Posted by pixies chick at jerry1.healthpartners.com on May 24, 2002 at 12:59:52:
In Reply to: Thought I'd chime in on this. posted by Vandal668 on May 24, 2002 at 12:27:48:
: I smoked off and on, heavy and light for about 7 or 8 years. It finally started to affect my health. I would wake up every morning coughing, I couldn't excercise, and I just generally felt like crap all the time. There is one simple thing to realize when deciding to quit: You have to not want to smoke anymore. You can't want to not want to, just do it because you know you should, or because someone tells you to. You have to convince yourself that the cons FAR out weigh the the pros and not want to do it anymore. As long as a part of you still wants to smoke you'll never stay off them. No gum, patch, or hypnotherapy can make you do something you ruly don't want to do. I stopped because I realized what I was doing to myself and it made me not want to anymore. I'm 5 months off them now, and except for a few weak moments (in which I did not give in), haven't wanted one since. In fact, oddly enough, the last cig I had was at Vulgarthon! Maybe that's the cure.
LOTS of practice. Sometimes it's hard to quit when you're cravings and desires interfere with what you are planning. Quitting smoking is about one of the hardest things people do, but the standards of what we consider a success are so high -- it's only considered a successful attempt if someone never smokes again.
I disagree with that. I think it's useful to quit smoking even if the person does smoke again because of what can be learned from attempting it. By working on becoming a nonsmoker, one can gain the desire to permanently quit. Also, when you work at something, you gain mastery of it.
So much of smoking is just below our conscious awareness. In trying to quit we can begin to determine what the triggers are that are directing the smoking behavior and can disarm them.
Since stress usually forces us back into our habits, if strategies useful in quitting smoking are practiced and accessible, they can be used under stress too. That can make it easier to stay quit.