BEST WAY TO STOP SMOKING

Hello,

It seems that everyone is trying to find the best way to stop smoking.  They also want it to be the easiest way to stop smoking.  Well I can tell you from experience that there is only one way to stop smoking.  That is to make up your mind that you have had enough of the terrible effects of nicotine addiction.  It has to be a mindset that you decide on in order for it to be effective.  This mindset has to fill you with determination to be done with smoking forever.  There is no such thing as quitting slowly or wanting to quit.  One has to do two things in order to be successful in their quit, have the knowledge of why he or she smokes and the knowledge that he or she can quit.

The first step in quitting smoking is to know why you smoke.  People believe that there are many reasons that they smoke.  However, the main reason people smoke is that nicotine is a drug, a highly addictive drug.  Some experts claim that nicotine is a stronger drug than heroin or cocaine and the addiction is much harder to break.  I tend to agree with that assessment.  Even though I have never been addicted to heroin or cocaine I have been addicted to nicotine and I know how hard it is to break that addiction because I have done it.   The thing about any type of drug is that it will have a reaction on you as long as you introduce it to and have it in your system.  With the nicotine drug one has a continuous problem because they continue to introduce the drug into their system with each and every puff of the cigarette.  When one thinks that they can get by with just a cigarette or two a day they are wrong.  Any introduction of nicotine into the system, anytime, will cause the nicotine addiction all over again.   Nicotine stays in one’s system for 72 hours.  After that time frame most if not all of the nicotine is gone from one’s system.  After that one is working on just the habit that was formed by the nicotine addiction.  The nicotine is no longer in control of one’s system.  While the effects of the addiction may still linger it is not the nicotine that is causing the problem it is just the habit that has to be broken.  Habits are much easier to break than addictions.  It has been said that the time frame for breaking a habit is 21 days.  I like to think that I traded my smoker’s habit for a non smoker’s habit of being simply tobacco free. The benefits of being tobacco free are too many to list here.  But let me say that there are many and they are worth the effort to quit smoking.   Let me just enter a word of caution at this point with a repeat of the above statement: Any introduction of nicotine into the system, anytime, will cause the nicotine addiction all over again.   That point cannot be stressed enough.  For some folks the addiction has been renewed with just one puff or one cigarette.  At that point nicotine remains in one system for another 72 hours.  That’s 72 hours of having to deal with the aggravation of trying to quit smoking again because one is right back to the point of beginning to deal with the nicotine addiction.   Now you know the real reason why you smoke.  It is because you are addicted to nicotine.  That is the reason that you have to have that next cigarette and the next one and the next one.  Each and every puff that you take from a cigarette you introduce the nicotine drug into your system and the addiction demands that you feed it more and more.   The second step and the best way to stop smoking is to just quit using tobacco products.  That is right, just quit.  If one uses just a little logic he or she can realize that in order to break that nicotine addiction he or she will have to quit now and stay quit completely forever.  You may ask, what about those cravings?  The simple answer is that you can persevere that first 72 hours with pure determination and a few quit smoking aids.  After that time frame one just has to keep reminding themselves the reasons that they wanted to quit smoking.  Constantly reinforcing your motivation and your knowledge will get you through the, so called, tough times.  Each and every day that a person goes without having nicotine in their system it becomes easier and easier to quit smoking.   It can be done and you can do it.