(This is along the lines of Austins post but also true)
How can i make it EASY to stop smoking?
I guess thats a question all of us have asked as well as being a question asked by thousands of people every day!!!
Some of us look for a miracle cure to help us stop, NRT, Champix, Zyban, Hypnosis, Midget Gems (or is that just Austinlegro?:)), the secret magic words which just "click" etc. etc. etc.
For some, these things work, but for far too many of us, they only work to a point, after that they fail.
That is not being negative against these quit methods, as they CAN work, but i think there are another couple of things which need to be added, no matter what method any of us are using, to make a quit successful.
I have read many posts on this forum and read many opinions and the two things which come out time and time again are :
1) You must have your head in the right place. You MUST want to stop. Its as simple as that. You cant just hope to stop, or stop on a whim. (Yes i am sure that there are some people who have done it like that but i guess they will be in the minority.) You must want to stop for you, not for anyone else. If your head is in the right place it makes the difficult times far easier to deal with than if your quit was a half hearted attempt in the first place.
How do you get your head in the right place? Thats a much harder question to answer but what may help is the second part of helping make a quit easier.
2) Education!!!!! The more you learn about smoking, nicotine, the effects, what to expect, how to deal with the various aspects of quitting. This is all important stuff. Readin on the many websites dedicated to stopping smoking is invaluable in anyones quit. The more you know, the better armed you are to deal with a craving or urge when it hits. (I also firmly believe that if you know to expect the urges, they are far easier to deal with than trying to avoid them, but thats just my opinion)
My thoughts are that you should use whatever means necessary to get past the first few days of quitting.
My personal opinion is that NRT is not the way to go but others have and will disagree with this, but remember, it is just my opinion.
use whatever you can to get over the first few days BUT more importantly, and to help longer term, read, read, read as much as possible to help continue your quit.
Allan Carr's Easyway got me through the first few days very easily and whyquit and later on, woofmang, got me through next few weeks and months.
Some may use Champix, others NRT, some Cold Turkey, etc but it seems the successful quitters (on here at least) ALSO educated themselves about their quit and had their head in the right place.
This has dragged on a bit but i hope the points i wanted to make have been made.
It is your quit, why not make it as easy as you can?
Good Luck.
For all new quitters! Please read!
Diary of a quitter - Day 1
