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Decision to Stop Smoking

Dr_Hurt
Mayo Clinic
0 0 51

Many times people struggle with the decision to stop smoking.  You may feel there are a number of reasons to continue smoking.  Then, on the other hand, most smokers can identify many reasons for quitting.  It is normal to feel ambivalent about stopping smoking.  However, you can put that to your advantage.  Take a pen and paper and write down the answers to 4 separate questions.

Make a list of:

      
  1. What are the “kind of good things about smoking?”
  2.   
  3. What are the “not so good things about quitting?”

On a separate paper write:

3)      What are the “not so good things about smoking?”
4)      What are the “kind of good things about quitting?”

Now examine the items under question #1.  Try to think of ways you can manage or satisfy the “good things” without a cigarette such as taking a walk with a friend for pleasure.  Think of other ways that you might serve these purposes without smoking.

Next, look at your list from question #2.  Try to think of some ways to manage the problems associated with quitting such as irritability.  Consider using a medication or exercising.

Next, take your ideas from #3 and #4, and list specific examples such as better exercise tolerance without being so winded.  I bet you will have a bigger list for questions from #’s 3 and 4 than for #’s 1 and 2.  Put this on your refrigerator with a magnet or where you used to carry your cigarettes.  Read the list before acting on an urge to smoke.  This process of decision making goes on all the time in our head, but putting it on paper can make it come true!

About the Author
Retired in 2014. Dr. Richard D. Hurt is an internationally recognized expert on tobacco dependence. A native of Murray, Kentucky, he joined Mayo Clinic in 1976 and is now a Professor of Medicine at its College of Medicine. In 1988, he founded the Mayo Clinic Nicotine Dependence Center and since then its staff has treated more than 50,000 patients for tobacco dependence.