Step 3: The Process
Now when we come to the actual quitting process, I would like to remindyou once again that it is not going to be easy. Please do not consider yourself
to be superhuman so be ready to get external help if you need it. As I told
you earlier, there might be physical, mental and emotional changes when
you stop smoking. But you do not have to worry. There is plenty of help
available nowadays.
Do not feel bad about getting support. On the contrary, your chances of
succeeding will increase many fold if you get professional help. Remember,
nicotine is a very powerful substance and getting over it is no easy task. The
more help you get, the better.
If you can get professional medical help, then it’s even better. Getting
professional medical help does not mean that you have to under go
prolonged medical treatment. Your doctor or even your dentist will be able
to guide you and provide you with all the solutions to your queries. They
will able to suggest methods of handling the withdrawal symptoms and even
prescribe medicines that can help you.
One of the most common problems that quitters face is frequent mood
changes in the initial stages. You might even end up feeling sort of
depressed and it is here that a medical practitioner can help you with anti
depressants or mood boosters. It is well and good if you can quit by yourself
and over come the powerful urges to relapse, but if you feel that you might
need help there’s nothing to feel bad about.
If you need the help of medicines do not consider your self to be weak or
look upon your self as a patient. All you have to do is understand how badly
the nicotine had affected you and you can start counting your lucky stars that
you decided to quit before something really bad happened.
Most of us feel queasy about taking medicines, and I don’t blame you if you
feel the same. But try and look at it like this. Right now you do not have any
serious affliction apart from the fact that you are smoking. In order to quit
smoking you might have to take medicines for may be a month or two. This
is a lot like getting a vaccination as a preventive measure to ward off a
disease. But on the other hand if you continue smoking, you might end up
with major illnesses which will require that you not only continue taking
medicines for life but also that your time on earth will be considerably
reduced. It’s a matter of being proactive than reactive.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved five
medications to help you quit smoking:
1. Bupropion SR — Available by prescription
2. Nicotine gum — Available over-the-counter
3. Nicotine inhaler — Available by prescription
4. Nicotine nasal spray — Available by prescription
5. Nicotine patch — Available by prescription and over-the-counter
Taking these medicines will not just double your chances of succeeding but
will actually increase your chances by a whooping 80%. But of course it is
highly recommended that you start using these medicines after consulting a
medical practitioner.
Counseling is one way in, which you can strengthen your effort to
quit. It is not really required that you consult a professional counselor. If you
have a doctor or a dentist who you trust, that person is more than enough. In
the initial stages, ask the person to detail you on all the harmful effects of
smoking. Then the person can monitor your efforts and your progress and
can give you helpful hints as well.
You might also consider possibilities like group counseling or telephone
counseling. Group counseling has a wonderful effect, because there is
nothing that feels as good as having others who face the same problems that
you are encountering. When you hear the fears of others, and how difficult t
is for them to pull no, you will feel surprisingly encouraged. Group
counseling will provide you a wonderful arena to compare notes with other
fellow quitters and you can watch and monitor your progress.
Try reassuring others, it has a wonderful effect on you. When you talk
convincingly to others without knowing it you are really convincing yourself
as well. This will go a long way towards building up your own confidence
that you will succeed.
Telephone counseling is also a possibility that many people tend to ignore.
The best thing about telephone counseling is that it can be done at any time
without too much of a strain. Just consider the possibility, it is not always
easy to dash off to your counselor when you feel the urge to smoke, know
you are not supposed to and end up feeling depressed about it. On the other
hand if, at such a moment you can just pick up your telephone and dial your
counselor’s number, you can get what you want and with the minimum loss
of time and effort.
Sure cigarettes are expensive, but because people buy them in small
quantities, the expense doesn’t seem much. So what you can do is start
saving the money that you do not spend buying packets and packets of
cigarettes. Save the money for something special and if you can, try to make
it special for your family as well.
Promise the kids something like a trip to Disneyland or a vacation at the sea
side. The advantage of making such public declarations is that you have all
the more reason to refrain from buying cigarettes. Your kids too will be very
enthusiastic about reminding you not to splurge on cigarettes and there is
something to look forward to for all the family.
What if you do not have a family to save for? Well, go ahead and save for
yourself. There’s always something that you would want but ay have
refrained from buying because it might have been slightly over you budget.
So now you can add the money that you are not spending on cigarettes to get
yours elf that little something.
The point that I am trying to drive home is that you should be rewarded for
your efforts. You attempt to start smoking should not become a sort of
punishment towards yourself but must promise better things for you later.
This again is another pitfall. There is often a misconception about quitting.
Many people believe that instead of stopping at just one go; they should try
to bring down the number of cigarettes that they smoke. Wrong! That is not
the way that it should be done. If you try and bring down the number of
cigarettes that you smoke, you will still be smoking and that just doesn’t
help.
It is a very tricky thing indeed to fix on the number that is safe for you. If
you are still carrying cigarettes with you then you are in fact tempting
yourself. You might have brought down the number but since you still have
a packet with you, you are in fact waiting for the slightest provocation and
that number will shoot up again.
What is it that makes you smoke? Tension, excitement, anxiety, problems,
the need to unwind, stress? Can we ever free ourselves form any of these?
So the next time you hit one of these then that becomes your green signal for
you will just whip out that packet, light one of them and start puffing away
to glory. The excuse that will be reverberating in your mind is that “it’s just
this once, just to get over this small problem.”
And then before you know it, you will be back to smoking the same number
of cigarettes.
So let me emphasize that point again, you have to quit once and for all if you
are really serious about quitting. It just does not work if you try to bring
down the number. The number just never becomes zero. I have met many
people who say, “I used to smoke 6 packets a day but now I’m down to just
2 packets a day.” I look at them out of the corner of my eye and I do not say
anything to them though the message on my face is, “but you are still
puffing away like a steam engine aren’t you?”
It’s strange isn’t it how every thing in this world always keeps coming
down. Sir Isaac Newton explained this phenomenon using the laws of
gravity. But I must admit that I am still amazed how everything in this world
tries to reach the lowest possible point.
If you have ever watched water flow you will understand what I am talking
about. A water fall, never thunders upwards, a stream always flows down
wards (remember the nursery rhyme, “Row, row, row your boat gently down
the stream”) even a tiny pool of water spilt on the table tries to find the
easiest way downwards.
So what about it? You must be wondering what the connection is between
quitting smoking and flowing water. There is a very deep connection as you
will see for yourself. There is an unwritten rule in this world that everything
must try and find the easiest route downwards. When you take something to
a higher state, it becomes unstable and tries to find the easiest route
downwards.
Over here we are trying to precisely the same thing. We are trying to take
you from a lower state (the state of being a smoker) to a higher state, (the
state of being a non-smoker). So you must bear in mind that it is the easiest
thing in the world for you to relapse and again pick up that packet of
cigarettes. It is going to take a lot of effort and will power on your part to
refrain from smoking. That’s why I keep saying that you will need all the
support and encouragement while you are still working at it.
But then you might wonder if you have to keep up that will power and
constantly have to keep battling against the urge to smoke for the rest of
your life. The answer is no. Once you have given up the habit once and for
all, once you have over come all these withdrawal symptoms, then you have
arrived. You will automatically pick up a new life style and there will be no
room for cigarettes in that new life.
You will start to realize how much better your life has become with out
cigarettes. You will feel the power in your hands, you will be in absolute
control of your life and at that stage there is absolutely n coming back. Once
you have tasted the sweetness of success, there is no coming back. Than you
are safe and there is no fear of relapsing after that.
The whole thing is like a threshold. When you are controlling yourself for
the first time, you are at the very middle of the threshold. You can fall
upwards or downwards and it is much easier to fall downwards. This is
where you need the support, help and encouragement of others. But
gradually as you over come the urge, you advance further and further
upward and once you are beyond a certain point, then you have reached the
point of no return and then there is no coming back.
Many people switch to low tar and low nicotine cigarettes thinking that there
will be lesser harm done. This is again a myth. The point that such people
are missing out is that they continue to smoke because the body or the brain
has started demanding its daily doze of nicotine. Nicotine is what the body
wants and nicotine is what harms the body most.
So no matter what you smoke you will try to give you body the nicotine that
it has become used to. You cannot reason with the body. You accustomed it
to a particular dosage of nicotine and when it doesn’t get that, its starts to
complain. At such a tie even if you switch to a low nicotine cigarette it is not
going to be of much use.
The end result will be that you will start taking stronger pulls on these
cigarettes, may increase the number of cigarettes that you smoke, or you
might take more puffs per cigarette. Nicotine is a venomously addictive
substance and once you get used to it, there is no bringing it down, there is
only stopping it once and for all.
The message here is loud and clear. Smoking any kind of cigarette is bad so
don’t even consider other possibilities.
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