Is the third time really a charm?
Hi Tony, and welcome to cognitivequitsmoking. You said..
A lot of us spent our lives responding to any and everything by
lighting up. Hungry? a smoke will fill that gap til I’ve time to go
eat. Angry? A smoke will calm me down. Nervous? A smoke will calm
me down. Sad? A smoke will cheer me up…..
Cognitive quitting taught me much… I’m so glad I found cognitive
quitting when I bumped into our ddsteve in a chatroom almost 4 yrs
ago. I’d always just assumed that smoking was some sort of habit, and
that once I’d got off the nicotine merry go round that I’d be quit. I
learned that what I was in fact responding to were all the physical
symptons of hunger, anger, nervousness etc etc. Warren had become
skilled at offering me a smoke as the ‘cure’ for all these physical
sensations, whether or not they were caused by nicotine withdrawal.
One of our cogquitters once said ‘If I always do what I’ve always
done, then I’ll always get the same results’ There are better ways of
dealing… we can learn more about what we’re actually responding to,
and learn how to respond more appropriately. At the risk of sounding
like a broken record, the only way to do that is to do things
differently and ‘do the work’
Want to ‘do the work’ ?
Pam