How to Quit
From SilverRain

Commitment

Attitude is everything: after the first few days, it's all in the mind. The mind is very sneaky, but if we are cautious of this, we can control it.

---Only after you're committed to quit for good does the statement "The urge will go away whether you smoke or not" becames true in your mind.

---You need to be very stubborn in your quit and refuse to smoke no matter what.

--- Commitment is a continuing, moment-by-moment undertaking. It means doing what ever you have to do to stay quit no matter It is doing whatever is necessary, for as long as necessary, to get the job done. Commitment doesn't bail out when effort becomes tiring, uncomfortable, tedious or unpopular; it doesn't wait for someone else to take up the slack; it doesn't make excuses or look for the easy way out. Commitment stays on course, moving steadily through good times and bad. It finds a way through every obstacle.

--- If you smoke & quit on a three day cycle, you will never get out of hell week. Plenty of people will rush in to empathize and awfulize with you when you solicit compassion. But compassion only helps when it doesn't foster weakness. Face it: you make your own choices & no amount of hand-holding will change that. You are in a fight for your life with yourself: there is no nicodemon stalking you - if you disagree, then glue a mirror to your monitor so you can see the "nicodemon" every day.

--- Lightly touch, but do not depress, the 'Ctrl' key on your keyboard. You've just done something complex: you've exercised control, aiming at & reaching a target less than half a square inch. You've also exercised restraint, by touching the key without depressing it. My point: you control your actions. Anytime you think that something is out of reach, reach over & touch that 'Ctrl' key & remember, it's your choice.

--- If I ever wanted to have a smoke-free birthday there was only one way to do it and that was to quit smoking. My goal since last year has been to never give up the quit, go for the gold, and just not smoke, no matter what.

--- If you are not absolutely committed to quitting, your mind will find some way to convince you that you are depriving yourself unnecessarily. Even an attitude of 'What the hell! Who cares, it's my life' can be twisted in your mind to seem like a heroic stance against convention, & from there it is only a small step to buying that first pack again, complete with your new self-image as a social rebel. This lasts about two days until you realize that you have deluded yourself & have just thrown away all that hard work in quitting.

--- I finally took an extreme step to quit: I paid a hypnotist $450. That was a huge commitment for me to make, & I believe it was that commitment that made the difference. It enabled me to let go of all the thoughts of cheating or relapsing. It was sort of like I had raised the stakes so high I just couldn't fold.

Acceptance

Accept your craving. It is a part of you for a time, a price to pay, & not too high a price. The sense of acceptance rather than struggle, the surrender rather than the self-pity & resentment, was the essence of the change that accompanied this quit, & sits at the heart of my learning. Discomfort is inevitable, but it will pass, & despite the discomfort you can have fun, you can lead a satisfying life, & very quickly begin to relish the daily freedom from tobacco.

--- Until you can accept your craving for cigarettes, you will not stop smoking: lighting another cigarette is what you do if you decide you cannot accept the craving.

--- Easy would be nice, but it's not necessary. In order to have the life I want, I must be disciplined. Not having been born with a silver spoon in my mouth means that if I want something, I have to work for it. I saw a TV show in which a drug addict got a quick-fix addiction cure, and one of the nurses said that he'd become addicted again because he hadn't worked for his freedom. I paid a price for my quit, and it was worth it. Everything has a price.

--- "Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." James 3:17

--- The other times, I had kept it in mind that if the situation got bad enough, I could have just one & that wouldn't hurt me. Ha! It is something like accepting the death of a loved one, or the loss of someone or something dear & close. You can deny, rage & grieve, but at the end you just have to accept. Not even one. Ever.

--- There is no good excuse for smoking, & once I quit looking for one the process became much easier.

--- Occasionally I want a cigarette. I also want to be 4 inches taller & independently wealthy. And I'd like to slap my neighbor who has filled his yard with plastic flowers. I'd like any number of other things that I cannot realistically have or have chosen not to have.

--- It's okay to feel sad; a feeling won't cause me permanent harm. I can try to pull myself up somehow, or I can just wallow around down there until I get tired of it. Either way, I won't smoke.

--- Quitting is like labor: there's no way out but through.

--- On the time line of life, the quitting process is a mere dot: a year, at most, out of 70 odd.

--- Our punishment for smoking is quitting.

--- If there were no challenges in life, there would be no triumphs.

--- One of life's great ironies is that we usually only grow as a result of hardship. It can make us bitter or it can give us a heart.

--- When I was a kid I used to spend my whole allowance on chocolate. I knew it would make me sick if I ate it all at once but I ate it all anyhow because it tasted so good. I'm not a kid anymore, I know better, so I quit smoking. Me quit? I loved smoking, I loved inhaling, holding them, lighting them! But too bad because they were killing me & I had to take control of my life & say: that's it, I am an adult, I quit.

--- It was my choice to start smoking, & it is my choice to quit: it's all on my head. I've been given all the tools, help & support I could possibly use. It's up to me. If I smoke it will be my fault. Not stress, not the nicodemon. No outside force could make me smoke, only I could let me smoke.

--- Ingredients of my relapse: myself, complete with character flaws; screaming baby; the night shift; alcohol; 10 smokers in the family. All the elements of the recipe are constants, & the recipe will work just as well if you remove one or more of them, except the first. Sort of like a turkey dinner: you can forget the gravy & stuffing and it will still be a roasted turkey, but forget the turkey and you're in trouble. I have flopped back to day 1 because I put myself in the recipe. The other elements will always be there and I will have to choose whether I want to cook myself or not. So, dealing with the those things that add misery to this process is something I cannot allow to push me into the oven. I am the only essential element.

--- Don't we have to accept responsibility for our addictions? Isn't that one of the first steps to recovering? If we continue to blame others, won't we continue to smoke?

Anger

An actor promoting RJ Reynolds products asked an RJR executive why he does not smoke. He was told: "we don't smoke that shit - we just sell it. We reserve the right to smoke for the young, the poor and the stupid." (Cited in First Tuesday, ITV 1992)

--- "Studies of clinical data confirm the relationship between smoking and lung cancer." (Internal RJR document, 1953)

--- Geoffrey Bible, Chairman of Philip Morris, testifies under oath at the Minnesota trial: "I'm unclear in my own mind whether anyone dies of cigarette smoking-related diseases." (Cited in Pioneer Press, 1998)

--- "Monkeys can be trained to inject themselves with nicotine for its own sake, just as they will inject other dependence-producing drugs e.g. opiates, caffeine, amphetamine, cocaine. The absorption of nicotine through the lungs is as quick as the junkie's 'fix'." (Internal Brown and Williamson document, 1973)

--- "The entire matter of addiction is the most potent weapon a prosecuting attorney can have in a lung cancer case. We can't defend continued smoking as 'free choice' if the person was 'addicted'. " (Tobacco Institute, 1980)

--- "I believe nicotine is not addictive" (James Johnson, RJR, under oath before the Congressional Health & Environment Subcommittee, 1994)

--- "Cigarette advertising reaches children as young as three. In one study, six year olds were as familiar with Joe Camel as Mickey Mouse." (JAMA, 1991)

--- "The lower age limit for the profile of young smokers is to remain at 12." (Internal RJR document, 1987)

--- "We don't advertise to children. First of all, we don't want young people to smoke. And we're running ads aimed specifically at young people advising them that we think smoking is strictly for adults. Kids just don't pay attention to cigarette ads, and that's how it should be." (RJR, 1984)

--- Terence Sullivan, a Florida sales rep for RJR, asked which age groups exactly RJR was targeting. The reply was "They got lips? We want them."

--- "We estimate that 35% of all first-time experimentation [with cigarettes] in California between 1993-1996 can be attributed to tobacco promotional activities." (JAMA, 1998)

--- According to their web site, Philip Morris owns Kraft Foods, Miller Beer & Starbucks coffee, so I am now boycotting those products. Shame the site didn't list the politicians PM owns; that I'd like to see.

--- While I respect people who believe that cigarettes provided a smokescreen for emotions or a way of masking feelings, that piece of popular wisdom did not hold true for me. I started smoking because I experimented with tobacco; I continued because I was addicted; & I stopped because I was lucky. I did not find any spiritual needs arising nor any spiritual support helpful in my struggle to free myself from addiction. I do not denigrate those who like hugs or view quitting as a healing process, but my perspective is different. I find that practical suggestions - that I resolve things that provoke anger, drink water, eat celery, avoid smoking sections, etc. - aided me enormously. Cyber hugs have not, relentless cheer hasn't. Ranting, raving, complaining - these things are part and parcel of my world and work better for me. I really don't care if anyone thinks I'm bitter or unhappy. Addiction is a vicious dog. It is hard to fight an enemy that has outposts in your body and a command center in your brain. It is hard to fight an enemy that lurks in every store, comes to parties, and lies in wait in an out of season jacket when you remove it from the closet for the the first time in months. I fight that addiction with anger.

--- I'm angry at myself for starting. I'm angry at the tobacco companies for contributing to my addiction & making my life so difficult just to pad the pockets of stockholders. I'm angry at what tobacco did to my body & brain chemistry & the habits it caused me to form. I'm even angry at society for making me a social outcast. When I see people smoking I feel pity knowing they are still slaves & will either have to go through what I just did or pay the price of isolation, poor health & early death. But smoking is a part of my past now & my pride outweighs my anger. I will always be aware that I'm one puff away but as long as I stay aware, it will never come to pass.

--- Just imagine that your ex-husband, the IRS and the car insurance company are all together in a room saying "I bet she smokes this time". Let's just say they put $1,000,000 on it. How much would it piss them off if you didn't?

Distraction & Communication

When you are having fun, you don't crave - fun buys you time away from the pain of quitting & gets you that much closer to victory. So plan some fun!

--- You wrote: "I'm being psychologically pummeled by a nostalgia/desire for smoking. I have been trying very hard to counter these feelings with reason - trying to focus on what I disliked about smoking and reasoning with myself. I'm afraid that if this goes on for much longer I'm going to decide to smoke." The addicted mind, if left to its own devices, will eventually go back to the addictive thought patterns, leading to relapse. You can't think your way out of these thought/ feelings because you're thinking with them. It's kind of like trying to see your own eyeballs without a mirror; you can't, because you're looking through them. Get out of your head. Try to help a newcomer; tell your story; listen to the stories/ successes/ failures of others; live at the Q - do whatever it takes to keep you from being in isolation on this issue. Isolation will lead to relapse; connection will prevent it.

--- The summer was a blur. I lurked in libraries & malls. When home, I cleaned constantly, starting with the cabinets & picture frames, stripping the tar off. Outside, instead of sitting next to the pool smoking, I'd be in the yard pulling weeds, piles of them. Mostly though, I was out of town, camping, surfing in the ocean, cannooing down spring-fed rivers, running from the nicodemon. I became a master at distracting myself.

--- First comes thought, then comes action. I'm not letting myself entertain thoughts of lighting up.

--- The nag of nicotine is like a telemarketer. Give it just one second to grab your attention, & you've got a huge pain in the ass. Just say, "No thanks" & hang up.

--- On past quits, I fell into a kind of paralysis by analysis, & the quit dominated every aspect of my life. This time, my attitude is very plain: smoking is not an option, end of discussion.

--- Your quit is a fait accompli. Don't look back to quit day or you'll turn to stone - a quit has to keep moving forward like a shark, or it dies.

--- Years ago, a friend quit smoking & started running marathons. Inspired by that, I quit & took up running myself. But somewhere along the line I got off track & started puffing more & running less. I told him, & he came up with this solution: commit to running the Disney marathon with him in 10 months. I'd have enough time to train, but no time to relapse back into smoking. This strategy proved to be a winner. On the day of the marathon, 13,000 people gathered in the pre-dawn coolness of a Florida winter morning. Fireworks blasted with the starting gun at 6 AM. Music blared from stereos along the connecting roads. My wife was there around mile 10 & she stole a quick kiss & took a picture of us, all in a matter of seconds. My training got me through mile 23 with no trouble. But the final 3 miles seemed like an eternity: I was hungry & light-headed, & I could see the river of racers in front of me winding around the lake & continuing on, out of sight towards the giant sphere at Epcot. At that point I had been running for more than 4 hours, what was another two minutes? I stayed in the moment, & suddenly around the last turn, the finish line was in sight. I crossed it & felt the immediate pure ecstasy of having finished what I had set out to do 10 months ago. The volunteers wrapped us up, & one of them placed a gold medal around my neck & congratulated me. That is a moment that will be with me always. Persistence is everything. You can do it!

--- When my wife & I took Lamaze classes, we learned about focused breathing. Labor pains are pangs, & you control them by focusing & breathing 'til the contraction is done. Why is a nicotine pang any different? When it arrives, you focus on something else, breathe deep, & get control.

Cravings

The only way to ever be totally free from cravings is to not smoke. The sooner you stop feeding the addiction, the sooner you will begin to live entire hours, then days, then weeks without craving at all.

--- Your best defense is a good offense, so plan for dealing with triggers. Stop and think: Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired- & determine to be proactive, not reactive. See the trigger coming, and smack it before it hits you: eat, vent, call someone, or go to sleep.

--- Very few relapses occur because of physical withdrawal symptoms. Most occur when you are anxious, angry, frustrated or depressed - and especially if you are offered tobacco at such times.

--- You experience fewer cravings as you quit than you would do in a lifetime of smoking.

--- I believe we experience a finite number of cravings. Think of each one as a craving displaced from another, future time - a time when, as a smoker in, say, an office, you couldn't smoke. You won't have to deal with that craving in the future, because you've already had it now: it's over with. The trick is to stop & think, when you are having a craving, of the time when there will be no cravings.

--- Which would you prefer, the discomfort of quitting for a couple months, or life on oxygen, heart or lung surgery, being bed-ridden for the rest of your life?

--- If I had the flu, & the doctor said I needed a shot to get better, I wouldn't fight it, I would just accept it as a temporary unpleasantness that would be worth it in the long run. When the cravings get bad, remember that as long as you don't smoke, you will never have to go through withdrawal again.

--- When you crave, don't think 'quitting is painful'. Think: 'addiction is painful, but if I don't give in now, it will get less painful.'

--- We will need the skills we are developing now beyond our first year quit. This difficult moment is just another to get through, & the muscles we develop in getting through it will make every future moment more manageable.

--- Every time I crave now, the craving is accompanied by the question: do I need to suck smoke into my lungs to get what my brain wants? Usually after a few minutes of vigorously chewing Nicorette, the brain says no. It's not entirely stupid.

--- Picture your sensitive, soft, pink, fleshy lungs, aspirating innocently away. Now picture a dart with a glowing red tip. Do you really want to put them together?

--- I may sometimes want to smoke, but I definitely never want to be a smoker again.

--- If the cravings get really bad, I'll go outside my office to where the smokers are quarantined, & politely ask any of them if they would ever recommend someone take up smoking.

--- Sometimes I feel like smoking myself to death. But you just feel worse afterwards.

--- The battle doesn't end if you smoke.

--- Your body is used to being obeyed when it demands its fix, & you've rebelled. Now your body is challenging you to a show-down: who is going to win, your mind or your body? Will you surrender to withdrawal & treat it like the flu (rest, watch videos, soak, drink fluids, sleep), or will you surrender to craving & smoke?

--- I thought of quitting as releasing the desire for nicotine. That resonated with me more than a deprivation approach. I pictured cravings as a sort of ethereal vapor slowly lifting out from deep within, gently floating away. When I would triumph over a difficult trigger, I would close my eyes & imagine another little puff of desire rising out of me.

--- When I felt a craving I completely opened up to it. I wanted to feel it fully, to explore it lovingly. It was a little feeling of subtle tension about 2 inches below my bellybutton. Just a harmless feeling, & I opened my arms wide to receive it! I used to sometimes talk to my cravings & say, 'Hello. You can stay as long as you need to.' & when I did that, the yearning would soon dissolve.

Alcohol & Parties

I could (thank goodness) smoke without drinking, but I couldn't drink without smoking. So I decided to give up drink at the same time as I quit smoking. To my pleasant surprise, I now quite enjoy being a teetotaler: no need to think about driving, fewer empty calories, it's cheap, there are lots of delicious drink alternatives, it's quite fun to watch others make fools of themselves, it's great to be clear-headed. So, while I don't have anything against other people drinking, I've also found that I have no difficulty socializing with them when they do. The pubs don't care, my friends don't care (I'm careful not to be a wet blanket party pooper!) & I can say (to myself) with pride that I am smober & sober.

--- At this stage I'm learning to navigate the social minefields of quitdom: how not to be self-righteous around smokers, or defensive or controlling; how to accept gracefully that others still smoke. It is not the smokers' fault that their habit triggers withdrawal symptoms in me, or that in defending smoking, they awaken my (largely dormant) doubts about quitting.

--- I really had to protect myself for quite a while; I knew that my addiction was too strong to test in smoking situations, so I just stayed away best I could. This party was a good test for me, & I had a great time, without smoking!

--- Last night I put myself to the ultimate test: I went to the pub & had rather too many beers, always fatal in the past. This time, no problem. I was even offered a cig by a rather revolting individual with bad breath, yellow teeth & a horrible cough, & am pleased to report I wasn't even tempted. On previous quits I would have begged complete strangers for a cig. Pathetic.

--- I was quit for 12 years. Got started again with cigars while having cocktails with friends, then bumming cigs, then being tired of being a bum & buying a pack. I thought I had it whipped. I used to keep the pack of cigs in my freezer so I'd have them for next weekends' cocktails. Then one morning I decided to have one with my coffee. Then one in the evening watching TV. After about 2 years I was up to a pack a day again. I knew from my time as an ex-smoker that non-smokers have a very dim opinion of smokers. As a non-smoker, you look at someone with a cig & imagine their black & scarred lungs & think, how stupid. I hid so people wouldn't think that about me.

--- I was smober for 18 months. Then I got drunk with a friend who offered me cigs repeatedly, dared me even. Well, I finally had one & it was good. So I had another, & it was even better. When I tried to bum a third, my friend told me to buy my own. That was 26 years ago; I've been quit now for a couple months. Guess you never know how many quits you have in you, so keep this quit.

--- Smell the wonderful stinking odor of his sticks. You really want to put one of those in your mouth? Watch him suckling. Isn't that a ridiculous picture? An adult suckling on a white stick with poison in it?

'Just One'

---'Just one' could get you smoking for another 5 years, which could kill you. Is 'just one' worth dying for?

--- I kinda want one. But if I have one, then in 10 minutes I'll crave another. Since I don't want the second, then I guess I just won't have the first.

--- In the angst of perpetual relapse, I have spent a lot of time contemplating a way to reduce the allure of just one cig. The imagery that works best for me is visualizing the quitting process as a WPA dam project. When you quit, your goal is to build a barrier between yourself & your addiction. You must build a framework of support, then slowly build upward. Each craving outlasted, each trigger ignored, is a brick. At some point, you look at this massive structure &, swollen with pride, deem it indestructible. What harm could one cig do, one tiny hole in this monstrous dam? You forget that just on the other side is your addiction, standing almost as tall as your barrier. At first, it works, this dam. A small, innocuous drip seeps through that tiny cig hole. But the drip becomes a trickle & the trickle starts to pick up speed. The mortar around the opening loosens & tiny chinks are washed away. What took months & months to build is destroyed in days & hours. Standing amid the rubble, the stamina to start all over, brick upon brick upon brick, seem beyond your grasp. You are the architect of your dam, but you are also the maintenance crew. Do not glory in one role at the expense of the other.

--- I'm a puff away from two packs a day.

--- The law of addiction states that administering a drug to an addict will reestablish the addict's dependence on that drug. I.e., if he takes a puff, a smoker will either then relapse or go through the withdrawal process associated with quitting. Most don't opt for withdrawal. One participant at my clinic had stopped for 24 years before he relapsed. He had never heard of this law; he didn't understand that the day he tossed his last cigarette, he was placed on probation for the rest of his life. But ignorance of psychological laws is not excusable - by American standards of justice, this seems unfair. Maybe a recently relapsed person should plead his case. Maybe he could cheat just once, get a sympathetic jury, be judged innocent & walk out of the courtroom scott-free. More likely, he'd have an uncontrollable craving the minute he was outside. Don't look for loop-holes in the law of addiction; you will be convicting yourself back to smoking. While it may seem unfair, for many, smoking is a crime punishable by death. Don't try to cheat the system; never take another puff!

--- Studies have been done on children prone to temper tantrums. Those that have always been given in to are easier to break of the habit than those who were usually denied but occasionally given in to. In other words, say no consistently, & they learn that temper tantrums don't work, but just one 'yes' undoes the lesson. Our subconscious is not so different, & it is worth thinking of this when we are tempted to sneak just one. It is reinforcing the idea that we are weaker than our cravings.

--- "I almost made it to 9 months and thought I was so clever I could have a cigar or two at a family bash. Big mistake, huge, colossal, biggest mistake made by one man in the space of ½ an hour. Bigger than a big thing on a big day in a big land....biggest. Listen all you pink, fluffy new ones: don't even think about letting your guard down, even once. This bastard's good and he's got all the tricks in his greasy little nicotined bag. He'll get you if you let him in and think you've got him tamed. The bloody bastard...I'm gonna get him again...I'm gonna put him in a box so tight and into a hole so deep that he'll think he's the worm that he actually is." ChrisJP, 4/20/00

--- If I think I can get away with one little slip now, I'll think I can get away with another little slip later.

--- Whenever I tried to quit, I would tell myself I could have two or three a day & life would be good. I would spend each day obsessing about those few cigs, which was actually torture; & within a week I'd be back to the usual two pack a day. It's not worth playing with the thought of a few cigs a day anymore, at least not for me. If I have just one, I might as well go buy a carton.

--- My uncle quit for 10 years, helped out his wife (who never did quit) by lighting her cigarette on a windy day, & has been smoking ever since. I think he's back to a pack a day for about 2 years now.

A Second Quit

To all quitters contemplating a slip, who think quitting might be easier the second time around - it isn't. The second quit is pure misery because you know what's coming, you just don't want to go there again, so you stay unquit.

--- I look at all my old quit buddies celebrating 4 months, or the new ones making 100 days, & think: I have to do that all over again, but the second time there is no excitement in it. On any given day on the first climb I could recite my quit time to the day; now I have trouble remembering what week I am on. Try to keep your quit: the next one won't be the same; the momentum you latch on to on the first quit just isn't there.

--- If you impulsively smoke, breaking a quit, & just as impulsively try to quit again, you are running scared. Stop. Reflect. Make your vow to reject nicotine a deep, abiding, potent one. Your life as an affirmed nonsmoker will be forever, so don't rush into it only to rush out of it.

--- Fool me once, nicodemon, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Memory & Habit

Our memories are stored in our minds like reels of film. When we find ourselves in a situation we've been in before, the film corresponding to that situation plays & we react in the way we did before. Now, just think about how many times we smoked: when we were angry, worried, concentrating, relaxing, bored. The trick is to begin replacing the smoking reels: to make new memories. Take walks; chew on toothpicks; read if you are stuck waiting. I remember having a horrid craving at about 4 months. It occurred after I'd had dinner with my family & said good night. As I analyzed the situation it struck me that as a smoker the first thing I did once out of mom's sight was light up! Realizing this made me laugh at this whole process. I've been out to eat with mom several times since with no craving at all. That's how this process has worked for me: as I successfully navigate old triggers, they soon are not a problem.

--- As teenagers, we learned to react to all the diverse situations in our lives by lighting up. Instead of counting to 10 to calm down, we smoked. To express satisfaction at completing a task, we'd light up - before any other reaction could manifest itself. If someone pissed us off, we'd light up even as we were yelling - sometimes instead of yelling. And many times when someone hurt us we smoked and stuffed down our feelings so that we often had no reaction at all. Every action in our lives started and ended with a smoke. After eating, washing dishes or putting away laundry I'd light up and be finished. And now that I've quit, I suddenly have no way of knowing I'm done with this and ready to go on with that. So, after all these years, we are just now learning how to cope without smoking. The skills that people who never smoked took a decade to learn, we are expected to either know already or learn in a couple weeks. No wonder so many relapse. When you find yourself reacting with the emotions of a 14 year old, you just want to curl up and cry. We're constantly on guard, learning minute by minute new, appropriate responses. Not surprisingly, after the nicotine addiction is gone, we still want 'just one' to get us through X. Nothing sounds more restful than going back to our old, familiar ways. I suggest we cut ourselves some slack: we can't expect to learn new ways of handling emotions in just a few weeks. We must allow ourselves time to work through things and learn new coping skills. We needn't push ourselves into relearning too fast what non-smokers got to take years to learn.

--- We can reason that smoking was the stupidest & most self-destructive thing we ever did to ourselves, & yet somehow despite this revelation still long for a cig. Just like a computer chip gets imprinted with data, so do our minds. It is obviously impossible to delete the smoking data from our minds, so we have to install a new, 'you no longer smoke' program, & wait for our minds to recognize the upgrade.

--- In 14 years of smoking 2 packs a day, I lit 205,000 cigs & spent 3 years smoking them, or 35% of my waking hours. Smoking is a habit like no other.

--- Just one foot in front of the other until the not smoking habit replaces the smoking habit.

--- When I started smoking it was fun, then it became a habit, & later a necessity. Quitting was the same thing only reversed: a necessity, which became a habit, & finally a joy.

--- Someone said 'if you don't remember your last smoke, you haven't had it yet'. It took me a while to understand what that meant: that I have to keep my unhappy memories of life as a smoker alive, in order to stay quit.

--- When I smoke, the costs are very clear to me. The longer I've been quit, the less clear. Smoking blinds you when you aren't smoking, not when you are.

--- When someone dies that we have a mixed relationship with - some great moments and some bad - as time goes by, only the good memories that remain. Likewise, I remember fondly the special smokes that felt good; the rest is fading. But the fact is there were very few good smokes, & if I'd only smoked those, & put out the bad ones, I wouldn't be an addict.

--- Like after the loss of your first love, time heals, though at the beginning of the lonely road you never think it will. You learn to love again. It never is the same as with your first love, but the knowledge and experience you gain teaches you to appreciate your new love more, if differently. What do I now miss about smoking? Well, unlike my first love, nothing. Would I go back to my first love, given the chance? Of course not: I have grown and moved on. We would probably have nothing in common now. We are all very good at remembering the good times and forgetting the bad - seeing our past through 'rose tinted spectacles'. With smoking I now have great difficulty remembering any good times, so I am not going back there. Of that I am certain. If I bumped into my first love tomorrow I don't think I'd know what to say to her, but I would try. With nic, I just walk on by. When you lose something that has a massive influence on your life, each new day without it is a challenge. It can be scary. A mental and physical prop is removed. As time heals, you build new, different, and stronger props. I think that is why I don't feel much like celebrating: I am now a non-smoker; the need to celebrate and mark the event of quitting diminishes.

--- When I think of smoking & find it appealing, it is the idea of what smoking used to be that appeals to me, not how it really is. I am longing for a past moment, a past self. This makes it easy to reject a return to the past: I'd rather discover the future.

--- Quitting is like an old love affair: after a while the memory of it just doesn't hurt anymore.

--- The longer you smoke, the more you reinforce the addiction. The more memories you have of hell weeks, the harder it gets to sign up for another.

--- My cough is back & my breathing is much worse. I would give anything to go back in time but I guess I needed to learn this lesson in order to quit: what was once a great pleasure has turned to pain & defeat. Everything I missed about smoking turned out to be a myth. It's no longer relaxing: I get the shakes now when I smoke. I don't like the smell or taste but keep lighting up & wondering why. I try to limit how many I smoke & can't. I hate the glee I see on the faces of the smokers I know; seems they want me outside in the cold with them. Trust me when I say that if you fall, you're in for a very big let down: this thing you covet is a distorted memory.

--- I felt so rough the next morning: sore throat, furry tongue, raspy voice, all after just 5 cigs. To anyone already feeling the benefits of quitting: smoking is pretty disgusting when you're a non-smoker. It hurts, it makes you splutter, it tastes bad. Smoking won't be the way you remember it, because you aren't used to it any more.

--- I still want to smoke sometimes, but it's much easier now to say, this feeling is just an old sense memory, & kind of laugh it off.

Investing Time

---Quitting was a full-time, 9 month project. I dropped out of school; spent 5 hours a day at the Q; read four books about quitting; wrote 30 pages about it. After all that, relapse is unthinkable.

--- My friends call to ask, "What's up, B?" and I say, "Well, I am not smoking. I am getting pretty good at not smoking." "Anything else?" "Uh, no. Not today." I know someday I might work with the front half of my brain again. And maybe I'll actually do things instead of not doing things. But right now I'm busy not doing what I'm supposed to be not doing - not smoking.

--- There are times in the quitting process when I can A) choose not to handle a trigger situation because I am not ready. There are also times when I can B) choose to work through the trigger situation. Those are my options, A & B. There is no option C) smoke.

--- When I'm lonely & sad, & all my emotions are hanging out like live wires, I know it's not the time for me to make any decisions. Sometimes I just need to step back & regroup; eat, sleep & nothing important in between. Tackle one major thing at a time: today it's not smoking; all the other things can get in line.

--- When you reach the point in your quit where you're convinced it's not worth the effort anymore, stop & think about what will happen next. You'll light up, take a drag, & the smoke will snake its way into your lungs, reaching your brain in 7 seconds, where it will trigger a seratonin release & the reward response that you were looking for, while your pupils dilate & blood vessels constrict throughout your body. You're like a sky diver taking that first jump again, & this is all a result of one drag. So you take a couple more hits trying to keep the dive going, but in a few seconds it's over & you're back on the ground again. As you take the next drag, it dawns on you that taking drags is what you did 600 times a day for 40 years, & it's just banal! For that paltry rush you broke your quit? For that you became a smoker again? Stop there, & come back to the present. You can give yourself a gift, instead. The gift is the hard-earned investment you've made in becoming a nonsmoker. The time you've put between yourself & your last cig is an almost tangible thing of value, but only if you protect it & keep it growing. So when you feel the panic of losing it beginning to close in, just slow it all down long enough to hand yourself this gift of time & distance achieved so far from your addiction.

--- You know the saying, look after the cents & the dollars will take care of themselves. In relation to your quit: look after the minutes, & the days, weeks, months & ultimately years will take care of themselves.

Maintenance

Being smoke-free requires a continued commitment: there will always be a little junkie inside you holding out a frail hope for nicotine. After weeks of not thinking about cigs, I will be hit with an urge that lasts maybe 10 seconds, & in those 10 seconds, my 10 months smoke-free melt away & I feel like a newbie all over again. Course, I'd rather feel like a newbie for 10 seconds a couple times a month than be smoking or feeling like a newbie 24/7.

--- There is no miracle here: no sudden, magical moment of quittedness, no sign or burning bush. Life goes on and doesn't seem to notice.

--- To live is to change; to live well is to change often. Or, as one old-timer used to say, "You don't have to do anything to stay quit except change your entire lifestyle." Not for the faint of heart, and not necessary for every ex-smoker, but if you're one of those 'hard cases', self-searching, and reaching outside oneself for help, may be the only key.

--- I believe it is the superman syndrome, the complacent sense that one can do anything that gets most people back to smoking after a long hiatus. I have conquered smoking because I haven't smoked in x amount of time, therefore I can do anything! I can even have just one! & of course, one leads to another. So the focus has to be on not taking that first drag. If I don't smoke NOW, I can quit for good.

--- Seems like it's easier when it's harder: when the craves are hitting you and you have to resist and know it will take some effort, it may be easier to not smoke. When you think you have it licked, that you can take it or leave it, that you can just have one, that is the time we let our guard down. That sneaky old nicodemon always seems to know when, where and how to strike.

--- We are so secure in our quits now that most of the time it takes no effort to ignore them. So we could probably taste just one, right? Bite me! Think back to hell week ? remember those urges? Those nasty bastards hurt, didn't they? These little urges we're getting now don't even enter the same realm. I think the nicodemon is just checking to see if we are still attached to our brains!

--- Even the success of our quits can be a trigger: I once found myself saying 'I can have a cigarette because I'm a nonsmoker'.

--- I get to thinking 'I have done so well that I deserve a cigarette.' Deserve? My lungs deserve to be filled with toxic chemicals, my blood with carbon monoxide?

--- Don't think 'quitting is no longer a challenge and I'm bored'. Think 'the true challenge is to stay quit in the mundane times'.

--- If something bad happened to you, would you take a knife to your wrist? No, so don't smoke under stress. Bad things happen; smoking needn't.

--- The demon slips back into your life on little cat feet & softly nudges you. It is very disconcerting. Its not a big crisis that gets you off the wagon: it can be a little push.

--- Having got through the first few horrible weeks, it was the thought of having suffered for nothing that kept me going in the months & now years that have followed.

--- Quitting is too awful to go through if you aren't even going to succeed.

Moving On

Today you want one. Today I don't. Why? Because I forced myself through day 1. & 2 & 3 & so on. Now I'm on day 365, & I truly don't even think about it anymore.

--- Quit to live; don't live to quit.

--- Accomplish your goal, & then get on with life as though you never smoked in the first place.

--- Don't use up all your presents studying the past.

--- Smoking becomes sort of a non-issue: it is something that unfortunate, addicted people do, & you feel sorry for them, but there's no personal connection anymore.

--- A cig used to feel like one of my limbs. When I first thought of quitting, the line that seemed to apply was "if thy hand offends thee, cut it off": I could quit & save my life, but I'd lose my hand. Then as this divisive addiction left my body, it was as though the cig moved further and further away as I looked at it, and for the first time in 26 years, it was far enough away for me to actually focus on it. It looked so different from this perspective: just a paper cylinder containing a drug, a drug I could chose to use or not use. And like any drug, I knew it would give me a false sense of well-being for a time, then make me chase my tail trying to recover the high, all at an incredible price - a price I now refuse to pay. Cigs convince you that you can't live without them; the truth is you can't live with them.

--- For me, quitting has been like having a baby. You spend the time prior to giving birth preparing, & the event itself is every bit as painful & difficult as they say. Zoom ahead to the child's first birthday. Do you still praise God every second for this child? Do you walk around in abject fear for his life? Of course not: you're used to this tiny miracle; you take his continued health for granted; you take your ability to protect him for granted. I'm no longer afraid of failing. I no longer need to drag out the image of smoking to remind myself what a hard thing I'm doing. I'm no longer getting pats on the back. My quit has become secondary to my life. The day-to-dayness is boring. So, my hope is to find a new challenge, because I really think that's where this phantom want stems from: a need to feel exhilarated about something in the same way I felt exhilarated about my quit in the beginning, before I assumed I would make it, when success was a skyscraper-sized question mark.

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