QUIT SMOKING

By Roger C Edwards






The hardest part about quitting smoking isn't actually quitting smoking, it's the bizarre stigma that everybody (even non-smokers) have created about how hard smoking is supposed to be. The ironic thing is that it doesn't have to be that hard!

When most people quit smoking, they don't actually become non-smokers. They become smokers who, depending on their success, are just not smoking at the time. Whichever method they're using, be it nicotine replacement, pills, or cold turkey, in their minds they are still smokers.

The problem is that people try to treat smoking as a physical addiction, when it's a mental addiction. You'll notice that you can easily go for hours without a cigarette, as long as you know that you'll get to smoke eventually. If it was a purely physical addiction, this wouldn't be possible.

You're only as addicted to smoking as your mind wants you to be. You have connections in your mind between certain events (getting off of work, being on the phone, working on a term paper) and smoking that trigger your urge to smoke. In order to truly become a non-smoker, you have to unravel these connections and realize that cigarettes won't actually help you do anything.

It all breaks down to identifying when you want to smoke and why. If you figure out what causes you to want to smoke (and anticipating the way it affects you) you can easily break free from your supposed need to smoke, since you'll reduce it to something as simple as, for example, biting your nails or chewing on toothpicks.