Learning the Cogquit Method
It was great hearing from so many newbies today (and two of you on IM
also!!)…
It took me a while to get the connection between cognitive thinking and
quitting the smokes. Since I didn’t get to this site until a few days
after I quit, I was well into fogbrain, but I read the
cognitivequitting.com site all the way through. I was fortunate that I
could print it all off. As a matter of fact, I believe I put the whole
site into a Word document because I had trouble reading the site (the
colors and my eyes didn’t like each other). If anyone would like that
document, let me know and I’ll send it to you.
Anyway, I read through the whole site, then had to go back and read
through some of the chapters again before the connection between
cognitive thinking and quitting came through. It was probably on my
third read about Warren that I started to understand that part of it.
It’s just so simple but I still had trouble with the concept because I’d
been conditioned to think of the response of smoking as such a terrible,
evil thing. When it is simply a conditioned response. That’s all it
is, nothing evil or intimidating, just a response to practically every
event that touched my life. When I had seven months quit (last month),
I wrote out seven things I’ve learned from quitting. Number 3 was
I’ve learned that in the time between the many life
events that
sparks an urge for a smoke and to the time that I
put a cigarette to
my lips, there is a thought process where I chose
to smoke (most
times lasting a split second). I’ve learned how to
change that
thought process through cognitive thinking. This
way of thinking has
affected other aspects of my life also. My
relationship with my
children and my husband have never been better
(remember, I’m at
seven months, we had to get through those first few
months first ;-))
Now, I say I chose to smoke, but I had not been aware for many many
years that I was even making a choice. Cogquit teaches you how to
become aware and how to change that response.
I hope that all of you take the time to learn the process. If you do,
then your chances for a comfortable quit increase tremendously.
Happy reading (I don’t like to say good luck cuz it’s not luck, it’s
reading and asking questions and practicing)…
- Cat