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One More Time...Delaying VS Denial (Quitting is made stressful by many before they even start their quit)

JonesCarpeDiem
0 5 20

If you are trying to cut down a certain amount per day before you quit, all you are going to be focused on all day is how many you have left.

TALK ABOUT STRESSFUL!

It's much less stressful to learn to delay than deny, that way, the cutting down can happen naturally.

Here's how you do it:

When you want to smoke you just say to yourself, "I'm going to wait a little longer."

Once you start realizing you don't have to smoke every time you want to smoke it becomes empowering, even exciting. You begin to understand you really can take control. It get's your mind in a much better place to begin. After a few weeks you can be down to 25% of what you started without stressing at all.

When you get down to around 5, you need to start your quit. Otherwise you will be in continual withdrawal.  You want to avoid doing that.

i cut down from a pack a day to 5 a day over a four week period and the only reason i knew was smoking less was because i wasn't buying cigarettes as often.  I went into my quit with no built up stress about quitting. You can too!

5 Comments
About the Author
Hello, My name is Dale. I was quit 18 months before joining this site and had participated on another site during that time. I learned a lot there and brought it with me. I joined this site the first week of August 2008. I didn't pressure myself to quit. HOW I QUIT I didn't count, I didn't deny myself to get started. When I considered quitting (at a friends request to influence his brother to quit), I simply told myself to wait a little longer. No denial, nothing painful. After 4 weeks I was down to 5 cigarettes from a pack a day. The strength came from proving to myself, I didn't need to smoke because I normally would have smoked. Simple yes? I bought the patch. I forgot to put one on on the 4th day. I needed it the next day but the following week I forgot two days in a row I put one in my wallet with a promise to myself that I would slap it on and wait an hour rather than smoke. It rode in my wallet my first year.There's nothing keeping any of you from doing this. It doesn't cost a dime. This is about unlearning something you've done for a long time. The nicotine isn't the hard part. Disconnecting from the psychological pull, the memories and connected emotions is. :-) Time is the healer.