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DemonKia -> RE: Kicking a Nasty habit. (3/28/2009 9:50:47 PM)
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There's a lot of great information in this thread . . . . . Individual data points vary widely, so the more ingredients in the quitting stew, the better . . . . . . Here's my experience:
I started at age 11 (1976), & was a chain-smoking 3-pack-a-day Camel girl by age 16 (1981) . . . . . . I quit in the fall of 1994 (age 29) . . . . . . Bonafides out of the way, let me say something about the how . . . . . .
The number one tool I use for just about every change I make in myself is being kind to myself, loving, forgiving, gentle . . . . . . Harshness may work for some, but I thrive on care & consideration . . . . . . . . & tobacco use is essentially self-destructive, even marginally suicidal; recognizing that reality was crucial to learning how to love myself around my tobacco use . ... . As long as I thought of tobacco as some kind of 'reward' it was tough to lose it, but when I made myself see / feel / experience it as the harm it was in my body, moving away from it was much easier . .... . . Part of being kind & gentle with myself is aiming for gradual changes, baby steps . . .. . . I find it's much easier to shift myself slowly, in tiny increments . . . ...
The second most important tool I use to change any habit is heightening my awareness . . . . . In the case of tobacco, I worked on noticing (rather than subconsciously suppressing) all the adverse effects that each cigarette had on me . .. . . . This is a process, for me a gradual one, but by the end the cigarettes tasted like blood, literally, & I could feel the pain & discomfort in my lungs of every puff . . . . . I made myself pay more & more attention to how the smoking made me feel, how it interfered with me doing things I wanted to do, how it affected all the people around me (from loved ones to total strangers), kept careful track of the things I could not financially afford because of my tobacco habit, how nasty it made me & my stuff smell, the wrinkles in my face, the time it took away from other things I wanted to do, how disruptive the craving was, & on & on . . . . . .
Other things that were really useful:
Family members surreptitiously trained my kids (3 young ones during that period) to say, 'We love you, Mommy, & we don't want you to die. Please quit smoking.' That was terribly effective, & the more I heard it, the more so . . . . . . I resented all of them for it at the time, but I'm eternally grateful now . . . . . . .
I worked a lot on changing my mental state from 'smoker' to 'non-smoker', figuring out what those differences meant for me . . . . . . . I've also, whenever changing habits, had to do a lot of work around issues of feeling 'rewarded' & 'punished', 'deprived' & 'indulged' that come up around whichever particular habit . . . . . .
I quit a lot, sometimes for hours, sometimes for days, weeks, months . . . . . I even quit for most of a year, then started again . .. . . . I've read that the more times a smoker quits, the more likely they are to quit for good -- worked in my case . . . . . & I quit all kinds of different ways, cold turkey, tapering, & everything in between; I don't even really remember exactly how I quit at the end, but it was probably a combo of tapering & then one day being done . . .. . . .
Trading habits works for me, especially when they're contradictory habits . . .. . Quitting tobacco was a big part of turning me into the exercise junky I am today . . .. . . I've also used knitting / crocheting / hand-sewing / embroidery type activities over the years to help keep my hands occupied; also lots of other creative / artsy / craftsy activities have helped divert me over the years . . . . . I've also acquired a video-game habit, but that has more to do with my eating disorder stuff . . . . . lol
I cannot emphasize the exercise component enough -- it's by far most responsible for _keeping_ me a non-smoker these last 14 years . . . .. . I take great pleasure in my (chubby but fit) body, anything that starts to impair my fitness trend impairs my general day-to-day joy . . . . . . My commitment to exercise, mild, low-key, regular, endorphin-pushing physical activity of all kinds, has driven all my other self-improvement projects since I started that path, circa 1991 . . . . . . . I have exercise lulls & gains, but the commitment to moving my body more has generally improved my life far beyond its role in quitting smoking, even tho' quitting tobacco was one of the initial reasons I committed to regular exercise . . .. . .
At various times I also used what 'tobacco quitting tools' were available: nicotine gum, regular gum, toothpicks, eating more . . .. (no patches or Wellbutrin back then, but I would have tried them if I coulda) . . . . . But these were only tools to use in the campaign that started in my head . . . .. . . As long as my brain / mind has the habit, my body / biochemistry / physiology simply follows along . . . . . . & the knowledge that I do have some rational control over the whole system forms a basis to my belief structure, & probably helped as well . . . . .
I am a long-term cannabis user . . . . . Sometimes, in the first few years after I quit the tobacco I would get the urge to smoke & would smoke a little cannabis . . .. . (I've since quit _smoking_ cannabis, my lungs cannot take any smoke anymore . . . . . . Now I eat the cannabis . . . . lol)
I kept in mind that if cigarettes disappeared tomorrow, I'd quit no matter what I wanted & that I would survive . . . . . .
& finally, I mostly do things cuz I wanna, for the pleasure, & tobacco was interfering with far more pleasure than it delivered, once I noticed . . . . . . .
Best,
The Demon, Kia
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