One thing is sure here on EX: if you are a new member, you will be given recommended reading. Some will be links, some will require you to go to another site, some are downloads.
"I've already read all I need to know about how smoking is killing me" you may be saying. Well, so have we. That's some scary stuff. But scare tactics are not an effective method. That's not what the recommended reading is about.
"I didn't come here to get homework. I just want to know how to quit" you may be saying, as if we have discovered some magical secret that we can tell you.
We ARE telling you how to quit: Do the reading. It's not exactly a magical secret, but the reading has played a HUGE part in the successful Quits of hundreds of people here on EX. "How's that?" you may be asking.
I'll bet that you, just like most of us here on EX, have had several unsuccessful quits. And during those quits, you've used phrases like: "trying to quit", "making an attempt", "see if it works this time" and my personal favorite "Wish me good luck!" And then you "try", but you end up smoking again. Why is that? Because you are still thinking of smoking as something that you are "giving up", "doing without", "sacrificing". You fully expect to be miserable. You can't even imagine your life without smoking. (Neither could we.)
The key is to change the way you are thinking about quitting. You can flip your thinking 180 degrees so that you no longer feel like quitting is "taking away" your cigarettes. Instead, you can begin to see quitting as a release from nicotine addiction. You see it as freedom.
"Freedom from what?" you ask. Well, for starters...freedom from smelling like a dirty ashtray, from always worrying about if you have enough cigarettes to last until you can get to the store, from constantly scheming how and where you can have your next cigarette, from hiding your smoking from your friends or family, from spending money you need for other things, from having to locate the smoking area every place you go. Shall I go on? Not to mention the health benefits!
So how does the reading help to flip your thinking? The reading will teach you all about nicotine addiction and why it has such a strong grip on you. You will learn that nicotine actually physically changes your brain receptors, which then start telling you that you enjoy smoking, that nicotine relieves stress, that you need cigarettes, that you'll miserable if you don't have nicotine. The reading will show you that these things are not true.
And somewhere during the reading, you will go from dreading quitting to being ready to quit being a prisoner of nicotine anymore. You will finally, really and truly, WANT to quit.
And THAT is what makes for a forever, final, successful Quit.
You can do what we have already done; QUIT. Your addiction to nicotine is no stronger, nor harder to beat, than our addiction was. If we can do it, you can also do it. But the self-education that will flip your thinking around is absolutely KEY to success.
So...do the reading. Over and out.
xxxooo, Sky
