The Reasons and Mind Set to Stop Smoking

The Best Resolution for Any New Year

Dec 23, 2008 David J. Shestokas

A very popular resolution every year is to stop smoking. Most smokers fail many times, primarily because they think quitting is easy. It truly is very difficult.

Smoking gives great pleasure. It fills up time and diverts a smoker from other problems. There are things that in the mind of the smoker are good.

The Good Things About Smoking

There are few things that seem to go together like a cigarette and coffee. There is an exception to that and that would be a cigarette and an alcoholic beverage. At the moment of the puff, for a smoker, few things are more pleasurable. Sometimes it feels like a cigarette is a good friend. Smokers know this is not true, but it never the less feels that way.

Reasons to Stop Smoking

Here are a few good reasons to stop smoking, in no particular order:

  • Smoking is expensive, and getting more so as governments try to balance their budgets on the lungs of the addicted.
  • Smoking makes clothes smell bad, and raises cleaning bills.
  • Smoking makes cars smell bad.
  • Smoking makes a home smell bad.
  • Smoking shortens breath making it more difficult to do so many things like play with the kids or grandkids, walk up stairs, swim, golf, walk, sing or laugh.
  • Smoking makes one unpleasant to kiss and hug. It gets in the way of the pleasure of being close to people.
  • Smoking hurts relationships. The people who care about a smoker are unhappy about the smoking, and the smoker is sad that loved ones are hurt.
  • Smoking shortens life and impairs the quality of life that it leaves.

Quitting Smoking is Hard

Most smokers seriously attempt to quit at least four times before being successful. It is addictive, physically and mentally. It may be that the biggest stumbling block in quitting for good is that quitting seems easy. Many quit for days or weeks, and then smoke again, long after the physical addiction has been beaten. Why is this?

Smoking is associated with multiple pleasures. Once a smoker has quit there is a mind set, that the occasional pleasure can be enjoyed. After all, the smoker has quit before, it will be simple to do it again. This mental trap sets up a smoker to resume the habit.

The Quitting is Simple Trap

Quitting seems very simple. One simply has to do it. That is not the reality. The only way to effectively quit for good is to realize that quitting is difficult. Quitting comes with physical withdrawals and comes with changing behaviors. The associations with coffee, driving, keeping the hands busy, the smoke rings and more are ingrained behaviors that must be changed each time there is an effort to quit.

The difficulty in quitting is forgotten in the momentary pleasure of borrowing a smoke from a fellow coffee or beer drinker. Borrowing the second one feels like the former smoker is taking advantage of a friend. A pack is bought to overcome that feeling with the thought that it is only one pack. Soon the quitting is over and the smoking has resumed, because of the thought that quitting is simple.

Avoid the Trap, Realize Quitting Smoking is Hard

There are many aids for quitting, like patches, exercise, plenty of water, oral substitute, nicotine gum and more. None will work unless a smoker recognizes it is an addiction, that quitting is hard, and a single cigarette will start up the habit again. All the prior hard work will be for naught.

The Quit Keeper

Once there has been a successful beginning it is useful to track how long since the last cigarette, how much money saved and how much time added to one’s life expectancy. There is a download to automatically track these things by entering the date and time of the last cigarette, the average pack cost and the usual per day consumption. It is called the Quit Keeper and is free.

The Quit Keeper lets the ex-smoker know how much progress has been made, and really discourages having a single cigarette. For an honest former smoker having a single cigarette means resetting the Quit Keeper all over again, and throwing all the progress away. Quitting is hard, and having to start all over in keeping track discourages ever having another cigarette.

The copyright of the article The Reasons and Mind Set to Stop Smoking in Fitness is owned by David J. Shestokas. Permission to republish The Reasons and Mind Set to Stop Smoking in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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Dec 23, 2008 10:19 AM
Guest :
As someone that has years of experience in quitting smoking (and yes, I did manage to do it eventually) I can recommend two more things that help to quit for good.

First - make your resolution public. The more people might ask you "I thought you quit?" the more difficult it is to light the next cigarette.

And secondly, have a financial incentive. That may be a bet with a friend or with yourself.

I hope what I'm about to say will not be perceived as spam but we recently developed a free application that lets you do both as well as helps charities raise more donations. See http://www.pledgehammer.com - would be great to get some feedback to it.
Dec 23, 2008 1:09 PM
David J. Shestokas :
I was writing about my own experience. I found that as soon as I seriously understood how hard it was to quit, and did not take it lightly I was able to do it. It will be one year Dec. 28. The problem before was always thinking I could have one, that it would be easy to quit again. It is not. Realizing that enabled success. I looked at pledgehammer, and it appears that it may help someone. Good luck with your work.
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