meals you have to learn not to smoke the finished-eating cigarette. For me the hardest ones were the need-a-break-from-frustating-task cigarette, victory cigarette, and the hardest one of all was the waiting-for-someone-or-something smoke.
In bars I get up and “do laps”… talk walks around every so often.
I kept a ‘bag of tricks’ with me at all times so if i needed something to do I could go fishing in the bag which was always well stocked with gum and mints and candies and keychain sized electronic games and pen and paper, and microwave popcorn and silly putty and bubbles and a tiny little rubik’s cube.. etc etc etc
But for me the thing that not worked was throwing my whole self into the quit which I turned into my personal obsession. Every day I was in search of new toys and games and crutches while I taught myself not to smoke that next cigarette too.
In the beginning I really focused on making it to 100 days because that really does seem to be the marker for when you start believing you really might be able to keep the quit forever.
Good Luck!!!
excuse the weird typos…. i can’t edit it and fix them
talk walk around = take walk around
the thing that not worked = the that worked
the thing that worked!
Bullshit that it isn’t an addiction! It most certainly is and I really feel bad that you say it is just “a bad habit”. Krikey!!
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