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Sample
Chapter from the book Inhale/Exhale
Taking Control of Your Addiction in 30 Days or Less
by Pat A. Wills
Chapter
One
THE DESIRE
Find yourself a soft chair under a good light. Relax with a cup of coffee, tea, or a beverage of your choice.
Now, and this is very important, do not think about not smoking. Be sure you have enough cigarettes close at hand. Sit back, relax, INHALE-EXHALE, enjoy it, smoke all you want. Don't worry about it. You will not start the program until tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, or the next day. It is strictly up to you. No other human being will do it for you, and that is a cold hard fact. Light up, let's talk about it.
I honestly do not care why you wish to stop smoking. The reasons are yours and none of my business, or anybody else's, for that matter. To me they are irrelevant and unimportant. I can only speak for myself. I am neither a saint nor a preacher, not do I wish to play God. I offer you no magic pill, clinic, or diet.
I offer you yourself, the only person who can truly make this decision. No set of rules apply to all smokers. What applies to one, has no value to another. To lump all smokers into one category can be of no help to you.
It is not my intention, and I will not attempt to delve into the medical, physical, and mental aspects of prolonged use of tobacco. There appears no need to ramble on about the dangers of smoking. I would only be insulting your intelligence.
Any of us who can read, see, or hear, are aware of its dangers. You are as cognizant of the facts and fictions, the medical opinions, the warnings, and the arguments against smoking as I am.
It would serve no purpose for me to try to scare you into stopping, would it? If scare tactics worked, they would only be successful for a short period of time. The seldom read warning on each package of cigarettes has not caused you to quit. The restrictions on television advertising has had little effect on your habit. The prohibitive notices in stores and restaurants probably have not cut your daily consumption.
We smokers are a determined bunch. We find ways to have our smokes. There are always excuses that work if we are not ready to quit. Who hasn't told himself when he is trying to stop, "After the day I've had, I deserve a cigarette." "I've been under tension, I needed a smoke." "When I'm relaxing and having a good time, a couple of cigarettes won't hurt." The truth is you probably deserved something better than the resumption of your addiction. A kick in the head is not much of a reward.
My only concern is that you have a sincere desire to reduce your smoking...or to quit. This is in essence the first step. If you have come to this decision, and the fact that you are reading these pages now should tell you something, you are honestly and wholeheartedly well on your way to giving up some or all of those cigarettes forever
To generalize the habit and the cure is self defeating. Your reasons for smoking are not the same as mine, or anyone else's. One smoker may be loyally attached to a certain brand, while another may vary his cigarette selection from time to time. When you smoke, how you smoke, where you smoke, how much you smoke, are very individual decisions.
When confronted with a "No Smoking" situation, some can quietly endure a period of hours without too much discomfort. Others can tolerate the restriction just so long before excusing themselves to a smoking area
We are, after all, individuals, with our own backgrounds and personalities. From our unique individual selves we must therefore draw whatever help we can expect. We alone know what our weaknesses and our strengths ace. We alone must decide how they can best be utilized in our desire to quit smoking.
I think that you will be pleasantly surprised to find that what you now consider an almost hopeless task will become a chance to prove your own strength.
The real reward will be the control over your own life and habits. With the abilities you now possess, you can break the smoking habit. All other considerations aside, you will demonstrate to yourself a power over your own life that can be used in many areas of your day to day living.
But for now, one thing at a time.
We tend to feel guilty, at times, when in truth there is no guilt attached. Because someone makes a statement about our smoking certainly does not make it a fact. We owe no apology to anyone because we smoke. This is our decision, and is not based upon other's opinions. Quite frankly, it's none of their business.
Who hasn't heard these questions or statements?
"FOOD TASTES BETTER WHEN YOU QUIT SMOKING."
Says who? For some maybe, for others food tastes pretty good when they smoke. Witness the person who smokes between each course of a meal at a restaurant. Lots of smokers seem to be enjoying their food.
"NEVER SMOKE WHEN YOU FIRST GET UP IN THE MORNING."
Why not? Maybe they taste just great that time of day. Some smoke their first cigarette of the day before they are hardly awake, while others wait until their first cup of coffee, or a certain hour of the day.
"CIGARETTE COSTS TOO MUCH, THEY ARE A WASTE OF MONEY."
What price pleasure? Who should be the judge? We spend our money on things that we want, and that brings us pleasure. Food, clothes, boats, hobbies, the list is endless.
"CIGARETTES ARE DANGEROUS TO YOUR HEALTH."
A risk we have obviously been willing to take for quite some time. Many things are dangerous to our health. Life, after all, is terminal.
"IT'S A NASTY HABIT."
To a non-smoker perhaps. To a smoker, and there are many, it is a pleasant habit for the most part. While we smoke we observe many unpleasant habits exhibited by non-smokers.
"YOU SMOKE TOO MUCH."
So what? Many people eat too much, drink too much, talk too much. Persons who are excessive in other areas are just as unpleasant as they think smokers are.
Resolve NOW to forget what others think or say. Their opinions are no better than your own. Start to think about what YOU want.
It's time to be honest with yourself. You want to quit or slow down. That is all that is important. Each of us has his or her own reasons, opinions, likes and dislikes. The important thing at this point is that you want to put an end to your smoking. Notice that I emphasize you, for you will be in control. Your reasons are your own and they have little bearing on anyone else's.
If this sounds a little selfish, why not? You're not hurting anyone. You're not asking anyone to take on your responsibilities. You haven't burdened them with your problems.
The effects and rewards of your efforts on others is, and must be, secondary.
You are going into this alone. There is no companion on this earth, no matter how willing, who will be able to share the journey. Go ahead, be a little selfish.
As you think of saying farewell to the old "gasper," the white tube full of manicured tobacco leaves, make a mental note, or a list, of some of the pleasures and pains you will be leaving behind. Will the parting be so unhappy?
How badly will you miss the futile search for a smoke when the stores are dosed and the house empty of cigarettes?
Don't forget the great taste of a day old butt pulled from an ashtray in an emergency.
Remember fondly the desire for a smoke when you just put a cigarette out.
Recall the times when you realized that the day wasn't half over and you were on your second pack.
Will you look back longingly at the hot, fast, tortured drags that tided you over during a non-smoking period?
Recall the price, that always irritated you, and the knowledge that you would meekly pay double if necessary.
Ah, the thrill in discovering that a half-smoked cigarette is burning in the ashtray beside you as you absently light another.
Remember lighting the filter. A cigarette ash falling in your lap while driving. The live one lost down the side of a chair. The joy of pulling off the fire with your fingers as the cigarette sticks firmly to your lip?
Haven't you broken off the filter of a light or ultra-light cigarette in frustration?
And surely no one has been spared the raw pain of the skin being torn off his lip as the cigarette refuses to let go.
Do you have the ability to make these experiences just a bunch of pleasant memories? You know darn well you do.
We cheat ourselves when we say "I can't." We fail to recognize the power we possess when we think of it as an impossible task. Stop for a moment, realize the control you actually exercise each day as you go about this business of living.
In your lifetime you have faced bigger problems than smoking, and with your own abilities have resolved them. Daily, you resist temptation in other areas of your life and without other human help you conquer these temptations.
For the most part you run your life, make your own decisions, pursue your own goals, with a certain amount of freedom. You exhibit strength and determination and make sacrifices in large matters and in small...daily.
Yours is not a life of weakness and despair and lack of character. If it was you probably would not have survived to this point in your life. To reduce your smoking habit or to quit smoking altogether is just another of the problems of life that you can solve using the same tools that have served you so well in other areas of your life.
An easy challenge really, there should be every expectation of succeeding and few of failing.
Maybe you are tired of other people's expectations and demands. In this individual problem, as in all personal problems, we grow weary of being told what to do. In the final analysis, who do we turn to? Ourselves. Don't we always, in the end, face up to the responsibility of making decisions for ourselves?
To smoke, or not to smoke, is your decision alone. To do it for someone else's good or comfort may lack the necessary motivation and leave you little or no decision to make, and little desire to succeed.
If you can quit "cold turkey" tomorrow, or right now, you've succeeded. No need for you to ponder or plan any further. If you fail you can start over again, and again, and again. We have all tried this sudden method of quitting. It's not fun, it's not planned, it usually fails. Why go through this agony and trauma? It is usually entered into quickly, and just as quickly ends. More importantly the prospect of succeeding with this method is lessened to a degree that can only discourage you from any real meaningful plan.
After a day of heavy smoking, maybe you wake up with a cigarette hangover. You have a cold, or you're not feeling up to par. Whatever the reason, you decide to quit...now. By noon you feel better and you buy a pack of cigarettes and have just one, to ease the light-headedness and the nervousness that you are experiencing. By dinner time you've finished the pack and your firm resolve of the morning has vanished.
You tell yourself you can't quit. Hog wash, you haven't been fair with yourself. Your plan was a spur of the moment idea, and really no plan at all. It was marked for failure and you knew it. If you made all the decisions that affect your life in this manner, would you be the person you are today? Not likely.
Now you are contemplating the idea of breaking your smoking habit. Let's keep it at that for now. You are thinking about it. Don't make any firm plans yet. Don't throw your cigarettes away. Don't hide the ashtrays. Above all, don't tell anyone.
Smoking is a very personal thing. Face the fact realistically that it is your problem, no one else's. The honest truth is that no one really cares whether you quit or not. Aside from close family members, no one would probably notice if you quit right now. People have their own problems, your smoking is not one of them.
The day you decided to control your smoking, the hour you started your program, how you suffered, the method you used, will be of little interest to anyone but yourself. You run the risk of repeated reference to your non-smoking program of irritating those who still smoke and worst sin of all, boring your audience.
They don't care about your well thought out plan. Besides, you don't want their help. They can only tell you what helps them, not you. You don't need their suggestions. This is your own personal matter. You alone can make it work.
Don't share the fun or the victory...yet. Don't burden yourself with others opinions. From now on from this day forward, keep your secret.
Set your own schedule. Little good can be achieved by announcing to the world, "I quit." The answer might well be, "so what." The first time you falter along the way, (it can happen) you open yourself to guilt feelings and the unwanted attention of others. There are those who knew all along you couldn't do it.
If someone offers you a cigarette and you refuse, they may ask you if you have quit or are quitting. Simply say, "for the moment, yes." Keep your own council. Don't subject yourself to outside pressures. You will know if your plan is working
As you think over the program and make your plans, keep smoking as you regularly do. Why not enjoy it just a bit longer? You know you are going to control this unwanted habit, now you are deciding when.
As part of your planning, before you make any firm decisions, keep smoking as you usually do. I know this sounds like a crazy way to quit smoking, but I think you will appreciate its value as you read further.
Don't try to cut down, this week. Don't, on the other hand, have one last fling and end up smoking more than you usually do.
The purpose of this week is to determine just how many cigarettes you are consuming each day. Maybe you already know, and maybe you'll be surprised. We fool ourselves sometimes.
Keep a record each day of your actual use. Be honest, there is no one to fool here but yourself. Do this for seven days and then add these figures together. Divide the total by seven for your average daily consumption. You're right, that's a whole lot of cigarettes. That's a very firm grip by a rotten guy named "Unwanted Habit." Don't let him scare you, he won't be around for long.
You've got the facts. Daily consumption. Weekly consumption. Figure a little more and you have your average hourly consumption. Go a little further. You know what you pay for those smokes, figure your daily and weekly costs.
These figures will help you know the problem in realistic terms. You know what you are dealing with and have a good solid starting point. It tells you that if and when you start the program of elimination that you should never go over this amount.
Your sincere desire is to rid yourself of an unwanted habit and to reduce or eliminate whatever amount you are now smoking, be it one pack or three packs a day. Once you put the program into operation, stick to it with firm determination. It won't be as bad as you might think, and you are going to like yourself for what you are accomplishing.
Sometime along the way, somewhere during your program, you may falter or back-slide, momentarily. In a moment of weakness or stress you may just light up. Don't go to pieces. The plan isn't a failure. You are not a failure. You are human.
It won't be the first mistake you've made in your life. The world won't come to an end. No one will know but you. Anticipate this and guard against it. Pick up the pieces and start again with renewed faith. The program does work.
If the time comes when the desire for a smoke overwhelms you, and you think nothing else will help, and you have tried with all your strength and still your whole mind and body aches for a smoke, to the exclusion of all other thoughts, for gosh sakes, DON'T DO IT. It will pass. You won't go crazy. The severest craving lasts only about five minutes, then subsides for awhile.
You are intelligent enough to know that this isn't the green light to abandon the program. Don't let an unwanted habit decide your actions. Stop the monster now. Get back to the basics.
There is no good or ideal time to quit smoking. You might as well get started thinking about it now. You got into this business of smoking slowly, why not get out the same way? Give yourself some breathing room. You'll want some time to think about it. When you have decided what you can live with, start to condition yourself to the fact that you are going to succeed. Any adjustment in your mental attitude that helps should be thought over and evaluated. Don't get in a rush yet. Don't put obstacles in your way. BE POSITIVE.
Remember, you are going to reduce or quit your smoking, not living. Time enough in the future to solve other problems and correct other unwanted habits. One at a time is enough.