HOW TO QUIT SMOKING

 

Wise people have had lots of trouble with nicotine. Mark Twain said, “Giving up smoking is the easiest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I ought to know. I’ve done it a hundred times.”

Sigmund Freud died of a cancerous jaw caused by smoking cigars. He was clearly aware of how his smoking caused and aggravated his condition, but he was unable to control his habit. After most of his jaw had been removed at the end of his life, despite excruciating pain in each swallow, he propped open his jaw to allow him to keep on smoking 20 cigars a day right on up to his death.

Here are some of the most helpful tips for success at pitching the smokes. With slight adjustments, this will work well for those who dip or chew tobacco as well.

  1. Don’t give up two bad habits at once. If you abuse other substances like caffeine, drugs or alcohol, or if you have pain-killing escapist habits with activities like gambling, work, TV, or computers, these other habits should be monitored and moderated while you’re giving up nicotine, but you should schedule your recovery from these habits later, one at a time. Just be careful not to increase another bad habit at the same time as you are decreasing the nicotine.
  1. Give yourself three strong positive reinforcers. Do these for prevention, or when you want to smoke. These are even more effective if you do all three at once!

    a.   Use positive visual imagery. See yourself healthy, with white teeth, and doing things like hiking or playing ball with peers or (grand)children, which now you can’t breathe well enough to do. Imagine how you’re now better than ever at lovemaking.

    b.   Meditate on verbal affirmations. Write out and then regularly consider and speak aloud positive statements of self-talk, like these: “I am a good person, so I’m good to my body. I take care of my health so I can enjoy life. I enjoy the freedom of saying no to this habit. My family is so proud of me now. I am also proud, that my body is obedient, and ready for life. I look more attractive, especially when I smile.” Add your own affirmations, and keep them with you to read regularly until you have them burned into your mind.

    c.   Treat your body to natural highs. To replace cigarettes, take slow, deep breaths. Nicorette gum or nicotine patches from the doctor can help in the early days or weeks. Enlist your family as cheerleaders when you show them your daily progress in everything you’re doing differently, from a scorecard you keep on the refrigerator or closet door. Listen to relaxing music (if you can afford them, get an I-pod, or a subscription to Sirius/XM). Do systematic muscle relaxation (with one muscle group at a time, tense them up for five seconds or so, and then feel the pleasure as you let the tension out). Ramp up the frequency and quality of activities like exercise and lovemaking, while deliberately enjoying the delightful endorphins (brain chemicals) they produce.

  2. Make smoking as unpleasant as you can. The ultimate disgusting experience that will teach you not to smoke has been called the “rapid smoking treatment.” (This technique is not advised for patients with cardio-pulmonary conditions.) This technique calls for you to sit down in a small closed room. Then smoke your last cigarettes much faster than normal, inhaling fairly deeply every six or eight seconds. Continue this until you absolutely can’t stand the smoke, and then right away break out and throw all the rest of your cigarettes away. Whenever you think of a cigarette after that, think back on this experience to discourage your body’s cravings.
  1. Engineer changes in your social and smoking environments. Get cigarettes out of your house and car. Plan ways to spend the money you will save. Put smoking friends and relatives to the loyalty test: ask them to agree for the first three months not to smoke around you, invite you to smoke, or in any way undermine your confidence in what you’re doing. Give them a copy of this article, and encourage them to quit with you. Ask your non-smoking family and friends to be more available and encouraging to you, especially at first. Tell everyone to pray and hope that you’ll be easier to live with instead of harder from day one, because that is often indeed the case. If you don’t anticipate much support, get with a pastor or a counselor, and give them a copy of this article to guide your discussion.
  1. Consider hypnosis. It’s hard to get motivated to do unpleasant things. The painful imaginations are more vivid, the affirmations and self-criticisms sink in deeper, the likelihood of doing the physically or socially unpleasant things is greater, and everything is just more effective if combined with hypnosis. This is especially true for the 5 or 10 percent of the population that is especially suggestible for hypnosis. (You’re likely one of these if you tend to get lost in movies and daydreams, and aren’t sure where you are for a moment sometimes when they end).
  1. Celebrate your mile markers. It helps to plan special event rewards (movies, TV shows, meals, outings, purchases) at certain points in time, say 24 hours, 100 hours, 1 week, 2 weeks, and at 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, and 12 months. At one point of your choice, let your loved ones throw you quite the (smoke-free) party, one you’ve all planned before you quit as an incentive for you to stay with it. After all, your new freedom, health, budget, lifespan, and yes physical attractiveness is a lot for all of you to celebrate!

Arguably the most research-based, successful program for smoking cessation was started at the University of Kentucky, and is available inexpensively at both UK and UofL: Ask for the Cooper/Clayton program. Throughout your recovery, studies say it helps to take one day at a time, praying each morning for the strength to stay off of tobacco, and thanking God each evening for another day of freedom.

 

 

GUILT, BOGUS GUILT, AND SHAME:

How can you tell the Difference?

 

If you’re feeling bad about yourself, you might as well do it up right. Make something good come out of it. You can do it three different ways, and though they all feel pretty much the same at the time, the way you think and talk to yourself determines whether you end up feeling better or worse in the end. Let’s look at three ways to do guilt and shame, each with its own self-talk approaches.

Shame. “I’m a bad person. I always seem to do bad.”   People who think this way were usually raised by parents who put them down: “Bad boy!” “Bad girl!” “You’re a spoiled brat!” “You stupid, lazy, good-for-nothing kid!”   Kids who hear these remarks usually come to believe these words, and so they acted accordingly as children, and often still do as adults.

Bogus Guilt. “My (spouse, child, loved one) has been unhappy and has messed up. This situation must be my fault. I must think and try harder now to help them feel better and do better.” These are the thoughts of people whose parents were not very responsible for themselves. Some of these irresponsible parents may have been addicts, lazy bums, habitually helpless, or maybe they just never had to grow up. Often such people manage to get their parents (and later in life their spouse or children too) to be overly responsible, too conscientious. These enablers overcompensate and overprotect the irresponsible person by making excuses for them, lying for them, or cleaning up their messes.

If one of your parents was an overly responsible enabler who overprotected or overindulged, chances are that irresponsible people in your life today sometimes get you to feel and take responsibility for their feelings and choices. So when they feel bad or make bad choices, you somehow feel and believe there must be something more you can do to help them. That feeling is bogus guilt.

The more you trust that feeling and act on it, the less self-esteem, self-discipline, and wisdom your loved ones will show. That’s why I call this guilt bogus, because problems just don’t get solved this way.

Healthy guilt. “I’m a good person, smart enough to make good choices. I messed up there, but this will teach me to do better.” You hang onto the guilt feeling as motivation to help you figure out where you went wrong, what you did wrong, what you should have done (and hope to do in the future). Once you’ve said all this to those you’ve harmed or disappointed, and taken actions to earn back their trust and make up for what you did wrong, you have no more need for the guilt as a teacher.

Your new motivation is love for others, love for yourself, and if you’re a believer, love for God. You don’t need to feel the guilt anymore. Save it for later, to motivate more character-building repair behaviors the next time you goof up.

In a nutshell, shame says “I’m messed up,” bogus guilt says “Because you messed up, I’m messed up,” and healthy guilt says “I messed up but I’m cleaning up my mess.” Only the last one solves problems and leaves the world a better place.

Questions?

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Dr. Paul F. Schmidt