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Continuing from 4 posts above. May as well, as this is a smoking thread.
Here's how my, I'll call it the "Slowboat Method," worked for me.
Basically I smoked with impunity all through my late teens and '20s and had no intention of quitting. I enjoyed the whole smoking ritual.
Plan was always to quit the day I hit 30 or at least begin the process. So that's what I did. Turning it off on the 30th birthday was of course impossible, but I did start the process of quitting that day.
One year and 10 months later I was smoke-free with no desire at all to even have one.
Obviously this is a long leisurely quitting process but it did work perfectly for me. Not once did I ever deny my urges. As I said that last cigarette that I had, I didn't even want. It was then that I realized I had probably quit without even formally doing it.
This is where things got a tad tense, as I suddenly had to deal with the reality that it was over. But the truth is I hadn't had a cig for two weeks, without even trying, and maybe two or three max in the two weeks before that. So it did seem that I had actually achieved goal of not wanting a cigarette. And that is what you are trying to achieve - not even wanting them.
From this point on I was not not going to have a cigarette. Smoking was not an option at all, but I could do it because I had got to this stage naturally, unlike most smokers who try to quit when they still have urges.
Big test for me was combining coffee or beer without cigs.
Surprisingly neither of those activities was even remotely difficult when put to the test. I hit the pub one night, lots of beer flowing, and still no urge. Couple of cups of coffee no problem, but again this was only at the end, when I had actually managed to become a non-smoker. Along the way I indulged.
To backtrack here'swhat got me to this point, over 22 months.
Basically the Tony Robbins method.
Continually link pain with smoking and link as much pleasure with the joys of not smoking, and do lay it on thick. You are playing with your head. You are one of Blofelds angels of death, trying to reverse your attitudes towards food, but in our case we are talking smoking.
The beauty of this method is that when you want a cigarette you just have one. You suffer no denial. What you are doing though, is changing your brain's attitude over time.
I would picture my lungs rottng as I inhaled the smoke. Picture the biggest losers you can think off puffing away. Associate yourself with them. You don't have to dwell, but do work with these images.
Do not think of Sean Connery puffing away at the card table in the opening scenes of DN, rather picture him years later, wheezing from emphyzema. Do not glamourize smoking. Rather do the opposite. Conjure up the most disgusting images that you can handle, whilst puffing, but don't dwell more than you need to. Just work the exercise as best you can.
There is a million things you can do. Image yourself with horrible breath.
Another good trick is to analyze your habit. Break it down.ie when do you absolutely need a cig, no question, and when is it just a default habit?
For me, coffee and beer were absolute. I could not drink either without a cig. Impossible not to combine caffeine and alcohol with cigs.
I'd bum a cig or leave the office and go to the cig store to get through morning coffee.
Once you have done this analysis, you can consciously cut down or even eliminate the non-essential smoking times, like waiting at the busstop or walking down the street, knowing you are never actually locked into anything. Just work as best you can over time. It does have a cumulative effect and you will see your consumption decrease.
Also if you pub-night a lot, cut back on the pubbing if you can, or simply cut back while drinking. Its not that tough, because you are never fully denying yourself.
I got to the point where I was only smoking when coffee-drinking or beer-drinking, and even in those situations, I was still doing the rotting lung exercises or whatever, and cutting back consumption.
The beauty of this method is that it is totally laisez-faire. You are never locked into anything. Its a process of cutting down and changing attitudes over time, to the point where you realize you have become a non-smoker through osmosis.
Again, when that realization kicks in, then you do have to lock-in, but it was not difficult at all I found, as I had come to that stage at a natural pace. I really wanted to not smoke. It wasn't hard at all. It was liberating.
When I realized that I had probably quit after that last cig that I didn't actually want, with my smoking buddy who had come to visit, I immediately, made a decision to stay out of pubs, and no beer for a month.
I wanted at least 4 weeks of separation before I had a beer, so that the non-smoking habit might more easily trump the beer-and-cigs habit.
The pleasure-and-pain principle at work. By doing this you can link more pain with breaking your 4-5 weeks of smoke-free freedom, than with the "pleasure" of lighting up with the beer. Remember pain avoidance is always stronger than seeking pleasure. We human beings can't abide avoidable pain.
Worked like a charm. When I finally hit the pub, I drank as much beer as I could, and had no urge to smoke. If fact I was reveling in quaffing pints and not-smoking.
I'd passed the coffee test a few weeks earlier. Avoiding coffee was harder, because I was always exposed to it at work. Trick here was to concentrate on how great the coffee tasted minus the crappy cigarette taste. Dwell on the aroma. Even if its bad coffee, its still coffee, you can work with it.
I actually started upping the coffee intake just to reinforce the coffee as an independant drug, the pleasurable consumption of which, would be inhibited by cigs. Revel in the coffee for the coffee's sake and severly marginalize the cig factor. Cigs become the enemy.
But again it took a long time to get to this point . Its a slow buid-up. There was a lot of beer-and-cigs and beer-and-coffee along the way. Trick is alway be thinking about quiting and why its a great idea.
I started playing men's hockey around this time, at age 30, in rec leagues, after having set it aside for several years, post the prime-youth years.
Lung fitness was now suddenly a huge issue, due to age, never mind smoking. Another smoker on the team started jogging with me, just so we could last more than 20 seconds on the ice, without huffing and puffing back to the bench to suck on the water bottle.
Jogging is a lot of work. I started dreaming of being smoke-free so that jogging would be easier, hockey would be easier etc. I conjured up all sorts of images of being this powerful cardio machine that could run forever, skate forever, if only the cigs were vanquished.
I'd recommend jogging or any cardio exercise effort, and then blame any and all struggles, on the smoking.
Just part of the brainwashing techinque and do this while you are puffing. But again, no need to dwell. You don't want to link pain with the process.
I would just work with these thoughts initially and then relax and "enjoy" the cig. Torturing yourself I don't think works, but DO make each cigarette accountable. Never light up, without initially doing the mental exercises, otherwise you are not making progress, you are simply still indugling a smoking habit without accountability.
Everyone is different I guess. The 22 months that I took, is a long time. Others might get to the same place a lot quicker with the same method. Trick is to keep themental exercise going every day and you get there when you get there. You are tyring to get to the point where you only smoke occasionally, and even then you don't really want to, and then finally you realize a couple of weeks has gone by smoke-free and you are just like a non-smoker, ie you still don't want one.
That's when you lock-in and remove the option completely.
And remember the ony reason we quit smoking is for health. We don't want to die of lung cancer which is almost certainly your fate if you keep it going forever.
Its not about money. The money you save on smoking is just disposable income that you will now spend on something else. You won't be any richer.
Quitting smoking is only about health.
So as you find yourself cutting back, really work the "seek pleasure" motivation too. Dwell and revel in the joys of health and smoke free lungs. Savour the air, get in tune with nature and everything healthy. Again these are mind tricks. You don't have to go live in the country, but do revel in the health benefits and conujure up these images.Picture pink lungs. Do lay it on thick. Picture smoking as some black-tar plague determined to kill you.
Anyway that's my foolproof system. I call if foolproof because it worked for me, and I can say I honestly have not had the slightest urge since and we are talking lots of years. The thought of smoking repulses me, although I will indulge cigars, buts thats a completey different activity, and even then only when the occasion comes up, like maybe twice a summer at most, outdoors after a game of golf, when someone says lets have a cigar.
I am not bothered at all by people smoking around me either, because their smoking doesnt' change that I have zero interest.
Pain and pleasure -- I link pure pleasure with having pink lungs. I can't see them, so why not, lets make them pink pink pink.
But smoking makes them black. Horrors -major pain-can't have that.
My usual 'habit' times for smoking are as soon as I wake up, and after every meal. A meal doesn't feel complete until I have myself a cigarette. But, I must say, I've been cutting back on the smoking considerably lately, as I'm back to having one every hour or two as opposed to one every thirty minutes. It's not the biggest difference, but it's a start.
How old were you when you first started?
I was 12! ;-)
Drinking is the vice I afford myself. I treat it similarly to Bond. Probably not an ideal way to live.
Yeah, I was hooked almost immediately. Tried qutting so many times but the truth is I enjoy it too much still.
The most shocking sight I've ever seen was a man walking his liittle son to school. He was between 6 and 8 years old. He had a plastic lunchbox in one hand and a cigarette in the other! I had to do a double take because I just couldn't believe my eyes. :-O
I think you are off to a good start, but I think two major things need to be considered before one can really plan to quit.
First, this may seem obvious, but one does have to have a genuine goal in mind to quit. It can't just be, I hope I might etc, or it would be good if I did.
It has to be an actual goal that one is determined to achieve, and I don't think that can be achieved unless one gets fixated on having pink lungs. There is no other reason to quit really.
Once you have decided you want pink lungs and all the joys associated with that, then you have to establish the "when" ie when you are actually going to start working towards that goal.
With me, I decided in my '20s that I wanted pink lungs someday. Once that goal was established, I decided the "when" would be 30th birthday. At that point I would start the work.
Until then, I didn't give a poop. Like @willygalore I enjoyed smoking too much. I smoked with impunity all through my '20s. When you are young, you have time to play with - time to undo the damage later. By age 30, not so much time. That was my rationale.
As it turned out, it worked, as even with the slowboat approach, I was an actual non-smoker shortly before I turned 32.
Most of my smoking friends from those days are still smoking, mainly because I don't think they ever actually commited to being a non-smoker. They never set a goal, which they could methodically pursue.
Quiting has to be a clearly defined goal, and then once you reach non-smoker mindset - lock-in.
Trick is, don't lock-in until you have naturally achieved non-smoker brainwashed status, otherwise you will relapse. Better just to stay on the slow steady pace.
Exceptions of course are those who get scared straight. ie a major medical emergency, smoking-related or not, that might schock one one to clean-up. I've seen that happen.
Suddenly due to a health scare, fear of ingesting any carcinogens into the body trumps any smoking pleasure. The pain avoidance tendency takes over.
@creasy47. What I would do if I were you, is figure out what date you want to start the quiting process, ie launch the slowboat. Maybe a birthday, New Years Day, whatever. Until then, smoke with impunity and enjoy.
But when you do decide to launch the slowboat, keep it sailing and build towards the end goal of pink lungs, however long it takes. Do not overdue it along the way, as the process cannot be "painful." Light-up as need be.
Isolating your habits is a good start. Once the slowboat (Scaramanga's Junk is good imagery) sails, eg. leave the after-meal routine alone and the first-thing-in-the-morning routine too, but be fully aware these are routines, that eventually have to be relaxed and phased out. Meanwhile cut back elsewhere, but nothing crazy, and just keep doing the mental exercises and keep picturing the pink lungs, fresh-air endgame.
The mental exercise do have to be done with every cig, even just briefly for a moment or so, upon lighting up.
Eventually the slowboat reaches port and its pink-lung city. :)
As for drinking, Bond didn't get me started but I have wanted to try some of the drinks he's had, even though I hear some of the ones he enjoys tastes terrible.
I did it cold turkey and it's taken an emotional toll on me but I think I've finally got it beat this time. Going through the initial withdrawal was excruciating. Some people claim that it doesn't affect them very much. I wish I had their chemical makeup because it makes me more irritable than I would like to admit. I'm sure a lot of it is mental though. The funny thing is that while I'm doing my body a favor I was not prepared for the psychological damage that this would create. If you truly love smoking (which I did) then be prepared for depression to set in. I'm terribly conflicted. On the one hand I am so proud of myself and can feel the extremely positive physical effects. On the other (darker) side I feel like I've lost part of my identity. I was ready to battle the withdrawal but not this awful sadness. Every day it gets a little easier.
You have to truly want this. We've all been there when we try to quit because we tell ourselves that we should. However, we fail because deep down we do not really want to quit. It's more than being a drug addict. It's being in love with the whole process. It's comparable to going through a divorce (no fun, I would know) where it just takes a long time to accept and then move on. Anyway, that is where I'm at people. I would like to acknowledge @timmer's words of wisdom. For those of you who are young smokers, please do set a mental date when you would like to quit. Mine was age 35 and I'm on my way. Hopefully you can do the same.
But you might be at that point now. One day at a time then. Eventually it becomes the norm, and you will be free.
Yes my partner has been on at me about my poor health so I've been on Champix for the last four weeks. No cigarettes so far.
Personally, I would prefer to continue smoking and "get myself a new boyfriend". ;-)
You definitely have to be one hundred per cent sure you want to quit, came up with strategy myself. Also i enjoy cycling and running, cardiovascular system improved vastly in seven weeks. I always keep testing myself to see how fit i am, and that gives me even more an incentive never to smoke again. Now it seems crazy that i once smoked as would not be able to do what i have been doing recently.