Are you about to quit smoking — again?
Did you give up smoking some time ago and manage to stay quit for a while, but then, for some odd reason, start smoking again?
Have you promised your family you’re going to give up smoking again but you’re scared to try because you don’t really want to?
And are you planning to use some form of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) like you did the last time, because you found it to be such a big help back then (maybe even too much of a help, as you found yourself using it for a lot longer than the recommended 6 to 8 week "treatment" period)?
I Don’t Hold Out Much Hope for You
I have to be blunt here: if you found yourself answering yes to those questions, I don’t hold out much hope that you’ll succeed (at least not for any appreciable length of time).
Let’s examine what’s really going on here:
First of all, you agree that you "gave up" smoking and "managed" to stay quit for some time (maybe it was even several years).
In effect, for however long you "managed" to "give up" smoking, you were in deprivation mode: your mindset was one of having given up something desirable, and of depriving yourself of it because you thought you should.
Next, you say that "for some odd reason" you started smoking again.
Let’s get real here: you made a deliberate, conscious choice to start smoking again; a choice that you’d been contemplating and working yourself up to for as long as you’d "managed" to stay quit.
Then you acknowledge that you don’t really want to quit again (and, in fact, are scared to try), but you’re going to try anyway because you promised your family you would. And to top it all off, to help you deal with the withdrawal from your addiction to nicotine, you’re planning to keep some nicotine handy (just not in the form of a cigarette).
Let’s turn this around a bit:
Let’s say you have a friend who’s an alcoholic. This friend gave up drinking a few years ago and managed to stay sober for some time, but started drinking again "for some odd reason" a while ago. She tells you that she doesn’t really want to quit drinking again (in fact, she’s scared to even try), but she’s going to do it anyway because she promised her family she would. Oh; and by the way, she’s planning on keeping a small bottle of vodka and a hypodermic needle with her, so she can inject some alcohol into herself occasionally to help her deal with the withdrawal from her addiction to alcohol without drinking.
Given all that, how do you rate your friend’s chances of success?
I Don’t Hold Out Much Hope for Your Friend, Either.
You’ve got to understand that there’s only one reason you smoke: to feed your addiction to nicotine. You also have to understand that your inner junkie doesn’t care if feeding your addiction kills you (any more than your friend’s inner drunk cares about killing her); all it cares about is getting its next fix.
Some people get this right away. Others don’t. It took me 35 years of feeding my addiction before I finally had to admit that I was an addict. My wake-up call came 10 years ago when I was diagnosed with emphysema; my doctor told me that, if I continued to smoke, there would come a day when even being on pure oxygen 24/7 wouldn’t be enough to keep me alive (because the emphysema would continue to kill lung tissue until I didn’t have enough left to process enough oxygen to keep me alive), and I would suffocate. He assured me that it would not be a pretty way to die.
I believed him and I quit smoking for the final time on November 19th, 2001. But enough damage had been done that I was no longer able to perform on a professional level as a trombonist or singer, and I had to give up my music career.
Don’t Be as Slow as I Was
You don’t have to be as slow to get it as I was. Understand and accept what you’re up against right now. There is absolutely nothing to miss about smoking, but your inner junkie will do its best to convince you that there is. It succeeded in getting you to start feeding it again, after working on you for as long as you’d been quit the last time.
If you keep listening to your inner junkie’s rationalizations, it will kill you. And no matter what form that death comes in, it won’t be pleasant.
For you, or for your family.