How to Give Up Smoking for Good

I have been an on off smoker for a long time. Started somewhere in the second year of medical college and have been having a go at quitting ever since then. The thing about this addiction is that you can never ever be sure that you are done with it. Guarding against that ONE moment of weakness that will get you started again involves eternal vigilance. Not only have I struggled endlessly myself, I have also seen many friends suffering too. Here is my personal experience.

The First Step is Not to Start

How I rue the day I started. The first time I had a cigarette. It feels good, makes you feel important and especially if you are a teenager who has just moved to the other end of the country to a metropolis where you have no friends, it gives you social acceptance as well.

But it’s a road to perdition that you would do well not to start on.

So If you are not caught on yet, then DON’T start. If you are an occasional smoker and not hooked on to three packs a day, it’s easier to give up. Just make sure that you don’t encounter one of these “occasions” ever again. And I say this because if its easy to quit from being an occasional smoker, its even easier to become habituated from this point on.

How to Know That You are Hooked

The first step to solving a problem, is to realize that one exists.

For the first couple of years, I told myself that I could quit anytime I wanted. That is, until I tried to quit for the first time. Man alive, it was hard. Sitting in my room trying to resist the urge to go out and buy another one was perhaps the most difficult thing I had ever done. I lasted six months that time. Until I hit a bad time, and bingo, I was hooked again.

In actual fact, there is no line that you have to cross. There is no neon sign that you pass on this long and slippery road which proclaims the fact of your addiction to the world. It is a slow realization which comes with time.

When assessing an alcoholic in clinic, doctors use the CAGE questionnaire. If you answer yes to any one of the questions, it is an indicator that you might have a problem. (It is only a screening test and not a diagnostic test)

• C stands for Cutting Down: Have you ever thought about cutting down your drinking?
• A stands for annoyance: Have other people ever been annoyed by your drinking habits?
• G stands for Guilt: Have you ever felt guilty about your drinking?
• E stands for Eye Opener: Have you ever felt the need for a drink the first thing in the morning?

If anything, the cut off for addiction to smoking should be lower than that for drinking.Tobacco does a lot more damage to society and the individual than alcohol. Even then, I think this test is a good one if you want to determine if you are addicted to smoking tobacco.

And the gold standard test is to stop!!! And see how things go. If you are successful and never smoke again, congratulations!!!! But if you are like the rest of us, there are high chances that you will relapse into old habits again. And figures and health statistics prove this too. Only 2.5 percent of smokers manage to quit every year. And those who do manage to quit, usually have tried 2-3 times unsuccessfully before they finally kick the habit.

It’s Better to Burn Out, Than to Fade Away

That’s how I rationalized it to myself in the early days. Life is short and youth even shorter. There is a lot to do and enjoy. Its what they call, being delusional.

So If you are one of those Kurt Kobain fans who believe in the statement quoted above or one of the new age rationalist followers of Ayn Rand who died believing that all anti smoking literature was communist propaganda and likened the lit cigarette in a man’s hand to the fire of the intellect in his brain, you are wasting your time here. This website
might provide more entertainment/information.

If however you are here in search of reasons to quit, I can help you.

Why Quit?

Well, if health isn’t motivation enough for you, and I will go into more detail on this in a bit, consider that biggest motivator of men and nations….Money!!!
Buying a pack might not be enough to break your financial back. But buying a pack day in and day out for a lifetime will set you back quite a lot. Let’s indulge ourselves and see by how much.

A pack of 20 Marlborough lights in the US costs around 6 dollars. Over a year, that comes out to a cool two thousand dollars plus and over 40 years, approximately 90 000 dollars.
So don’t buy cigarettes today and instead stuff the six bucks under your pillow. Do that tomorrow and then day after, for the next 40 years. And hey presto, that is a kewl 90 grand in cash. No investments, no bank accounts, no taxes either. A cool 90 thousand dollars in cash.

I am sure you get the drift. So will not bore you with this any more. But just remember, these are just the ancillary benefits. The amount saved in hospital bills will be much more too.

From the point of view of your health, it is like throwing yourself off the cliff – only in slow motion. With your family and kids in tow. There is hardly an organ system in the body that is not affected. The chances of getting Alzheimer’s dementia double. Those of dying from a heart attack more than triple. Strokes, limb amputations due to smoking related blood vessel damage and a large variety of cancers of diverse organs (lungs, urinary bladder, liver etc) only add to the spectrum of diseases that are related to smoking. But all of this is common knowledge, so I will only try to debunk a big urban legend related to smoking. In early 1991, there were a couple of studies done on six families suffering from Alzheimer’s dementia.

One of the unanticipated results of these studies was the finding that those who smoked, took approximately 4 years longer to develop this disease than those who didn’t. Pro Smoking campaigns finally found something to base their arguments on. They were only smoking to protect themselves from this dehumanizing disease and what not. Thankfully, a study done by a medical school in Rotterdam in the Netherlands in 1998 completely disproved all this junk. 2000 people were followed up and the results showed that those who smoked had twice the risk of developing early Alzheimer’s than those who didn’t. The earlier study was based on too small a sample size to have any significance.

How to Quit: Are You ready?

If you have thought about quitting, you are ready to quit. And this is perhaps one aspect of life where you can be proud of being a quitter. For the motivated go getter, quitting cold turkey is perhaps the best method. Just say enough one fine day and never look back. And that will be it. It is seldom this easy though and will require motivation and motivators to be on your side. A good way to go about it is to plan it in advance. Set a date and announce to the world in general that you will quit smoking on that day. Make sure that your buddies and your family know about it. If you can find a friend to quit with you, even better. You can function as each others support system if you feel like relapsing. Get rid of all your smoking related paraphernalia like lighters and ashtrays. Throw away that expensive zippo lighter. And let that be your final act of rebellion against this habit that had taken over your life.

Never Quit Quitting

So you had a relapse. And now you feel like a loser. After all that effort you put into it, you sneaked a sneaky one after that party last night. And this morning, you sneaked in another one, just to help you cope with the guilt. And then another one after lunch because the bitter half was deriding you for having given in to temptation.

What do you do now. Accept that you are a loser and buy a zippo lighter again. That certainly is the easy way out. The honourable way on the other hand is to admit to yourself that you made a mistake. Refuse to let your self esteem take a blow and revert back to your plan. That of not to smoke again.

Tips to Stay on Track

Exercise

Its got nothing to do with quitting smoking, I admit. But it’s a very useful adjunct. Its kind of self defeating if you come back after running 5 miles and smoke 10 ciggies one after the other. The two just don’t go well together isn’t it. Exercise also releases endorphins, the bodies own feel good narcotics and decreases the urge to smoke or indulge in any other addictive activity.

Enjoy Life More

All that freed up money that you save by not smoking. Use it to buy stuff you have always wanted to buy. A book, a meal at an expensive restaurant, a new computer, a new dress…in short, anything. If you are a good little saver, start a pension plan. Invest in stocks. Whatever. Something that you never did before because you did not have the money. And tell yourself that the only reason you can afford to do it now, is because you have stopped smoking.

The Best of Us Might Falter

The trick is not to stay down when and if you fall. But to get up and get going again.

Best of Luck.