Suggestions on quitting
POSTED BY: goat
UPDATED: Sunday, August 27, 2006 16:59
VIEWED: 4850
PAGE 3 of 3
Just keep trying... I understand it usually takes a couple of tries.
"Why're you arguin' what's already been decided?"
Mal to Jayne, "Jaynestown"
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I smoked for near 10 years. One day at work I realized I was planning my day around when I could smoke. I just didn't like the idea that somewhere someone was profiting off of their passive control over me. Freedom is good. Ask Mal. So I took the pack in my hand and crushed it, threw it in the trash and moved on.
No, it wasn't all easy. and I did slip on a couple of really stressful points in my life by 1 pack each time. but by the end of those packs I was hating myself.
For me the majority of it all was Habit. So when I got the need to raise something up to my mouth, I went with Altoids. I was addicted to them too, but they don't kill me. Later, Gum. I think if you're always sucking down a mint or chewing gum, you'll find it easier. I did. Try what ever works. That's just what worked for me.
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It's been a few days since anyone replied, but I thought I'd throw my two cents in.
I quit cold turkey in January 2000. I've had a total of five cigarettes since then -- two at two different parties, three at different points when I was stressed -- but have never considered going back to being a smoker.
The first months were the hardest, of course, but I did figure out one thing that I think is really important to know about smoking, that I've never seen or heard anyone else mention anywhere. Figuring this one thing out is the only reason I never took up the habit again, I think.
When you smoke, when you're actively puffing away, your breathing changes. You take a long, concentrated breath in through your mouth, hold it in for a few seconds, then let it out very deliberately. What I found in the months after I quit was that when I was stressed, if I breathed like this -- if I breathed like I was smoking, but didn't actually light up -- I got much calmer very quickly.
I still do that to this day when I'm stressed. I think there's something about the way that smoking makes you concentrate on/change your breathing that helps relax you (in addition to the psychological comfort of the action, and the drug effects of the nicotine). I'm not saying that this will work for everyone, but I don't see any reason not to try it. Lots of people use breathing exercises to relax themselves, and I don't see any problem with using what I "learned" from smoking as my breathing exercise.
The other important aspect is that experts say that you can't just break a habit, you have to replace it with a new one. So instead of smoking when I felt stressed, I replaced that habit with the habit of breathing like I was smoking. Seems to have worked for me.
~CK
You can't take the sky from me...
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