Quit Smoking

There are so many websites today offering numerous ways to quit smoking, many the same or similar, some quite different. Today the government’s 1-800-QUITNOW hotline is receiving a record number of calls. From 2004 to 2010 the total number of calls received was just under three million. So far in just this year, 2011, there have been over six hundred thousand additional calls! It is clear that more Americans than ever before are seeking some way to end their habit/addiction to smoking cigarettes, and once and for all, stop smoking.

To successfully quit smoking, to really stop smoking, one must find the right solution to their problem. Many seek to stop smoking using the nicotine patch. The theory is that if one uses the nicotine patch, and slowly withdraws from nicotine by using less and less nicotine in the patches, that in the end, the desire to smoke will be gone. The success rate for this system is woefully small (1). In fact, it is similar (or less) to just trying to quit “cold turkey”. This tells us that the desire to smoke cannot simply be found in the addiction to nicotine. Surely that is a part of the syndrome, but it cannot be all of it, or the system would be 100% successful for each and every smoker using it. But it is not. Not even close. Far less than 10%

The same is true for those who choose to use the nicotine gum. This is gum saturated with nicotine in various amounts, used to withdraw from the addiction to nicotine. But nicotine gum works no better than does the nicotine patch (2).

One of the oldest programs to quit smoking is using a hypnosis program. Hypnotists have for decades been taking money from those who believe that a hypnosis to quit smoking program will help them to once and for all stop smoking. However, having been a clinical hypnotherapist in perhaps the largest and oldest hypnosis clinic in the USA, I can tell you that although I do believe hypnosis should be a part of a successful campaign to quit smoking, the vast majority of hypnotists do not know how to correctly use hypnosis to get their clients to quit smoking. So the end result is that using a hypnosis program to quit smoking is rarely successful in the long term.

In fact, Kerry Packer, who was, until his death in 2005, the most wealthy man in Australia and one of the world’s multibillionaires, is reported to have paid Marshall Sylver, a world renowned hypnotist, $100,000 for a single session of hypnosis to help him quit smoking. It did not take. Kerry Packer did not stop smoking through hypnosis.

To quit smoking now, what a smoker must do is begin to deal with the core issue that drives the desire to continue to smoke cigarettes. To quit smoking through hypnosis, the hypnosis must be properly applied. It should not focus on the present, telling the subject that they will no longer desire to smoke, or that the cigarettes will begin to taste like rotten eggs, or any other such nonsense. What the hypnotist must do is focus on the past, back to the time when the subject first decided to become a smoker. That point, the exact moment that smokers, almost invariably children of no more than fourteen, often as young as ten, the children started to hypnotize themselves into becoming smokers.

It is my firm belief that every smoker, every single one, is in a state of hypnosis. They hypnotized themselves into becoming smokers, as after all, any hypnotist worth his or her salt will tell you that all hypnosis is self-hypnosis. It is not a capturing process as the old Dracula movies would suggest, but a leading process. In other words, the hypnotist leads the subject into a state of mind wherein the subject accepts and internalizes the suggestions of the hypnotist. But the hypnotist is not issuing commands, only offering suggestions that the subject may or may not choose to follow.

When someone tries to quit smoking after a decade or more after starting, they most often fail, and then believe it is because they lack the will power to overcome the addiction. Most see it as a weakness in their character. This is not true. What is true is that their inability to stop smoking by simply exerting their will is a testament to the commitment they made to themselves to become a smoker in the first place. They hypnotized themselves to start smoking, and they must reverse that hypnosis at the subconscious level to end it. To quit smoking, to stop smoking successfully and never desire to smoke again takes returning the person to the psychological state they were in before they committed to become a smoker.

I know there are those who smoke who will say, “I am not hypnotized!” But have they ever been hypnotized? Do they even know what being hypnotized feels like? Tell me this. Would anyone who is not in an altered state of consciousness (which takes them a step away from reality) knowingly take a chemically treated poison weed, wrapped in chemically treated poisonous paper, light it on fire and breath the toxic fumes from that fire as often as two hundred times per day (twenty cigarettes times ten drags from each) every day of their life for ten, twenty, thirty years or more, knowing that the end result may well be a painful, costly and prolonged death, and believe that they are experiencing some sort of “pleasure”, pay dearly to do that, and not be in a state of hypnosis?

No one starts smoking because they want to enjoy the taste of a burning cigarette. No one I have ever heard of enjoyed that first cigarette, especially after inhaling that first time. I know I didn’t. I became instantly nauseous and nearly threw up. I was dizzy and at ten years old, decided that smoking was not for me.

But four years later, after associating with three other boys my age in my new school, and dearly desiring to become a part of their “gang”, I believed I had to become a smoker as they were. I clearly remember asking myself what I call the “critical question”. I remember where I was and what I felt. The question was, “Do I really want to be a smoker?” Of course, after very little consideration, I said, “Yes!” Then I proceeded to inhale the cigarette I’d just lit, stolen from my parents stash, and got sick, waited until it passed, then did it again, until I could do it without feeling like puking. It only took a few days before I was smoking just like my new friends, blowing smoke rings and “looking cool”.

I, like almost every smoker I have interviewed over the years of my work as a smoking cessation coach, started smoking for three main reasons. They are

1) If only adults smoke and I smoke, I will appear to be more mature, more “adult-looking”. But that was true only to those younger than me. To true adults, I simply looked like a foolish little boy trying to look older.

2) My friends are doing it, and if I want to be more like my friends, I will start smoking like them. I will then be more accepted by them. I don’t truly think that they accepted me more, or would have accepted me any less had I opted not to become a smoker, but that was my thinking at the time.

3) Smoking is sexy. In the movies, I saw James Dean, Humphrey Bogart, Elizabeth Taylor and so many other sex symbols smoke and look “sexy and cool” smoking. I wanted to be like them; to be more sexually attractive. After all, John Wayne was advertising cigarettes on TV. If “The Duke” said it was the thing to do, who was I to believe otherwise. And add to that, every single adult in my family smoked. (And with the exception of my mother, who died as a result of an auto accident at 43, all died with smoking related cancers.) So smoking was simply a right of passage into adulthood in my life in the fifties.

So let’s review. I chose to smoke cigarettes to appear more mature. I attached the behavior to my sense of maturity. I chose to smoke cigarettes to become closer to my friends, more accepted by them. I attached the behavior to my sense of social acceptability. I chose to smoke cigarettes to appear more sexually attractive. I attached the behavior to my sense of sexuality. And I did these three things at perhaps the most critical point in my development; while I was establishing my internal self-image. I was deciding who and how I was in the world, what my values are, and how I would behave in the future. One of those facets of that image was…I was and would continue to be a cigarette smoker.

When I finally awoke to the reality that smoking was a foolish, expensive and more than a bit anti-social thing to be doing over a decade later, I found that I could not simply stop smoking by just making that decision. I could not quit smoking using all the will power I had. I gave up trying for another five years.

But at that point, nearly thirty years old, I asked myself another critical question. This one seemed foolish, even to me at the time. But I asked it seriously of myself, and began to seek the answer. That question was: “How can I quit smoking, stop smoking forever, and still not deny myself a cigarette any time I want to smoke one?”

Eventually I did find the answer, actually many of them. I developed a process for myself wherein I could smoke every cigarette I wanted, and watched myself, step by step, day by day, week by week, lose my desire to smoke. Today I have no desire whatsoever to ever smoke another cigarette, something no one who has quit cold turkey can honestly say. I have successfully de-hypnotized myself from being a smoker. I am wide awake to what smoking is and does to the human body.

What I found out along the way was this. Smoking is not even the true problem. The problem is the desire to smoke. This desire is at the core of every smoker’s addiction. To quit smoking, to truly stop smoking forever, one must deal with that core issue. One must lose the desire to smoke. Then the cigarettes will be gone for good.

We cannot change the past, but we can change the way we remember it and how those memories affect our lives today.

To quit smoking, you need not try to focus on the symptom of your problem, the smoking. To stop smoking, you must work on the core issue driving that symptom, the desire to smoke. Once you remove that incredibly strong hypnotic suggestion you have implanted in your psyche so many years ago, the symptom, smoking, will be gone forever.

Do you want to learn how to stop smoking cigarettes? How frequently have you declared to yourself or somebody else, “I really need to give up cigarettes,” only to do a flip-flop and smoke yet another cigarette? In the event that you are similar to many cigarette smokers, your answer will be: “A great deal more times than I am comfortable with.”

You are certainly not alone. Research shows that about 90% of current smokers have a desire to kick their smoking addiction. The lucky reality is: By putting forth a little bit of effort and a lot of devotion, anyone could ultimately figure out how to stop smoking cigarettes and lead a more healthy life as a recovering smoker. If you are dead set on quitting, here is a complete quit smoking plan to help you kick your nicotine addiction to the curb and stop smoking cigarettes forever.

How to Stop Smoking Step 1: Resolve to Quit

Like any huge plan of action, little can take place until a solid decision is made to get going and achieve your plans. The same is true when discovering how to quit smoking cigarettes. It is usually at this junction, however, that quite a few nicotine users come to be anxious, suffering from fear of making it through each day with no the drug nicotine.

Rather than being scared by committing to stopping altogether, decide to make a commitment to engage in the tasks that can help you quit cigarette smoking more successfully. Simply say to yourself, “I’m going to get going with my recovery plan with an open mind and work on the strategies described in this guide to how to quit smoking.”

Doesn’t that sound a lot easier than making up your mind right now at this very minute never to have another cigarette? Definitely! A lifetime commitment of refraining from smoking cigarettes is extreme for many active smokers, but a daily determination to work on quitting is extremely plausible!

Considering that you have decided to take the actions for living life as a recovering smoker, why don’t we proceed.

How to Quit Smoking Step 2: List Your Personal Reasons to Stop Smoking

Yup! You got it! This guide demands some content writing, so get a few sheets of paper and something to write with and carry on!

You should list any and every motive for why you want to stop smoking, given that they are the truth. It does no good to come up with motives that don’t mean much in your specific case. In the event you can easily pay for cigarettes, by way of example, the price of smoking cigarettes might not be a motivating enough reason to stop. In the event you are focused on your health, however, and you are afraid of being one of the 400,000 annual statistics of smoking-caused COPD ending in death; health is going to be a good reason for you to give up smoking cigarettes.

Other motives to stop smoking may include: The well being of your children or animal companions, the desire to have higher production at your job, not wanting to smell unpleasant to people who don’t smoke, seeking to be a role model for your teenagers, etc.

Make certain to create your checklist of reasons to give up smoking on a sheet of paper or in a miniature scratch pad you are able to keep with you throughout the process. You are going to refer to this as motivation to stick to your plan to quit so you can finally stop cigarette smoking.

How to Give Up Smoking Step 3: Determine Your Quit Date

As you have almost certainly discovered in earlier efforts to stop smoking, it is not easy to go from actively smoking 1 pack of cigarettes or more a day to being a non smoker the next. Even though some ex smokers could stop like this, the majority simply can’t. As an alternative to attempting to wake up the following morning as a non smoker, resolve to wake up tomorrow with the objective of smoking minimally one less cigarette than you did today.

Eventually, you really want to be smoking just about 10-15 cigarettes a day before you quit smoking for good – either without medication or with the assistance of aids to stop smoking. Based upon on how much you smoke each day and the amount of cigarettes you decide to reduce each day, your specific quitting date will arrive around about a couple of weeks to 45 days or so from today.

A simple yet effective approach to decreasing your daily cigarette intake involves decreasing the quantity of cigarettes you smoke by only one every day or every other day – the final decision is yours. In the event that you carry numerous reservations about giving up smoking, you might be smart to try decreasing by a cigarette every other day so you’re able to comfortably work toward your quitting goal.

If you want to stay focused, you would be wise to create a cigarette smoking tracking chart – again in a miniature notebook you will have the ability to keep with you as the days pass. An ideal tracking chart will include 4 basic columns: Time craving hit, time you actually smoked, the trigger of your craving, and something you could have done differently.

It is going to be crucial that you record each craving you bypass completely. After you have gotten rid of one particular cig in a day, keep that cigarette out of your daily smokes. For example, if you resolve on your first day to do away with your after lunch cigarette and go for a stroll instead, engage in the same contrary action on an ongoing basis after lunch rather than smoking. In one more day or two, you could cut out your cigarette for one of your breaks at your job or your first cigarette, or on a routine car ride.

Sticking to a program of this structure will offer you fantastic practice not smoking at random times during a day until your substitute action to smoking has grown to be automatic.

How to Give Up Cigarettes Step 4: Discuss Your Intention to Stop Cigarettes With EVERY PERSON IN YOUR LIFE

For several of us cigarette smokers, failed attempts to quit cigarettes can be accredited to a single significant issue: We kept our intention to give up cigarette smoking a secret. If nobody is aware of the fact that you are attempting to stop cigarettes, nobody on earth is expecting to see you stop smoking cigarettes. As such, you have nothing to lose by giving up on your goals. If each person in your life knows you’re trying to quit, however, you are more inclined to stick with your plan of recovery to avoid the shame of failure.

Apart from the element of ‘saving face,’ chances are high that you will enhance your degree of support by bordering on an ex nicotine user who comprehends the great importance of your recovery. Having non-smoking buddies, kin, and colleagues with whom to hang out without the presence of cigarettes will prove to be an invaluable tool in your plan of recovery.

How to Stop Smoking Cigarettes Step 5: Plan Your Alternative Actions

Beginning recovery from smoking addiction is significantly about coming up with something else in which to engage besides cigarette smoking. Identifying the difference between self-promoting contrary actions and health damaging alternative actions will save you from ‘replacing addictive habits’ while applying improvements in your life that will bring about your overall contentment living life as an ex nicotine user.

Understanding how to quit cigarette smoking is a highly personal program. While there are a number of tips and nicotine replacement therapy action plans which have worked wonders for tens of thousands of smokers, the particulars in every plan are incidental to each recovering smoker’s requirements. For instance, although some recovering smokers may prefer to replace their morning cigarette with a substantial breakfast, a tall glass of cold water, a shower, or morning tooth brushing; others may wish to replace the A.M. cigarette with a morning jog, quiet meditation, yoga, or any other healthy activity.

For each section of the day, strive to come up with alternate actions to smoking cigarettes that you can enjoy; and as your quit date draws near, practice applying them into your daily recovery plan as a way to replace nicotine. In due time you will certainly feel like a whole new person, and you will be more poised to finally quit smoking forever.

How to Quit Cigarette Smoking Step 6: Join a Support Group

There are a lot of nicotine groups both online and in the rooms of Nicotine Anonymous jam-packed with ex smokers who will be able to lend you support and guidance every day on keeping up with your quit. The more help you find from similar people with the same goal of quitting cigarette smoking, the higher your chances become of quitting cigarette smoking for ever.

It’s easy to discover how to quit smoking. Quitting can very well be a struggle, but the actions in the direction of a clean break from cigarette smoking addiction are very simple in nature. Step outside of your worries, and start paying attention to your inner most desires. Use this plan of how to quit smoking and run with it for a healthier, tobacco free life.