STOP SMOKING – Free

This Stop Smoking – Free “program” has been reorganized back into one cohesive article which leaves the appearance of my blog a little neater. However, it is broken down into 5 sections with the page numbers showing at the bottom of the page in order that one may access that part which is sought. The first part is the INTRO and what I meant to convey. 2 is the HEAD PART, how to begin, what to do. In 3 discusses WITHDRAWAL and what to do. 4 Covers MAJOR NO-NOs. 5 is the WRAP-UP. Just click the page number.

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Without patches, gum or buying any products.

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I ask you to put your disbelief on the back burner, read my story – let me show you how I did it and why you have everything to gain and nothing to lose. I’d like to share what worked for me. It’s 15 years now and counting.

Why ?

I’ll tell you why – in recent years, with increasing frequency, we are being plagued with broadcast and print media appeals to buy products and plans to help people quit smoking. It’s an over load, and I’m weary of it. There is quite a bit of hype involved and I question the science of much of it, cynic that I am. It is sad that there is so little progress in this field and the same old bad information is still going around. This has caught my attention to the extent that I am forced to either let it go – or do something about it. I have chosen to do something about it.

You might ask, what makes me think that I have anything worth while to say in this field? Who do I think I am? To which I respond Well, I’ve been there and done that, and done that, and done that and done it almost to death. One might think I was a professional quitter. I was a smoker for about forty years with about half that time spent in trying to quit. Let me tell you that I quit for weeks and months many times; 10 and 11 months about three times and several times for over two years. I also quit for 10 years! And then went back Each time, I would go back. Hard as it was, I could force my way through the quitting, but in all those times, apparently, I never resolved my issues with it or didn’t DO STUFF right because I couldn’t be DONE WITH IT. I would go back. I missed it.

They don’t talk too much about what it does to us having to live with this failure thing – how it eats way at our sense of self and dings us all over as if we had been in a terrible accident psychically. This is very uncomfortable because it doesn’t fit what else we know about ourselves – that many of us are indeed pretty bright with some among the intelligentsia (so to speak). Multiple failed attempts to be done with it can create a sense of guilt which can almost be worse than the threat of ‘not quitting’ in the first place. It does undermine and I wasted much effort trying to figure out why I couldn’t make it stick. What was wrong with me? Sure, it’s an addiction, but what was I doing wrong that I couldn’t be done with it?

Over the years I tried a number of different methods and programs; some helpful but none proved to be my solution. Most of all, the cutesy things to do were ineffectual and a nuisance such as snapping rubber bands around your wrists; wrapping your cigarette packs up with papers and lots of rubber bands; keeping the buggers out in the car so that even if it is raining and in the middle of the night, you go traipsing out to get one. There were notes to take – how were you feeling, what were you doing and what caused you to have to have one at this time? The aversion therapy thing was repulsive, stupid and offensive.

The last program I tried was of immense help for me, essentially because it was not insulting to my mind. While most of the others had dealt with the perils of the health impairment of the habit (who of us doesn’t know the facts of the nicotine addiction), this one was different. It dealt with mind set, understanding a few particular essentials, facing our dragons – had a very cerebral approach. They got right down to it and didn’t fool around with a bunch of sharing stuff and insufferable things to do. They seemed to have opened things up for me. It was presented in mini-lecture form in which it was stressed we all have CHOICE. In fact, the only way we wouldn’t have choice is if we were in prison and someone threw the key away. This had not registered clearly to me before…. As admittedly, I had been blaming the tobacco companies, and all those people ‘out there’ who managed to stress me out so much that I was literally forced to take a cigarette. I hadn’t realized it, but I was blaming others and not claiming my own authority and power. So instead of making me feel guiltier or worse, magically, it seemed to get through to me and helped. That was the first thing that impressed me, placing the responsibility squarely on my own shoulders, where the thought processes originate – in my own head. I HAD A CHOICE! I could change things. I can control this – IF I CHOOSE! And this was the second zinger.