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Give and get support around quitting

karenjones
Member

People who say they are scared of quitting

I see so often on this site people who say they are scared of quitting. I just can't understand that, I would think that people would be scared of continuing to smoke. What am I missing?

33 Replies
Lisaml
Member

Comfort. Security blanket. The familiar. The emotional crutch. The coping mechanisms. 

The ritual/habit. The escape. The fear of failure. The fear that we waited too long. The fear that we won’tfind comfort. 

Just my thoughts.... fear of the unknown is HUGE. 

And knowing how dangerous smoking is does not really negate the fear of quitting. 😉

Exactly what I was going to say Lisaml

karenjones
Member

why is there no fear of cancer though, ??  that was my prime fear.  which helped me to stop. 

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Lisaml
Member

Of course there is. But we also have the “won’t happen to me” mentality. Didn’t you, before you got diagnosed and ultimately quit? 

For me, cancer was something that happened to people who were older/smoked more/smoked longer/ didn’t take care of themselves. 

Ironically, I have always eaten “clean” and exercised. I believed in some level, that would negate the ill effects of smoking. 

Sure, there’s a fear of smoking related illnesses. But not until my 40’s. Before that, I felt indestructible. 

karenjones
Member

I always worried about cancer and heart disease too. I knew that smoking shortened my breath and made it hard to breathe, for instance when running for the bus. I was conscious of lung cancer, throat cancer, heart attacks.  i did eventually get oral cancer and then I quit smoking. I called that quitting the easy way. I was always afraid of gettting  cancer.  even though I know that I may still contract a smioking related cancer even though no smoking , I don't worry about it at all now. Because I don't smoke. It was and is,  so great to lay that worry down.

Barbscloud
Member

Funny, just sent this response to another post:  I find this whole fear thing interesting.  What are we really afraid of?   The cigarette swat team isn't going to come to our house if we smoke.  Only thing I can come up with, it that we're afraid of failing, i.e., disappointing ourselves.  That doesn't really make any sense either, because we'd never attempt to do even the most trivial things  if we expected to fail EVER TIME.  After many attempts to quit, I tried to squelch the "unexplained" fear this time by telling my to give it a try.  I can always go back to smoking if I chose to.  So, what is there to be afraid of.  You're ahead of me in this quit (March12), so I'm looking to you for inspiration!

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karenjones
Member

I don't understand it either. I am more afraid of smoking than of quitting.  Afraid of quitting??  What these people don't realize is that when they do get lung cancer, which willl happen unless they get hit by an asteroid first, and they are laying in a hospital bed, they will have to quit. Smoking is not allowed in hospitals. What happens to their fear of quitting then?

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Lisaml
Member

Karen, “people” certainly do realize the risks, for the most part. However, as you know, addicts do not make the most prudent and health conscious decisions. 

I, for one, have been in healthcare for decades. I’m very well aware of the ramifications of smoking. But, yes, it was scary to consider quitting.

again, it’s fear of the unknown and fear of being unable to cope with difficult situations without a “crutch”.  

😉 

AnnetteMM
Member

I think it's the fear of pain.  Emotional pain, social pain, physical pain.

Funny thing is, now at 145+ days, smoking would definitely hurt my throat and lungs now.