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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.
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Dying for a Cigarette

The title of this post Dying for a Cigarette can be put in two different forms.  It can be used as a statement or a question. 

Dying for a Cigarette.

I have used the statement “I am dying for a cigarette” hundreds of times during the years that I fed my nicotine addiction.  And at the time that I made those statements I believed that if I didn’t get a smoke or a nicotine fix I actually would expire by some terrible unknown, unexplainable, mind blowing phenomenon.  Or, at the least, I would do some unlawful act, such as killing someone, that it would end my life and existence as I knew it at that time.

Little did I know that the statement “Dying for a Cigarette” would have such a traumatic and dramatic effect on me and my life?

Eventually after over twenty years of smoking and a number of attempts to quit smoking I was finally successful.  In 1980 I quit smoking “cold turkey”.  This time the quit wasn’t as hard as I had made all of the former attempts to quit.  Notice I use the term “I made” because that is the way it was.  In my earlier attempts to quit I was convinced that it would be hard and it was because I believed it would be.  In my final and last attempt I told myself that I could do this no matter what.  I decided that I would quit for good this time because I could.  And I did.

Dying for a Cigarette?

Three years after I quit smoking I was diagnosed with smoking induced lung cancer and had to have my left lung removed.  I was very fortunate because they got all of the cancer with the entire lung.  I did not have to have chemotherapy or radiation treatments.  I almost lost my life and fulfilled the statement “Dying for a Cigarette”. 

Tobacco and lung cancer have had a profound effect on my life.  Use of tobacco caused me to have lung cancer.  But I have not let either, tobacco or lung cancer, completely define my life.  And you don’t have to either.

Yesterday, March 28, 2010, I celebrated my 70th birthday.  Thirty years after I quit smoking I am still doing well.  There is life after tobacco use and I am living proof that quitting smoking can make a difference in one’s life and well being.

If you think that you can quit smoking take my word for it you can if you believe that you can.

I tell my story about my nicotine addiction and what I went through to beat it at http://www.quitterscanbewinners.com/

You can get my free ebook on How to stop smoking forever or Simply be Tobacco Free by clicking here http://www.simply-be-tobacco-free.com/

Thanks for visiting and good luck.