Cognitive Quit Smoking

Well no doubt some one will tell me that what I am about to share has been
said from the very beginning of the group and is what you oldies have been
telling me all along.
Let me see if I have finally got it right
Something happens in my life that triggers an urge to smoke. It can be
almost anything, having too much to do or too little, being happy or upset,
succeeding at something or failing at something and it happens simply because
I used to smoke.
I become aware of my urge to smoke as a thought and/or feeling. It may seem
that smoking would be enjoyable or it may seem that smoking would help me in
some way. (This is where I have been struggling cos I thought that a ‘thought
of smoking’ wasn’t really an urge or a desire or a craving and it didn’t
count). Silly me:)
So thats when I have choices and this is where cog quit comes into play
a) I can choose to satisfy my urge/desire by smoking

b) I can choose to ignore the urge/desire (perhaps by substituting food, gum
or something) and get on with what I am doing.
c) I can choose to deal with the urge/desire by abc’ing it.
If I choose a or b then by default I will experience thoughts and feelings of
deprivation because the addictive part of my mind assumes I can’t smoke and
won’t be smoking any more. So relapse is much more likely.
But if I choose c then I will feel much more positive about not smoking and
feel and be more in control of things because I will be building a positive
responste to my inevitable feeling of desire. I will be much more likely to
stay stopped for good.
Please someone tell me I’ve finally got my head around it all.
It makes sense now that whenever a thought crossed my mind leading to me
lighting a cig I had experienced my desire to smoke.
And each time I lit up I had satisfied that desire.
So it makes sense that having smoked for most of my life changes are not
going to happen overnight (still want them to but accept that I have to have
patience)
Even although all traces of nicotine have left my body the memory of the nic
buzz will still persist and its how I handle this memory that will determine
whether or not I will remain a non-smoker.
My mind is not very happy just now because it is not making the changes to
being a non smoker automatically (like my body does) - my mind is still the
mind of a smoker who is not smoking and that is setting up the conflict that
is going on.
So in order for me to successfully stay as a non smoker then I have to change
what is going on in my mind and this will not happen without active
participation from me after all I am the only one who can change my thinking.
So thats what I am doing by participating in this group and learning how to
‘change my mind’.
Well everyone thats where my head is today and although it is still all over
the place I really believe there is not going back - not because I can’t or
shouldn’t but because I choose not to.
Namaste
Indi

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 18th, 2003 at 2:03 am and is filed under . 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.