Hey everyone,
Hope you're having a great day and that you're as excited as I am that the weekend has arrived. This post, as the title suggests, is for anyone who is thinking of quitting or about to quit. I just wanted to share two things that I did during my quit that helped me immensely, and that are a little unorthodox, I think, given everything I'd read online and in forums before quitting myself.
Before I begin, let me just say that I don't think there's a one-size-fits all approach to quitting smoking. Obviously we are all unique and different, and what works for some may or may not work for others. Whatever gets you from A to B when quitting smoking is, in my eyes, a perfectly okay solution. These two things worked for me, and maybe they will work for you too!
1) I never set a quit date
I'd tried to quit using a quit date many times before. Each time I would set my date and announce to my friends and family that I was firmly resolved to quit on that day. I remember taking great pride in merely telling people that I was going to quit, as if I'd already done all of the hard work and accomplished my goal, haha 🙂
What worked for me was simply reframing the problem I was facing--that I wanted to quit smoking but was terrified of giving up something that I felt was a part of myself. Instead of thinking about it as this big scary thing that I had to do, I started to think of it as a competition I was going to have with myself. I didn't tell anyone that I was going to quit. I simply had my last smoke one night, and said to MYSELF "I'm not going to smoke tomorrow. I'm going to feel like shit. I'm going to be anxious and irratated. But I'm going to make it until the end of the day, just to see what happens." After day 1 I kept focusing on the small wins and working with the fear and anxiety I was feeling until things gradually became easier. When people would ask me to go for a smoke or if I was quitting, I would respond with, "I'm just seeing how long I can go without smoking."
For me, reframing the problem this way took a lot of the pressure off. Quit dates and all of these big resolutions were always too much for me. I think in my mind when I would try that method, quitting smoking became this huge insurmountable thing that I could never do, and as a result I failed because I never believed I could accomplish it to begin with.
2) I never threw out my cigarettes and lighters until much later.
I used to throw all my lighters and cigarettes away too when I would try to quit. I'd read this online many times and the reasoning behind it seemed pretty solid. But after failing to quit many times, each time having to march down to the seven-eleven, embarrassed and deflated, and hand the clerk my debit card, I tried something different. I left my smokes in my room where I'd normally leave them. It became part of this game I was playing, something to tempt me as I left my house each morning and refused to cave. There was something very powerful about being able to see them and walk right past them. Sometimes I'd even flip them off as I'd walk out the door, haha 😉
Anyways, as I said before whatever gets you from A-to-B is great. These are two things that worked for me.
Cheers,
