I’ve now had 11 years of being smoke-free. I am absolutely thrilled to have maintained freedom from smoking and want to share the secrets of my success. It is my sincere hope others can be inspired by my experience and my thoughts and that they can also enjoy this freedom.
Retrain Your Brain To Accept Truth
This blog post focuses on the mind, preparing you ready to quit for good, and preparing you to be overjoyed about it! You will learn to focus on the many positives of quitting, rather than the negatives. That is correct, there are no negatives to quitting. Not a single one. You will see.
This is basically cognitive therapy – retraining your brain. I am a self-taught, highly experienced expert in the real world of going from being a mindless, lying smoker to a mindful and happy nonsmoker. The ‘lying’ part will be explained later.
You might notice some of the language I use in this blog post that is somewhat unusual. It is also intentional. It’s done to get your mind changed to the realities of your current situation and ready for the big, positive change.
You’ll see what I mean as you keep reading.
There will also be some repetition as well – all deliberately done to ingrain the truth of the situation into your mind.
When you realize you have been lying to yourself for years, over and over again, it will make sense that you will have to repeat truths over and over again to counteract the lies you have been believing for so long.
I hope not to hear any criticisms about the repetition. Please remember, the repetition is for your benefit.
The Truth Is That You Do Not Even Like Smoking
What I hope to achieve is for you to sincerely learn that you actually do not even like smoking. Yes, you did read that right. You will learn why you do not even like smoking.
Allen Carr wrote the Easy Way to Stop Smoking in 1985 and left this earth in 2006. His book helped me quit smoking and changing the way I thought, so I must give credit to him.
Things have changed since then, of course.
I wanted to pay homage to him out of gratitude for the fact that what he wrote was common sense and truth, as well as throw in a few ideas of my own to help you get your mind in the right place where you can confidently and joyfully leave your worst enemy behind you.
You Are On Your Way To A New and Improved You
Congratulations on deciding to rid yourself of your worst enemy and making one of the most important decisions of your life. You are on your way to a new and improved you and it starts with your mind and your thinking patterns.
This blog post will help.
You have likely made failed attempts to quit before. That’s great! Your past failures will actually help you achieve your goal this time, for good, as will be explained later.
You probably heard people say to you “You have to really want to quit”. That is true. But how do you get there, to that place? Logically, you know deep inside that smoking is stupid. There is nothing intelligent about it. But how do you end up really, truly wanting to quit and losing the addiction FOREVER?
Acknowledge Of The Truth
Knowledge is power. That is the absolute truth. Knowledge is about being aware of the truth and about being aware of lies you are telling yourself.
If You’re a Smoker, You’re in Denial and You are a Liar
Please don’t get defensive by this statement. I am merely stating that as a smoker, you are probably in denial of certain realities, and you are lying to yourself. You will be happy as the denial you have been experiencing comes to light and the lies have been exposed in exchange for truth.
The denial and the lies are laid out in the following statements that every smoker experiences.
If you ask a smoker why he or she smokes, they will give you these three “reasons”. They will tell you:
1) Smoking provides me with something to do in social situations
2) I like the taste of cigarettes
3) Smoking relaxes me
Now let’s examine these in detail.
Lie # 1 “Smoking Gives Me Something To Do In Social Situations”
I can still vividly recall being in a new social situation and finding the other smokers in the group, and feeling like I’d found ‘my tribe’, as corny as that sounds.
Every smoker will relate to this. Whether it was a new class I had signed up for, a corporate dinner event, a wedding where I didn’t know many people, or even a funeral, when it came time for break, the smokers would all congregate at the nearest smoking area to share a certain camaraderie and joke about how we were the only smokers in the crowd.
Thinking about those various times now, none of us ever delved into why we enjoyed smoking so much. We mindlessly lit out cigarettes, mindlessly sucked in the smoke from burning weed and chemicals into our lungs, mindlessly exhaled it, mindlessly tapped the ashes off while we talked about anything else.
When it was time to butt out, though, sometimes, we had to be mindful if there was a question as to “What do we do with our butts?”. The worst possible answer, at times, was that the butt had to come back with us in our pockets or purses, as there was no ashtray and no acceptable place to leave the disgusting butt. “Oh the horrors”, as I remember.
I also recall often having toxic chemical fragrance spray in my purse, so that I could try to hide the horrible smell that would undoubtedly follow me back to the place where I would congregate again with the non-smokers.
The only smoker than cannot relate to the above social scenario is the smoker who found he or she was the only smoker in the group, and had to partake in the sucking of the smoke from the burning weed and chemicals all by himself or herself. Since quitting smoking, I have seen this happen a few times and have notably felt sorry for that person- alone in their addiction and likely judged for their weakness.
Aside from that, did you ever notice that when you had finished the smoking break and returned to the larger group, that the group was actually conversing among themselves, and that they weren’t sitting silently, waiting for the smokers, who were the only people in the group that were sociable enough to carry on a conversation? Of course not.
So, smoking did not really provide you with something to do in a social situation. It merely provided you something to do with other addicts who shared your addiction.
Most often, since it’s the majority who do not suck in the smoke from burning weed and chemicals, so you’re actually spending that social free time with other addicts and actually cutting yourself off from the majority of people.
Smoking is not good for your social life, it’s bad – Retrain your brain
If I might interject a ‘no brainer’ here, let me state what we all know – as time goes on, smoking is becoming less and less socially acceptable. So how can we possibly believe the lie that smoking provides us something to do socially, when the places we are allowed to do it are diminishing and those who do it are getting fewer and further between?
I am old enough to remember when smoking was allowed in movie theatres, airplanes – even hospital lounges and offices! Now as a non-smoker, it’s hard to imagine what that would be like now. It’s easy to imagine why the rules and laws have changed. Today, even in many outdoor spaces smoking is not allowed.
So how can we think that smoking is good for our social life, when we often have to leave the social situations in order to suck in the smoke from the burning weed and chemicals? We have to get up from the table at a restaurant, or an event, and physically go away from the social circle to go and do something that we still manage to believe is good for our social life?
The Secret Smoker
There are many people who hide the addiction from acquaintances and do so very well. I did it myself various times.
How relaxing is it trying to hide a smoking habit?
I actually know a smoker who believes she has been able to hide the fact that she smokes for years, to someone who she would call a good friend and a neighbor and someone who sees her on a daily basis! Just bizarre! I tend to think the neighbor probably knows.
But aside from extreme examples like that, have you ever tried to duck away from a group situation so that people don’t know that you’re a smoker? I know that several times I did. It was in cases of knowing I would not become close to these people – for example, business associates, customers, distant relatives etc. I knew I wasn’t going to hang around with them socially for any length of time, so why even make them aware of my bad habit? Why not just let them think I was a healthy non-smoker, like most people?
It happened on various occasions where I was able to exit the situation, suck in the smoke from the burning weed and chemicals, spray myself with chemical fragrances and then re-entre the situation, secret intact. However, there is nothing relaxing about plotting and planning and hiding the fact that you smoke.
I recall one series of classes that I signed up for years ago where the break was just 10 minutes long. It was an entire morning class that would go on for two weeks, so I didn’t want to hide the fact that I was a smoker to this group. Two weeks would take way too much effort.
So I used the entire 10 minute break for the purpose of sucking in the smoke from the burning weed and chemicals. When everyone else had congregated back in the classroom, I was late every single time using the washroom. I knew people might wonder why I was always using the washroom after break time was over. I didn’t care. I did what I wanted, so I thought.
In reality, I did what my addicted mind needed to do. First, get the need to suck in the smoke from burning weeds and chemicals out of the way, then take care of lesser problems like emptying my bladder from the coffee that I had to drink to make the weed inhalation a slightly better experience.
Again, in that class, since I spent my spare time doing what my addicted body told me to do, I developed relationships only with those whose bodies were urging them to do the same thing. I got to personally know more people who were addicted like myself, and very little time getting to know those who were not addicted.
I may have had interests with other nonsmokers in the group, like talking philosophy or camping or renovating, but since I chose to spend time with smokers, that became my main interest and our main commonality and smoking became the main reason we became acquaintances.
Ducking Away in The Cold
If you live in a geographical area that gets very cold, you’ll know that it’s nearly impossible to duck away unnoticed in some situations, like house parties, for example. You first have to find your warm coat and boots to make an exit to be able to partake in the sucking in of the smoke from weed and chemicals. The opening of the door letting cold air into the room is the first clue you’re up to something that requires you to face the cold.
I wonder now how many times I thought I was fooling people but had not been even close to succeeding to do so.
It was not until I quit smoking until I noticed just how bad I smelled and how long the scent lingered on me.
Smoking is not good for your social life – retrain your brain
Telling yourself that it is good for your social life is just your addiction talking and trying to find some positives in it, but it’s not actually true. It’s false.
Lie # 2 “I Like The Taste Of Cigarettes”
This has to be the most blatant lie that any smoker has ever told him or herself and continues to do so.
Let’s talk about our first experiences with smoking cigarettes.
Let’s first acknowledge that most experts will agree that the brain of humans are not fully formed until age 25, and that most of us started inhaling the smoke from weeds many years before that. Most of us start smoking 7 to 10 years before our brains are fully formed.
If you have a good recollection of starting this toxic habit of sucking in the smoke from weed and chemicals, you will recall that it did not taste good. In fact, it tasted terrible. Yet, horrible as it was, the need to fit in or to be accepted or to look ‘cool’, resonated so powerfully with us, when we did not even possess full reasoning power.
Sucking in the smoke of the burning weed and chemicals into our lungs, as we learned to inhale, caused our healthy body to react to the poison. Let’s be honest. We either threw up or were close to it. If nothing else, we were certainly dizzy and likely pale. And then continued to force the poison into our bodies. And it did continued to NOT taste good.
My best friend ‘tried and tried’ to like smoking and simply could not.
Honestly, the rest of us just kept on trying, we never really ever learn to like it. We just became addicted the point where we believed we enjoyed it.
Once we, as teens, subjected our bodies to the smoke and chemicals long enough that we no longer reacted by vomiting or being nauseous, we began to later endure the bad flavor simply for the nicotine hit that his highly addictive – all because our teenage brains thought we appeared ‘cool’ and we wanted to fit in with a group – namely the rebels.
Back to the matter of taste, did we acquire a taste for tobacco smoke as we continued to suck in the smoke of burning weed and chemicals for years and years, or was that a lie that we told ourselves – that we actually liked the taste?
Good question.
Is it like coffee, where we did acquire the taste? Most of us also didn’t like the taste of coffee when we first started drinking it, unless it had several shots of sugar and cream to go with it. Eventually, many of us started ditching the sugar and cream and milk to the point where we drink it black – myself included. More on that later.
Think about this for a moment. If tobacco smoke really, actually tasted good, why isn’t there cigarette smoke flavored ice cream? Or cigarette smoke flavored coffee creamer? Cigarette smoke flavored cream cheese? Next time you have an upcoming birthday, request a cigarette flavored cake and gauge the reactions of shock and astonishment.
Whether you think about adding cigarette flavor to sweet or savory foods, the mere thought of it is repulsive – to everyone.
It’s because cigarettes do not taste good. They taste bad. Everyone knows it. Smokers, deep down, you know it too.
If the flavor of cigarettes was actually favorable, nonsmokers would also enjoy the flavor and the demand for cigarette flavored products would arise.
With coffee, while we may have had to acquire the taste, many do find the taste actually palatable, and the proof can be found in the fact that coffee as a flavor is highly marketable and consumable. I knew someone who didn’t drink coffee but loved the chocolate bar Coffee Crisp. We have coffee flavored ice creams, liqueurs, chocolate bars etc. It’s a wonderful flavor.
But you won’t find a single cigarette smoke flavored anything on the market – except cigarettes. If tobacco smoke was really truly palatable as a flavor, then smokers and even ex-smokers would be the perfect market for cigarette flavored ice cream, or cigarette flavored bread, etc.
No market exists simply because the taste of cigarette smoke is truly awful.
There does not even have to a marketing strategy or focus groups to even examine this idea or to figure out what kind of foods would taste good with a cigarette-infused flavor. We all, smokers and nonsmokers alike, know that cigarettes taste bad and that adding it to foods to make them taste good or to enhance them is ridiculous. It just needs to be brought to the very forefront of the mind of the smoker – not the non smoker. The non smoker tells them no lies about the flavor of cigarette.
Cigarettes don’t actually taste good. They taste bad.
While we’re on the subject of taste, let’s go to smell as they are so closely related. The smoker might say they enjoy the smell of smoke. Well really now? If that’s a fact, then tobacco scented candles or diffuser sticks or air fresheners would arise and become popular – at least among smokers, right?
Products like this will never arise, because truth is no one truly likes the smell of cigarette smoke. The only reason a smoker seems to like the smell is when their addiction kicks in and they feel the need to suck the smoke of burning weed and chemicals into their lungs.
Next time you ‘enjoy’ a cigarette, picture yourself turning that flavor into ice cream or a cake. Continue to do this and you will start to dispel the lies you have told yourself over and over again that cigarettes taste good.
Cigarettes do not taste good – they taste terrible. Retrain your brain.
Imagine if we were teens when, instead of smoking, a poisonous and toxic shooter drink came out. Instead of smoking something for 5 minutes, the ‘popular’ thing, among some, was to drink a horrible tasting drink that made you somewhat dizzy for the first 30 seconds after sipping on it. And that was the total effect the drink had – a bad taste in our mouths followed by dizziness for a 30 seconds. Would we continue to do it? Most of us probably would never do it again. However, teens being teens, some might have continued. As adults with fully developed brains, we would not have bothered.
The desire to smoke and to fit in somewhere, while doing something that tastes bad, smells bad and makes you feel horrible, is something that can only be attractive to a mind that is young and a brain that is not fully yet formed.
Smoking is like eating tide pods. Remember that challenge from 2018. Very few adults would do it. Very few adults over the age of 25 start smoking.
This brings me to the point of how silly it is for adults to continue to suck in the smoke from burning weed and chemicals.
All it takes is 24 to 48 hours to break the cycle of the need for nicotine. The fight after that gets less and less until it doesn’t exist. And, if you quit with the right mind frame, the fight is far easier and quicker. When a ‘craving’ comes up and Nicodemon tempts you, will will laugh in his face and say “No thanks! I feel wonderful and I don’t want that horrific taste in my mouth or that dizzy feeling to occur.
Cigarettes do not taste good. They taste bad.
I would also like to bring your attention to the possibility of actually enjoying coffee without your cigarette. What a thought! Or for some, it may be a cola drink or even something healthy like a juice, but for many, we need a drink to go along with sucking in the burning smoke and chemical inhalation process.
You probably believe the coffee or coke or whatever it is, enhances the taste of your cigarette, or compliments it. The truth is that it COVERS UP the taste. The taste of cigarette smoke alone is horrible, even for those who have smoked for a long time.
I did an Internet search to see how people answered the question “What do cigarettes taste like”. Most, by far, admitted that they did NOT taste good.
Others did not exactly say the taste was bad, per se, but they did have puzzling and hilarious answers.
I will also leave the spelling as it was written.
“Its simular to a herbal flower, but with a heavy and strong scent. My best description is to imagine you are eating poppyseeds mixed with a tiny bit of cinnimon. All while having a paper scent, like from a printer.”
Herbal flower? No! Cinnamon? No. Paper? No. Printer? I don’t think so.
“Nothing like they smell in the box or when someone else first lights one up – You will taste smoke but not like smokey bacon or smoked foods more like fire smoke but with a slight chemically taste (chemically taste is less noticeable the longer you do it). It’s a rich sort of taste, fills and coats your mouth – it’s sort of creamy smooth but it tastes of smoke and chemicals.”
Think for a moment about this. When you were a kid, before you took up the habit, and you could smell someone smoking cigarettes, did you ever once think “Yummm. That smells good! I want to eat that cigarette.” “Or wow, that cigarette smoke is making me hungry!”
We only found the smell of cigarettes attractive after we became addicted to the nicotine in them.
Cigarettes do not taste good. They taste bad.
Once we, as teens, subjected our bodies to the smoke and chemicals long enough that we no longer reacted by vomiting or being nauseous, we began to endure the bad flavor simply for the nicotine hit that is highly addictive – all because our teenage brains thought we appeared cool, and we wanted to fit in with the group – namely the rebels. We began to lie to ourselves and tell ourselves that cigarettes tasted good.
Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with rebels. Often rebellion is necessary and inherently good. I am still very much a rebel in many ways, but that no longer means doing silly things and having silly habits to make me appear to be one.
You know now that cigarettes to not taste good. Hopefully you realize, they actually taste horrible.
Lie # 3 – Smoking Relaxes Me
What did you do to relax before you started smoking? Do you remember?
What do you like to do now, to relax? Read a book? Sip on tea? Sit in your backyard and watch the birds? Play darts, video games, pool?
Now, as a smoker, imagine yourself doing this for an hour… without a cigarette.
You see, as a smoker, there is an actual time limit on how long you can enjoy these activities in their own right. As a smoker, unfortunately, you can’t enjoy those activities on their own – or not for very long. Your ‘relaxation’ time must be accompanied by time feeding your addiction. Without being able to suck in burning weed and chemicals, you can’t “relax”.
So is it really relaxing to you at all?
You would not be able to truly enjoy the things that others do to relax and unwind because as long as you’re a slave to the weed, you’re only relaxing for a short period of time, while you are in the process of sucking in the smoke from the burning weed and chemicals, and until the nicotine starts to leave your body.
I’ll paraphrase from Allen Carr’s book as this point jumped out at me, when I read his book. I hope it resonates with you too.
“When you are smoking, you wish you weren’t and when you are not smoking, you wish you were.” Can you relate?
When you are actually in the process of sucking away on that cigarette inhaling smoke from the burning weed and chemicals, and you are totally conscious of what you are doing, you hate it. You hate that you are addicted. You hate that you feel you need it. You hate that you had to leave a nice place to be alone like a social pariah to do it.
Let’s say you’re in an adult class that you joined for fun and to learn a new skill that you will enjoy. Some examples might be learning pottery, carpentry, writing, art – whatever it may be. Think about a class you might want to partake in or may have already taken.
For the first hour and half, it is fun and enjoyable and you are learning a lot. But once your body starts feeling the desire for nicotine again, the clock then becomes more and more of an issue, as you wait for that all important break-time to happen. What the teacher is trying to teach you becomes less and less important. All of the other non-smoking students in the room are able to take in all of the information in a relaxed way. But not you. Your eyes have been on the clock and the countdown has begun. That one person who keeps asking questions and keeping you from going outside to satisfy your addiction has become your worst enemy. You wish she would just shut up! And that smiling teacher so responsive to those questions? It’s her fault! Why doesn’t she just shut the student up and go on break like she said would happen?
You know this is your thought process. As a smoker, I can still remember, even though I haven’t touched a cigarette in more than 11 years now.
It’s Not Relaxation! It’s The Temporary Satisfaction of Your Addiction
Again, smoking only ‘relaxes’ you for a very short period. When you think about it, smoking actually causes you anxiety – and frequently. Smoking causes you anxiety, for many people every hour and a half or so. Some last only half an hour. Some smoke only 3 times and day and 10 times after the work day is finished. No matter what your own personal situation may be, remember, it causes you anxiety in the form of a ‘nic fit’ at regular intervals, all day long so long as you are awake.
Nonsmokers can relax quite nicely after a meal while you need a cigarette to relax you. Again, smoking is not relaxing you. It causes anxiety in the form of a nic fit.
If you are used to smoking every hour, try going two and just see how that anxiety increases. Try to go on a 4 hour airplane ride. You all can relate. You all have been in situations where you were prohibited from smoking.
So smoking doesn’t really relax you at all. It is an addiction that pacifies you for a short time period while you are getting your fix and for a certain length of time afterward.
Next time you believe you are about to be relaxed by puffing on the smoke from burning weed and chemicals, remember its temporary. It’s a fix and it will surely cause you the same form of anxiety again and again and again in the very near future, until you decide you are finally done with it.
Smoking does not relax you. That is a blatant lie. Smoking causes anxiety in the form of a nic fit on a regular basis, for every waking hour until you are finally free from the habit.
Now, How To Finally Be Done – Once and For All
I will easily admit that it took a long time for the brainwashing and the lies to totally come undone and to fully be able to quit. It was literally years for me. I knew as long as I continued to think about stopping smoking, that I eventually would.
I did it. And you can too. Some people can be shown the truth and make a quick and easy decision that will free them. Others take longer.
Other than the three lies I have outlined here, there are likely more lies that you are telling yourself as a smoker.
Here is an example of a lie that I had been telling myself for years.
In my family, there were few smokers at all and only one that was much older than myself. One family member was an aunt. I told myself that she had been surviving just fine while smoking, so I would also be just fine. I knew that smoking caused lung cancer, but I told myself that because my aunt did not have lung cancer, that I would not either. We’re family. We have the same genes. Talk about lying to myself! Fooling myself. That was the addiction talking to me.
However, my aunt did get lung cancer and she died from it. I could no longer tell myself that convenient and truly asinine lie.
But that’s what addictions do. They cause you to lie to yourself. I am reminded of that song by Fleetwood Mac. “Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies”.
Another gargantuan lie that I had swallowed, was that because I had been a smoker for so long, there was a fear that I would not be able to quit.
Fear is a liar. Remember that.
You have nothing to fear from quitting and everything to gain.
Think about the lies you have been telling yourself about quitting.
I quit after decades of inhaling the nastiness over and over again. If I can do it, you can do it. Do not let thoughts of fear enter your mind. Let positive thoughts of the future take hold. Millions and millions of people all over the world have quit and you can too.
In fact, an interesting point Mr Carr made in his book was that it’s actually easier for a long-time smoker to quit than someone who has taken up the habit more recently. I believe that is true. That is because, once you know and fully accept the truth, it will resonate so powerfully. Those who have been a slave to inhaling the smoke from the burning weed and chemicals for a long time will know all too well that it tastes bad, it stinks, it disrupts your lives, your sleep, makes you cough, tastes awful, it gives you anxiety in the form of a nic fit and it makes you a social pariah in many social situations. Those who have smoked for decades know this all too well.
The longer you have been a smoker, the more you know that all of this is truth and the EASIER it will be to quit.
The Most Powerful Weapon To Help You Quit is Your Mind
The most powerful weapon in your fight to gain control and rid yourself of the urge to suck in the weed from burning weed and chemicals will be your mind. Do you want to have a strong mind? A strong will? Or a weak mind that will cave like a cheap tent to temptation? To lies like “I will just take one puff”.
In order to finally quit smoking once and for all, your mind has to be ready and it has to send constant messages to your brain that are stronger than the nic fits you are certain to face. Hopefully you have now deciphered that the strong messages keeping you smoking that were stored in your head are repeated so often for so many years in your brain were actually lies.
Blatant, glaring, deceptive lies – You see them now for what they are.
All of the brain power you can use to equip yourself to get your mind ready will be helpful in your final attempt to quit sucking in the smoke from the burning weed and chemicals. Getting your mind right will likely take repetitive thoughts that you must go over and over in your mind. Correct every incorrect thought about smoking and replace it with a true thought.
After all, as a smoker, you have been basically been brainwashing yourself into believing smoking is somehow helping you or good for you. You will literally have to retrain your brain and repeating the truth as well as imagining yourself as a nonsmoker, so that this reality can happen.
Visualization is a great tool that will take you towards a successful future of not smoking. Use the techniques daily.
Take The Time To Imagine
Take your time, read the statements, close your eyes and really imagine these scenarios.
Imagine yourself at a restaurant with your non smoking friends, co workers or family members and staying after dessert to enjoy the company instead of having to duck out and get your fix.
Imagine sleeping in on a Sunday instead, rolling over to dream for ten more minutes, instead of having to wake up and get your fix.
Imagine the faces of loved ones who will be so happy to see you are finally done.
Imagine yourself at work, chatting with coworkers instead of sneaking outside. The thought of needing a smoke comes to mind, but you remember that you hate the taste of it.
Imagine being fresh from the shower and continuing to smell that way all day long.
Imagine having $20 in your coat pocket that stays right there for a week.
Imagine the money in your bank account piling up.
Imagine your car nice and clean smelling all of the time.
Imagine enjoying the taste of your morning coffee completely independent from the taste of the nasty cigarette. Really! No matter how you take it – black, with sugar, with cream. Imagine how much better it will actually be all alone and without the nasty flavor that would never sell as a flavor to anyone – not even a smoker. I can assure you that I am a coffee drinker and I enjoy my coffee much more than I ever did when I was a smoker.
Remember the cigarette flavored cake? Cigarette flavored ream cheese? It’s a disgusting thought and you know it. It’s a disgusting taste and now you know it.
Imagine the Naysayers
This is important. Most likely, you have smoking friends who will not be overjoyed with your decision to stop inhaling the smoke from burning weed and chemicals. They will be secretly jealous of your freedom. They may not be happy that you will no longer be joining them on trips outside to partake in the sucking in of the burning weed and chemicals.
Imagine how they will react.
Will they tempt you? Make fun of you? How bad of friends are they if they do this?
Imagine what might happen and how you might react to each and every one of your smoking friends. Take the time to do this with each person and take the time to figure out your reaction.
Also imagine how your smoking friends might follow your lead. Imagine them analyzing you – your success, your confidence, jumping those tough hurdles those first few days and being joyous about it.
“Oh, But I need a cigarette!”
Get ready. This thought is going to hit, and more than once. It might be from an event or circumstance or it may be completely untriggered. Sort it out in your mind now and get ready to battle that thought. Recognize “Oh I need a cigarette”, as a blatant lie and replace it with the truth. The truth that you don’t need a cigarette. Your body is craving nicotine. Yes, you want nicotine from the cigarette, that is true! But you sure as hell don’t need it – that is a lie.
Visualize this future event now, before you quit, so that you know how to combat it later. Do it a few times and be armed and ready to fight it.
Get ready to dispel those lies every time your memory wants to bring it up.
Learn to hate what you should hate.
When you’re sincerely done with that awful habit, mind intact and your body free from nicotine addiction, in the near future, you will smell the smoke from the burning cigarettes and chemicals and have the same aversion to it that lifelong smokers have always had. For me, it was only a matter of a few weeks.
And, as you know, your body will be far better off without the addiction.
Get ready for the lying thoughts that are sure to come to you and do it now.
If you have quit before, great!
Before I experienced success, I experiences had many quits followed by many fails where I would go right back to sucking in the smoke of burning weed and chemicals. Most quits lasted a week or a few days and one lasted 3 weeks.
I have no idea how many packs of smokes I threw out over years, but there were many. Not only would I throw the pack out into the garbage, I would first break them and then put them under the tap to wet them so that there was no going back to them. True enough, there was no going back to those particular smokes, but there was always a convenience store with hundreds of packs of smokes I could buy and so many times, did.
Because I had quit and started back up again so many times, when the final quit finally came, I was easily able to envision myself failing and conjuring up the feelings that came from failing.
I would literally imagine myself going through the following process, from start, to finish in great detail. I would imagine going to the store, paying for the cigarettes. I would picture myself opening the package, removing the foil and removing the cigarette. Then I would imagine lighting the cigarettes and taking a drag. Then, I would imagine the dizziness and light headedness that lasted for a minute. Then, I would imagine the ultimate feelings of guilt. Feelings of failure. Feelings of remorse. Feelings of self defeat.
Visualizing was a powerful weapon in helping me quit.
So if you have quit before, that’s great. You will be able to easily imagine the feelings of guilt, remorse, failure, etc. You know you don’t want to experience that again.
Imagine yourself failing .
Since most smokers have already attempted many ‘quits’ before their final quit, many can conjure up similar images and feelings that will take them to the place where they imagine dizziness, failure and remorse.
Putting my mind through the experience was enough to make me avoid the temptation to do what caused me failure each and every other time I tried to quit.
You’re Only A Puff Away From a Pack A Day
Remember the phrase when a craving strikes “You’re a puff away from a pack a day”. Do not tell yourself any more lies – that you can ‘just one puff’ or ‘just one cigarette’. You are finished with the lies. They have been fully exposed.
You just need to go through the trial period, which is really a matter of a few days. The cravings will peak in the first 3 days, and then subside and continue for 3 or 4 weeks.
During this period, you will be tested, but you will be strong. You know how to turn a lie around and combat it with the truth.
Choose Your Weapons!
So, besides the best weapon, your mind, what other methods, if any, will you choose?
For some, the mind might be enough! Your mind is powerful! For some, it might simply be the knowledge that you’re onto a better life, leaving your worst enemy in the dust behind you and combating the cravings without any aids.
Again, the right mindset is the single most important thing you will need to quit for good. You have to take the truth and indeed, “the truth will set you free”.
For others, the truth, plus some aids, will set them free.
There are arguments for and against the various quit smoking aids on the market – whether it be nicotine gum, the patch, e cigarettes etc. I won’t go into the pros and cons of these aids, but I’ll simply tell you about my own experience.
How I Quit
Two things I succinctly remember about the last successful attempt to quit. I had quit smoking. That was it. I had decided. My mind was made up, once and for all.
The second day of my quit, I called my friend to say “Happy Birthday”. Monica and I had talked different times about quitting smoking and told me that day, “I quit smoking today”.
It came out of nowhere and I was surprised.
I exclaimed, “Well I quit yesterday!” To anyone who didn’t know me, that may have sounded like a case of one upmanship, but Monica knew I was telling her the truth. It was pure coincidence, but we continued to talk regularly, compare notes, encourage each other and we both stayed ‘quit’ until this day, and happily so. It was nice to have a quit buddy. Usually these things are planned, and sometimes they are serendipitous, it seems.
I’ll preface the next part of my story by saying I did use a combination of aids. One was a vapor cigarette. My favorite flavor was cherry vanilla. When you inhale from it, the tip lights up and you inhale a pleasant flavor, and no tobacco flavor or nicotine at all. This took care of the psychological aspect of smoking for me. While I was quitting, it felt like a God-send.
I used nicotine replacement when I first quit in form of the patch. Although the instructions said to wear the patch all of the time, 24 hours a day, I really only wore it when during my waking hours – from the time I awoke until the time I went to bed. I felt that it might have been making me dream more vividly, and I also didn’t see the point of having a supply of nicotine going into my body while I was sleeping. After all, if I was smoking, I would be able to go without the nicotine through the night. Why would I start putting in into my body for 24 hours a day when I previously only needed it for 16 hours a day. But that’s just me.
If you feel you need the patch to combat the morning craving, then wear it all night. I personally found that I could feel the nicotine in my body within minutes of putting it on and it gave me a feeling of satisfaction when I was quitting.
The first Friday night I quit smoking, only four days in, my spouse and I were socializing with five friends on our patio table in the back yard. My spouse was the only other nonsmoker. All five friends were smokers. The smoke and the cigarettes were all around me. I was glad for that patch on my arm and I hauled on the e-cigarette like there was no tomorrow. It was an enjoyable night with great conversation, food and music but the temptations were all around me.
When I went to bed that night, I knew I could finally be done with Nicodemon. He had lost his final battle and I had finally won the war. When you know you’ve accomplished this goal, the feeling is utter elation, that continues on through the years.
For the first month I continued wearing the patch during the day and hauling away on those vapor cigarettes. After about a month, I quit using the patches and started using the gum more sporadically – 2 or 3 pieced of gum for a few hours each day, while continually using the vapor cigarettes. It was cherry vanilla flavor almost every time.
After about 2 full months, I felt no need for nicotine replacement therapy at all, and continued with vapor cigarettes occasionally for only about another month, until the time when I used nothing at all.
There were many times in the first full year that I had awoken from a bad dream. In these dreams, I had failed and smoked a cigarette. Every time I awoke, I felt utter failure and despair until I realized that, thankfully, it had just been another dream. Then – a sense of jubilation. The war was over, once and for all. I had won.
Essential Oils For Quitting Smoking
I didn’t know much about essential oils when I quit smoking eight years ago, but have since taken a serious interest in them. I would encourage you to look into these oils that contain concentrated plant medicines within them to help with anxiety, cravings, nausea, insomnia or headaches.
Sweet Orange, Lavender, Peppermint, Rosemary are some of the favorites to aid in quitting cigarettes.
Get Support Systems In Place
There are many support systems readily available. Besides friends or family members that you can count on, you can join support groups in person or online.
Listen to others talk about how they quit. It will be interesting and inspiring.
Keep your thinking in check and starve your addiction through every means possible until you are rarely ever thinking about it and when you DO, you are simply thankful you are free. Keep thinking the truthful thoughts and do away with the lies.
Reread this blog post, make a journal, make notes about your own experiences. Rewrite anything that inspires you or awakens you to truth.
Establish New Routines
Instead of waking up, turning on the coffee and having a smoke, turn on the coffee machine and have a shower, using brand new natural fragrances that invigorate you. Or go for a quick, brisk walk around the block. Or sign up for a daily inspirational scripture or message and soak it in, writing it out. Plug in your essential oil diffuser and play a catchy, fun song on enjoy as you get yourself ready to get ready for the day.
Especially at the beginning of your new journey, you might be wise to remind yourself of the truths you have learned. You may want to reread this blog post and keep it handy to let the truths resonate deep into your mind. Keep inspirational notes on your fridge to keep your mind on track.
When a lie creeps in, immediately replace it with truth. Do not let the lie fester. Combat it immediately and rid it from your mind.
Morning, noon and night, try to do a few new things to change things up to live a healthier and more positive life. Take up a new exercise or sport, start learning some new healthy recipes, start a positive song playlist, pick up your guitar and learn a new chord, go to a new language course -whatever is appealing to you – now is the time to do it.
The point is to fill your life with new and positive things, to replace the old and negative.
As it is said “In with the new, out with the old”.
A New Vibrant Life
I honestly can’t stress enough that when you’re finally done with this cursed habit, that if you continue on with a positive approach, based in honesty and truth, you will live the rest of your life as a happy nonsmoker. You will be even happier than the lifelong nonsmoker because you know how awful it is to be addicted to sucking on the smoke from burning weed and chemicals. You will be thankful and grateful that your mind finally overcame this stupid habit and rid your mind of the lies.
Leave Nicodemon in the dust and be free to enjoy your life. Take walks, drink nice herbal teas, enjoy lemon water, take up new hobbies, be grateful and be good to yourself. Live the rest of your life in happiness and peace and truth. You deserve it.
Feel free to comment, share your experiences, failures, helpful hints, questions in he comment section.
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