1. "Try" to quit

2. Idealize life without smoking

3. Associate your daily problems and disappointments with the fact that you’re not smoking.

4. Begin to buy into the idea that you’re more miserable now than before you quit

5. Start responding to your problems with, "If this keeps up, I’m going to smoke" then add "anyhow" then add "so why suffer anymore?"

(Alternate 3-5:
3. Associate your success with the idea that you’ve licked the nicotine habit.
4. Begin to buy into the idea that you could smoke without getting hooked again
5. Follow-up this idea with, "I haven’t smoked in ___ days/weeks/months/years" then add "I haven’t had any cravings" then add "I could have just one" )

6. Buy, borrow or steal a cigarette.

7. Find a quiet, secluded place where you can be alone with the substance to which you have attributed all power and promise for fulfillment of your needs.

8. Feel yourself calming down even before you light up, which is actually the beast ceasing to scratch at your insides as you prepared to feed the addiction.

9. Light-up and suck in all the poison you can get in that first drag, while beginning the battle against being disappointed in yourself, noticing that this fight is not half as ferocious as it was to get the nicotine.

10. Within a few hits, feel dizzy, cough a little, smell the stink, and realize you’re not going to stop smoking that cigarette, you’ll keep smoking despite the bad feelings, and wish you hadn’t given in.


I hope this scenario scares you as much as it scares me. In writing it, I drew from my personal experience and noticed some things that might be helpful in the future:

A RELAPSE STARTS IN MY HEAD Steps 1-5 all have to do with how I think.

IT IS ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE FOR ME TO FULLY RELAPSE without doing some or all of 1-5.

A CIGARETTE IS NOT THE ANSWER AND THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ONE.

I MAY NOT BE ABLE TO CONTROL THE PHYSICAL CRAVINGS, BUT I CAN CONTROL MY THOUGHTS As soon as a relapse starts, I can help bring it to an end, when I THINK IT THROUGH TO ITS LOGICAL CONCLUSION. .

I'M GOING TO MISS THE Q

grateful to be here,
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