If asked, what advice would you give to a potential quitter about what stopping smoking is really like, what to expect and the best way to go about it?
Mine would be, think about what smoking means to you, when you feel the need to smoke. Write it all down and think about when you would run into difficult times. But, by far and away most importantly. Read about the addiction that smoking is. There was so much I didn't know when I quit that would have helped had I known when I embarked on my quit.
What do you all think?
Molly x
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Hi Molly, what a fantastic post. I will however be honest and say that I would like to answer this tomorrow when I have time to do it justice ( and I am not so tired). It is one of those posts that I dont want to mess up as is so important!
sleep welll and I will catch up on this tomorrow xxx
It seems a simple piece of advice, but I have been so close to quitting on a couple of occasions now, because I haven't believed that this is really what I want. I KNOW it is best for me but have made myself miserable by not thinking correctly.
Now that I'm taking things one day at a time again I'm finding it much easier, but I've kind of caused my own suffering over the last few weeks. I would have much rather had a rubbish few weeks to begin with and then found it easier as the days went by. Instead I allowed the negative thoughts in after a really easy couple of weeks. However, I'm still here!!
Joining a forum is something that I'll always recommend to anyone who mentions that they want to stop. I would also advise visiting prior to the quit. I wish I'd done this, as I think I'd have put myself in a much more positive mindset and I might have decided on a proper quit date and method.
I agree with Sarahlou, you have to be in the right place in your head. I've tried quitting many times out of guilt cos of being pregnant or not wanting to be a smoking mum or cos people look down on you or the cost or cos its about time........ I could go on. This is the first time I've truly quit fir me and because i want to and its sooo much easier, still difficult mind but it is easier.
Also be prepared for The physical withdrawal and the mental, i never realised how emotional i would get in the first few days without nicotine.
By being mentally ready its like a suit of armour going into battle, get through my mental defenses old nicotine!!!
Find a way to laugh about the whole thing, especially the craves. Definitely laugh at them. Being upbeat in the face of adversity helps.
Use this forum. Humour is great! :
Don't go it alone if you think it's wrong for you. Share a bit.
Whichever method you choose is fine, as long as you follow the rule of Not One Puff Ever.
Quit with pride, the plant has an IQ of zero. Beat it. I find belittling it helps.
Don't scare yourself with thoughts of failure.
Above all believe in yourself. Be proud, and prepared to celebrate your success, for you are a fantastic human making the best decision for your health that you can.
(i) there is nothing new under the sun - you are walking a well trodden path so search the archives on this forum. Hidden gems, golden nuggets - they are all here in abundance, waiting to be found!
(ii) It's your quit - think about why you're going to do it and how you're going to do it. There is plenty of advice on these forums which I agree with, and plenty I don't - and I guess it's the same for everyone; so take on board what works for you, and leave what doesn't, because at the end of the day what works for you is all that matters.
(iii) It's as hard as you make it.
(iv) It's as easy as you make it.
(v) Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom - understand your addiction; you will always be an addict, just one is never an option.
Finally, as a smoker, perhaps you find there is nothing more objectionable than a good verbal bashing from a 'reformed smoker' - suspend your disbelief, it might just all be true!
If asked, what advice would you give to a potential quitter about what stopping smoking is really like, what to expect and the best way to go about it?
I'd say summat like this...
Try to forget everything you think you know about smoking and just let your body tell you what it needs.
Have you ever wondered why you're a few puffs into a fag and don't really want it; can't work out why you lit it; and want to stub it out as you've other stuff to do?
It's because lighting up the fag silenced the inner fog-horn of your subconscious mind – the craving.
Have you ever noticed how much of a cigarette you don’t actually smoke?
It’s usually remarkably little. There’s a vast difference between what’s in a cigarette and what a smoker gets from a cigarette.
You will have cravings and they can be anything from minor to intense but it helps enormously if you understand what they are, and perhaps as important, what they’re not.
Craves are the entire reason we smoked.
If you don't respond to the initial alarm of a craving then the signal gets stronger and more insistent and it makes you irritable and distracted. It's just like a drug addict desperate for a fix and that is a red herring just waiting to be landed.
The longer you ignore the alarm the louder the fog-horn becomes until you light up a smoke and feel that relief, peace and relaxation as quietness is restored and you can finally concentrate on whatever you were trying to do.
When smokers say that tobacco makes them concentrate they’re really saying that they can’t concentrate without tobacco - and that’s a very different thing altogether. The tobacco doesn't aid concentration but the screaming fog-horn destroys it.
Many people, some of them quite knowledgeable, will try to argue that this was your body craving nicotine and administering it by smoking will restore the calm.
In reality just lighting up the cigarette turned off the alarm, nothing in the smoke played a part.
You only have to speak to a retired smoker to see that cravings came in all sorts, most of them personal, and all had to be dealt with.
Cigarettes are annoyingly habitual things.
It doesn't take a lot to study to pinpoint the times in our day when it was time to smoke and we've all had situations where conflicting triggers occur so close together that we end up smoking a number of fags in quick succession.
Sometimes smoking is so obvious that it’s scary yet because of those rare times when we abstain for long enough for the effects of nicotine withdrawal to rear its ugly head we tend to wrongly assume, as we’re daily bombarded with, that nicotine management is the answer when in reality it is quite an irrelevant part of the quit.
You will never be free from tobacco until you understand how a complex compulsive habit works.
You may quit for a while and if you abstain long enough you may turn the corner but it is possible to have an easy start and an easy quit pretty much by just recognising why you smoke.
In the first couple of weeks I don't think I'd have managed as well if I couldn't remind myself that there was money being saved each day, which I could spend on whatever I wanted.
I put my cigarette money away and spent it on clothes after the first month.
Now I don't feel as though I need that reassurance as much, but it's still lovely to know that I have a bit of extra cash each week and can save if there is something in particular that I want
To a potential quitter I would suggest to quit by going Cold Turkey and to turn to the herbalist for aids rather than to the pharmacist (with herbs almost no risks of side effects if not beneficial, plus they rebalance the relationship with nature after years of tobacco misuse) ;
Would warn her/him to expect some very challenging moments in the beginning with highest peak during the first ten days, but turning milder afterwards;
And would say that to stop to smoke is about stopping to hurt our own selves and others and this planet and start to respect: I’d say it is about bravery, passion and, yes, about respect.
Smoking tobacco, especially after being chemically treated, is a misuse. Too huge a word to say abuse, but… Maybe the economic system has took advantage of human weakness to grow financial power in spite of caring for people's health?... This is very sad, but true. Got to be stronger then a system that has proved not to have for priority the individual welfare but the “social economic power”.
I cannot expose the matter efficiently: then another pivotal advice would be –as suggested by many others in here: read. Read as much as you can.
Information, knowledge is what allows freedom and independence. it is through learning and understanding that a condition of passiveness and slavery ends. Centuries of history have proven it. This tobacco business does not differ.
There is this sentence I found once in a book-in a romance:
“you can survive if others lie to you, but you are done if you lie to yourself”. It really had me thinking and checking about the way I would make a choice, relate towards a given subject, how much a thought was mine, how much it was someone’s else…
The world won’t change, won’t stop to try to push new attractive lies in front of you (like the e-cig?), but you can make a difference if you stop to let it fool you and start to acknowledge your own feelings and ability to understand and to stand for your own sake letting go of external judgmental pressure.
If you are on this site is because you have sensed that in fact, this smoking habit is not clean, safe and sane. And rightfully you are thinking of a way to move beyond it. Then just keep on listening to that voice in you that has brought you in here. Stick on the right side: yours.
“Believe in yourself”, is another important lesson to succeed in the quit. (this one I’m still working on it)
Last advice: do not wait to have learned all before the quitting date, because quitting is not the event of a day but a process over hours, days, months and years. You will learn while proceeding through it and that, that is a beautiful journey to embark on.
I could go on and on with suggestions and advices, but this site is already a mine full of gold. Just the place you did not dare to hope for and that magically popped out of the blue from the web with all its archives of supporting posts (as always, a thought of sincere gratitude for it).
I planned my quit day. I calculated the money I will saved if I am a non smoker, I worked out that I will save AU$72 a week from not smoking, so I signed up with a personal trainer costing using the money I saved. My quit day was the first session with him.
I embarked on this exercise journey and as the weeks go by, I got fitter and fitter. I enjoyed the sessions so much that whenever I had nicotine cravings, I tell myself I cannot afford to smoke and have my personal training sessions.
I remembered in the early days, whenever I craved for my morning cig, I would jump onto my crosstrainer and worked really hard.
It's almost 3 months I'm a non smoker but I can feel it that I am going to be a non smoker forever... and I have lost 2kg of body fat and gained 1% (almost 1kg) of muscles!!
This is the first time I stopped smoking and lost weight. I have changed my addiction, from a negative additiction to a positive one. Now my trainer says I am a fitness fanatic!
Good luck to all potential quitters. You can do it! Just need to know yourself and kinda tricked yourself to quitting!
I was a confirmed smoking, always trying to quit. I just couldn't do it. The longest I managed was 6 weeks. My parents have died of cancer, I should have know better. I smoked 30-50 a day depending on what I was doing. I'm 55 and have been smoking since 14....
BUT IM FREE NOW...
It was down to one man, Graham Price. He offered quit smoking for a year or your money back. I'm nearly a year down the line and I know I will never smoke again.
He made it a pleasure to quit, it was so easy too. I'm not the only one to rant about him, he has a 98% success rate....
He has started doing his method on the Internet so everyone can access him now. quit-smoking-now-guaranteed.com he's my hero. I am doing so many things that being a smoker stopped me enjoying
My partner didn't want to stop, but he was listening to what Graham said to me and he just didn't ever light up again.
I WAT TO TELL THE WORLD. IM SO GRATEFUL.
Good luck everyone with your quitting. It's so worth it.
I had always put off quitting as had listened to people tell me that you will always want a cigarette and the urge never goes away. I used this as my excuse for not trying!
Nearly 18 months down the line I can now tell you it does go away, if a crave does appear, it is so fleeting it really isn't worth a mention. Wouldn't thank you for a fag now and never thought I would ever be able to say that.
My advice is, keep going it gets really easy eventually x x x
I was a confirmed smoking, always trying to quit. I just couldn't do it. The longest I managed was 6 weeks. My parents have died of cancer, I should have know better. I smoked 30-50 a day depending on what I was doing. I'm 55 and have been smoking since 14....
BUT IM FREE NOW...
It was down to one man, Graham Price. He offered quit smoking for a year or your money back. I'm nearly a year down the line and I know I will never smoke again.
He made it a pleasure to quit, it was so easy too. I'm not the only one to rant about him, he has a 98% success rate....
He has started doing his method on the Internet so everyone can access him now. quit-smoking-now-guaranteed.com he's my hero. I am doing so many things that being a smoker stopped me enjoying
My partner didn't want to stop, but he was listening to what Graham said to me and he just didn't ever light up again.
I WAT TO TELL THE WORLD. IM SO GRATEFUL.
Good luck everyone with your quitting. It's so worth it.
Hi Jenwed, great to hear you've beaten your addiction! What a shame that you didn't find this forum before you found Mr Price - there is more insight on this forum than any so-called stop smoking guru could offer, and you'd have saved a shedload of money too:rolleyes::rolleyes:
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