How to Quit Smoking Naturally – Part I

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“You must do the thing you think you cannot do” – Eleanor Roosevelt

The techniques outlined in this series are designed to help you quit smoking. I really wanted to write an article on this topic specifically because I know how many people struggle with this, and I know first hand just what a painful agonizing struggle it can be. Many people are smokers who wish daily to be non-smokers yet can’t seem to find their way to achieving that goal. If you read this article right through and put it into practice you will succeed at quitting smoking.

Societal motivation to quit

Smoking is drug addiction but it is unlike other types of drug addiction. The smoker’s body is indeed addicted to the nicotine drug in cigarettes, and in that regard it is drug addiction. However it does not generally have the really obvious negative effects that other drug addictions display. Heroin and coke addicts end up mentally unstable and often homeless. Alcoholics usually end up ruining their social and occupational lives as a result of alcohol addiction.

Smokers, apart from being smelly and smoky, don’t end up homeless or jobless as a result of their addiction (at least not directly). And for this reason, smoking can seem like an almost harmless addiction. True, everyone knows the dangers of smoking from all those quit smoking campaigns and everyone knows they really should not start smoking or really should quit but there is not generally the same societal urgency to quit this addiction as there is to quit other drug addiction.

Until recently, there were few societal pressures placed on smokers. They could smoke wherever they wanted whenever they wanted. New laws in various countries are now limiting the places in which smokers can smoke and so bringing a little more societal pressure. While smoking still does not have the social stigma of other drug addiction, it is being viewed more negatively now. However, there is often less obvious incentive and pressure for smokers to quit smoking and start leading healthier lives. Less incentive translates to less motivation and motivation is key to success.

Why people start smoking

Motivation was one of the key factors in my quit smoking experience. I took my first cigarette to look cool, like so many teenagers do. I actually wanted to make a boy I liked think I was ‘a bad girl’. More like I was a stupid girl. But the reason it became a habit was even stupider: I wanted to prove to my mom that I was grown up and this was the best way that I could think of do it – solid proof that I was nowhere near grown up.

Many people start smoking to look cool, feel grown up or try some forbidden activity.

When smoking becomes a primary need

My initial stupidity eventually lead to a ten-year two-pack a day habit. And the last few years of that decade were dominated by many attempts to quit. I spent all my time in those few years as a smoker wishing that I were a non-smoker. I was held captive by the addiction. I panicked as soon as I found that I was down to only two cigarettes. I took to buying cartons to ensure that I would not run out. Smoking had become a primary need sometimes superceding food and water. I found myself leaving the comfort of my house during pouring rain at two in the morning in search of a nicotine fix.

I stepped outside of the office, functions, weddings, family gatherings just to feed my addiction. I weighed social invitations based on whether or not I would be able to find an opportunity to have a smoke. I chose seats close to exits so that I could escape easily for my fix. I endured countless lectures and jibes by well meaning friends and strangers alike. And my usual friendly personality was swapped for a mean insulting one whenever I perceived a threat to my smoking addiction. I once insulted a well-intention gentleman who told me that smoking was bad for me by retorting that being ugly was bad for him. I would stoop to any levels to defend and protect my addiction. It was in a sense, my god.

The desire to quit smoking

But at the same time I was desperate to be free of it. I hated smelling like an ashtray, and tasting like one too – according to my boyfriend. My hair, my clothes, my car, my home all stank of cigarette smoke. As unfair as it was, I hated being judged negatively for being a smoker. Being a pretty young female I was always well received, but that reception paled, eyebrows went up, noses wrinkled as soon as I took out a cigarette and lit up. Suddenly I was transformed into a worthless, ambitionless harlot. It was an unfair perception but it was reality and I hated it. I hated seeing the progressive yellowing of my fingers and teeth. And of course I hated feeling like a bad girl. The irony of the fact that I had achieved my original objective of lighting my first cigarette completely escaped me.

If you are at the stage where you really truly want to quit smoking then this series is for you.

Do you really have a deep genuine desire to quit smoking?

Look out for the next article in this How to Quit Smoking Series: Part II: Preparation

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Related Articles:

• How to Quit Smoking Nautrally Part II: Preparation
• How to Quit Smoking Part III: Identify & Prepare for Your Triggers
• How to Quit Smoking Part IV: Quit Smoking Strategies
• How to Quit Smoking Part V: The Time to Quit is Now!
• How to Fight Depression Naturally
• How to become an Optimist – Part I
• Coping with Stress – Part I
• Your Capacity for Change

Posted in A New Start, Choices, Goals, Self Discipline |   5 Comments »

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 3rd, 2006 at 10:35 am and is filed under A New Start, Choices, Goals, Self Discipline . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.