Smoking Cessation

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How to Happily Quit Smoking...

...Through Understanding - not Brute Willpower!

By Terry Martin, About.com

Updated: March 21, 2005

About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by our Medical Review Board

John Ryan / All rights reserved

Never try to quit smoking through brute willpower. Instead, free yourself through UNDERSTANDING - and you'll be a Happy Non-smoker for life! Here's how......

How the Story began

When we are kids, we all see the adults around us smoking. In fact, this is the reason 90% of us start smoking in the first place. And yet if we ask for one, we are refused and told that it is a terrible, horrible habit that will kill us. And yet the adults continue to do it!

A SUBCONSCIOUS BELIEF

When this happens, subconsciously a belief grows in us that, at the very least, cigarettes must contain some 'magical' hidden attraction. There must be some great hidden pleasure or enjoyment in them - why else would people continue to do something that is killing them? And then so as we get older - and actually smoke our first cigarette, we are further puzzled. We get nothing at all from the experience. In fact, it tastes awful - but yet the next day, we will continue smoking.

Why ?

Because we are convinced (brainwashed?) that it is an inherently pleasurable act. We reason: "Maybe I just haven't found it yet?" And so we continue ... and of course, unknown to ourselves we become hooked - addicted.

We don't realize it at first - but if we attempt to stop for any reason, we are suddenly surprised to find that it is not as easy as we had imagined. And then as we attempt to find out why this is so, we fall prone to even more of society's brainwashing (deeply ingrained beliefs) about smoking.

We are told by everybody - even people who have NEVER smoked (how would they know!!) about how difficult it will be to stop and that you will have to suffer, if you want to give up smoking for good. Most of us have no idea of the extent and the extraordinary power this subtle mental conditioning has over us.

More than nicotine addiction?

In fact, if in giving up smoking all we had to deal with was the chemical addiction, the process would, indeed, be easy. But we are also psychologically addicted to smoking. Even though this 'mental conditioning' is only a series of thoughts held in your mind about smoking, these thoughts and beliefs are the key factor that will determine your success in giving up smoking and actually ENJOYING the process.

It is amazing how much we genuinely believe all the illusions about smoking. We all genuinely believe that cigarettes do something for us - that they are a help, a joy, a comfort, a friend ... and that if they go, we'll miss them terribly.

Can you for the first time in your life ALLOW yourself to think the UNTHINKABLE:

You can FULLY ENJOY yourself
without NEEDING to smoke.

But right now, you believe this illusion totally. You believe you NEED to smoke to be happy....and it is your total acceptance of this belief that keeps you trapped in this addictive habit.

HOW THE ILLUSION BEGAN

It all happens very subtly...

Your body is fine and complete before you begin to smoke. You are able to get on with ALL aspects of your life without giving the slightest thought to cigarettes EVEN if everybody around you, like your parents are smoking.

When you were young, did you feel your day was ruined if you could not smoke?

Did you feel nervous, uncomfortable or unable to concentrate because you could not smoke?

Of course not. Your life went on perfectly normally as a non-smoker.

Then, one day you decide to smoke.
To experiment.
You force nicotine into your body.
You smoke.

Your body responds by either coughing or if you smoke too much, by producing physical sensations of sickness or a dizzy feeling. These are the alarm signals our bodies set off in an attempt to tell us we're putting unwelcome poisonous substances into our bodies.

BUT we ignore it.

We keep on smoking, because deep down ... we are convinced there must be something in it ... and although we will swear that we are not hooked, "I can give up anytime I want - I just don't want to do it now" - we continue on. But very soon we begin to realize we NEED that next cigarette. We get a certain feeling ... a certain emptiness ... a desire ... that we feel a cigarette will fill. We feel uneasy as if we are lacking something ...

We reach for a cigarette - and within seconds, fresh nicotine is supplied and this unexplained hunger or emptiness is filled. We feel relief and a great pleasure that that empty feeling is gone.

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