If you're reading this article, like me, you'll be fed up with cigarettes. Do you want to quickly end this addiction that is spoiling your life? If the answer is yes then I have a method for you that will solve your cigarette addiction problem in no time. I will tell you how to quit smoking quickly and easily without harming your health and without buying all kinds of junk that will make it worse. And not just stop, but repair the model you want and not break it in the future.
Smoking story
In general, I got to know cigarettes in 7th grade - my brother and I climbed construction sites and learned to smoke "in a brothel". Of course, our parents banned us from smoking, so we had to constantly come up with ways to hide cigarettes and get rid of the lingering smell of smoke.
Then came the companies where everyone smoked too. There was a kind of fashion, they say, if you don't smoke, it's not cool. Everything is different now, but before times were different. Surrounded by smokers, the habit took root more and more in me. I smoked whenever possible and the likelihood of being burned by adults only added fuel to the process.
But at the age of 16 I had a click in my head and decided to give up cigarettes. Just like that, abruptly, by willpower. To be honest, there was one positive moment, if not for long. After a couple of weeks I changed my mind and said that if I drink, I can smoke. That is, when I'm sober, I don't smoke, but I can smoke at parties. And as you probably assume, I didn't stop there. Although there is a positive effect - I've smoked quite a bit for 4 years.
This method also has a major disadvantage. Since there was a strong association between smoking and alcohol in my brain, I was drawn to drinking every time I just wanted to smoke.
But I didn't stop there either. In my third year at university, I got a job in a taxi and lit a full cigarette there. I smoked almost a pack a day and when I drank more. And that until autumn 2017. That means, roughly, my experience as a smoker was about 10 years.
How to quit smoking on my own
Friends, in this chapter I am going to tell you how I went through the smoking cessation process and then exactly how I do it. Therefore, if you are too lazy to read, you can continue reading the next chapter. It's just that a lot of people ask me how I did it, but it's inconvenient to be smart because the method is quite simple.
Well, in October 2017, I woke up in the morning after a hectic party and felt bad. I didn't get enough sleep, I had a severe headache from the alcohol I drank the day before, the vestibular apparatus wasn't working properly. I smoked a cigarette and got in the car. The car was stuffy and smelled of herringbone scent. I was also getting sick. In general, a whole range of negative feelings.
At that moment, I felt sick and the taste of a recently smoked cigarette was in my mouth. I looked out the window: It was wonderful autumn weather outside, the sun was shining brightly and leaves were falling from the trees. And then I was flooded with very pleasant childhood memories associated with that particular weather and landscape. In me there was a pleasant connection between the situation outside the window and my childhood, when I felt great and not like in the car now. What did i do next?
My 3 immediate steps
- I have just associated intense suffering and negativity with a smoked cigarette at this moment. And I felt all over my body that I felt so bad of her now. It wasn't difficult to do because the mouth had an unpleasant tobacco taste. Added to this were constant shortness of breath and cash costs.
- Next, I looked out the window again and combined the pleasant feeling completely with the smoking cessation. Again, this wasn't difficult at all as I haven't smoked in this situation since I was a child and felt great. Plus, I've added the pleasant feeling that I can safely climb the stairs without cigarettes and not suffocate. I also added monetary pluses: if I don't buy cigarettes, I can buy something useful.
- At the height of my emotional state, I made a clear, conscious decision to quit smoking for good.
It all took about 10 seconds. The emotional momentum was so strong that I immediately tossed the package into the trash can.
But these steps won't be enough in the long run, so I had to apply a few more steps that also worked successfully. You will read a little about this below.
Now for the fun part. I stopped smoking by accident. I did not prepare for this decision, did not see doctors, did not buy chewing gum for smoking, plasters, sprays and other nonsense. A few months later I started reading Tony Robbins' book on self improvement and found these very same methods that I was unknowingly using!
6 steps to get rid of addiction
These principles are based on neuroassociative conditioning. Here they are:
- Make a clear, informed decision about why you want to quit smoking. You want this, not your loved ones. Use
- Leverage: Combine intense emotional pleasure with instant smoking cessation and intense suffering if you don't now. Do something like what I did or find another way to do it. Most importantly, you should feel strong emotions and associate them with smoking.
- We have to break the old behavior. For example, when I was working, I would go into the smoking room to talk to colleagues about business and to sip smoke. After I quit smoking, I began communicating with them in "non-smoking" places.
- Create a new alternative. But this step, friends, is the most important one if your focus is long term. The fact is that just quitting smoking is not enough. You need to replace the pleasure cigarettes have given you with something else. Something that doesn't cause side effects. For example, instead of smoking with friends, I would watch an interesting TV series or drink tea. You need to come up with a stimulating alternative to smoking by looking at the reasons why you smoked. Let's say you took out a cigarette when you were worried. Exercise or achieving a short term goal helps a lot of that feeling.
- You have to do the installation "forever" instead of "at least a week". And repeat the above steps until it becomes a habit. It took me about 3 weeks to do this.
- Come up with a reward system. This is a very important step. Know that if you don't smoke today, you can afford to buy a nice little thing. if a week, then the thing is bigger; if a month, then a vacation abroad. I did just that - I kept encouraging myself until the habit was completely gone.
Conclusion
Friends, the problem of smoking is primarily a psychological and not a physical addiction. There is a huge list of ways to quit smoking. Replace a regular cigarette with an electronic one, stick a band-aid and chew gum. If you open a search engine and ask how to quit smoking yourself, you will see an array of drugs, services, and ridiculous options.
Name me at least one person who put the patch on and got rid of the addiction. For example, I don't know people like that. The fact is that all of these drugs only partially relieve physical addiction. And believe me, it is not that strong yet. But it's a profitable business because people are buying. They buy and hope for a miracle method that works for their case. This won't happen.
This pretty easy way helped me quit smoking myself. That's why I recommend it to you too.