Stop Smoking
I used to smoke so much, I would go to sleep with an empty ashtray beside me, and wake up to find 20 cigarette butts in it. Baby, I loved my smokes.
I haven't smoked for about 26 years now, but I am here to tell you, when my budget demanded that I choose between food and cigarettes, the cigarettes won every time. Like every smoker, I knew I had to stop. The world was changing. There wasn't anywhere to smoke anymore, and everyone was getting so darn nasty about smoking. "It's a filthy habit!" they would say. (Yeah, well wash that greasy mop you call your hair and then we'll discuss my personal hygiene, buddy.)
I believe that every smoker who wants to stop feels isolated in a very unique way. He believes that the guy who was able to quit had a different type of addiction, or a lesser addiction. He thinks that maybe a magical bell went off in his head, which enabled him to quit. He doesn't imagine himself as one of those people who can actually stop. Not really.
And when he hears of various smoking cessation methods, he thinks that those processes couldn't possibly work for him. His addiction is different.
I struggled with stopping and starting for a full year, before I picked up a brilliant little pamphlet in the back of a church. It had just a few paragraphs, all of which contradicted all of the advice I had read about smoking cessation.
Typically, the advice is to announce your intention to quit. Set a date, and shout it from the rooftops. At every opportunity, call yourself a non-smoker. If you have a cigarette, set a new stop date. Announce your intention to quit again. Shout it from the rooftops again. Call yourself a non-smoker again.
But this simple little typing paper brochure instructed me to do the following.
Make it a private battle, it said. Don't tell anyone. Go one-on-one with the enemy. Forget a support system, announcements and stop dates.
Stop immediately, it said.
If you smoke again, enjoy the whole cigarette and then put it out.
Stop immediately again. That minute.
If you smoke again, relax and enjoy the whole cigarette and put it out.
Then stop immediately again. That minute.
In other words, hassle yourself every minute of every day until you just can't stand it anymore. Soon, you will begin skipping a cigarette here and there because you don't want to have to cycle through the disappointment of smoking and the agony of stopping again. It's such a rigmarole, such a magilla, such a production! It's easier to just skip the cigarette.
You will find yourself smoking every other cigarette you crave. And you'll still be hassling yourself after every smoke. Put it out, and stop again. Immediately.
No announcements to friends, no new "stop dates" set for one week later, no audiences cheering you on, and congratulating you.
Just get in the ring with your opponent and duke it out, every minute of every day. Make the fight incessant, private and intense. Make it just like smoking itself - incessant, private and intense.
Gang, after a week of stopping "forever" every ten minutes, you're exhausted! You want to think about things besides smoking cessation - and you begin to.
A whole world opens up to you, one in which you're not calculating how many smokes you have in your pack, how late the store is open, and where you can smoke every place you visit.
If I had to put in in a nutshell, I'd say this method simply nags you out of smoking. It follows every smoke you have with an effort to stop forever - again. The strain of having to quit and quit and quit so many times a day wears you out.
Most people who quit make an announcement, try, fail, set a new quit date and smoke for another month. This method speeds up that process to a ridiculous degree.
I recommend it. Heaven knows I tried everything else.
I highly recommend a smoke-free life. It has a carefree, refreshing quality - it's like being a kid again!