Giving Up Smoking - Are You Ready

Most smokers say they are serious about giving up smoking and that they want to quit, but they don’t. Many have already tried and failed. As we have discussed in early posts on this site, the symptoms of actual nicotine withdrawal are typically mild and painless, so this alone cannot account for the difficulty that smokers face when giving up smoking, and the high failure rate.
We also know that the habits linked to smoking behavior can be changed like any other habits - again without pain or trauma. It seems there is a gap in information and understanding. This blind spot particularly relates to the psychological aspect of dependency - the role of the mind. So here I want to explain some of the psychology of giving up smoking - why it seems so hard to most people, what happens in the brain, and so on.
Justifying Smoking
What do smokers say?:
· It helps me concentrate, or relax.
· I get pleasure.
· I’ll put on weight if I stop.
Smokers often include one or more of these in what they will ‘lose’, or give up, and the fear of that perceived loss adds to the hurdle of quitting smoking. Even when a person has made a firm decision to give up smoking, sometimes outdated beliefs such as these linger and unconsciously affect their behavior. So it is better to address each of these common smoking ‘justifiers’ which are related to giving up smoking, even if they don’t seem to apply in your case.
Other benefits are claimed. For instance, some claim that smoking relieves boredom. But - think about it - any honest smoker could think of 101 useful, or at least harmless, things they could do to relieve boredom (ask your spouse or partner, or boss at work). So although we shall find that the above fears of loss are illusions anyway, what you learn about them will also apply to the boredom illusion and many other less common pretexts people use for not giving up smoking.
The ones quoted above are merely representative. Most important, the methods you will learn about changing beliefs like these apply universally, so your particular situation will be fully catered for. We will also consider the psychological and practical aspects of giving up smoking.
In future posts that follow over the next few days we will deal in more detail with the above common difficulties that smokers say they contend with, as these describe specific mental programs which you need to change.