Timers and lists (long)
Using the timer to get in touch with what we’re experiencing
physically is the first step to becoming a lot more self aware and to
begin the process of disconnecting smoking associations. It’s work,
and it can be hard to pinpoint just what we’re feeling, and where (i.e
physically)
Another approach which we’ve used in the group in the past is to start
with making some lists - and I’m hoping some of you who have perhaps
found the timer exercise hard to do would like to try this out. Do
your lists and post them, and we’ll show you how to use that
information to start retraining Warren. It involves making three
lists: I’m re-posting something Steve wrote a couple of years
ago……………………….
” List 1- Reasons to smoke. This list contains every reason you can
think of where you would light up. Everything from phone calls to
driving to anger and hunger, getting up in the morning and going to
bed at night, times, places, any and all reasons you can think of.
This list could become huge. Do what you can, don’t get overwhelmed.
List 2- Emotions and Conditions This list is of all the emotions
(happy, sad, lave, hate, etc) and conditions (hot, cold, hungry,
tired) that you experience. This list is usually no more than 12 - 20
entries. If some seem to be variations on others in your list, don’t
worry about, just list them. The list will still be relatively short.
List 3- Physical sensations: where and how Take each of the entries in
List 2 and imagine experiencing that particular emotion or condition.
What does it ‘feel’ like physically? Where do you feel it i.e. muscles
in the shoulders and neck? Does the experience of that emotion or
condition include changes in how you breath (rapid, slow, deep,
shallow) or heart rate? Are there abdominal sensations or feelings in
your chest? if so, describe them. This list is going to be very short.
There are a very limited number of ways we experience emotions and
conditions in physical terms. You are going to find that some emotions
and/or conditions use very similar sets of physical sensations. This
list will be very short.
Why the lists? In 35 yrs of smoking I never lit a cigarette because I
‘thought’ it was needed. Every cigarette I ever lit was because I
‘felt’ some physical sensation(s) and only then did my thinking
connect those feelings to a cig solution. I’m going to make an
absolute statement here … every one of us lit every cigarette we
smoked because we first ‘felt’ something and only then ‘realized’ a
cig was the proper response. And it all began with our addiction to a
chemical called nicotine. Being addicted means that we must maintain a
particular blood level of nicotine in order not to begin to experience
withdrawal. Remember how you felt as a smoker, 2 hrs into a 2.5 hr
movie? Were you ever in a very long meeting or had to wait forever in
some place where you couldn’t smoke? That feeling was the onset of
withdrawal. The growing anxiety, the irritability, the foggy head,
these were the first signs of a lowered nic level. We’d light up and
within seconds we experienced relief. That was the beginning …. feel
withdrawal, light up, feel relief. That is also how the rest of our
yrs of smoking worked, we’d feel a sensation, if that sensation had a
cigarette association with relief, we’d light up. Anxiety can have
many different sources i.e. nicotine withdrawal, some important event,
some news with serious consequences, or worry about anything. If we
experience anxiety in the same physical terms as nicotine withdrawal
and have developed the habit of automatically responding to those
sensations by lighting up then in order to stop the urge to light up
we need to learn to accurately identify what we feel and what the
source of that feeling is. Once that’s done, a reasonable and
effective response will become self evident.
The primary purpose of the lists is to help you become very aware of
what you feel, when, and where. The secondary purpose is to take our
smoking habit out of the vague and infinite and make it very clear and
finite. Back in January Jean wrote: “I was a pack and a half per day
smoker - my response to EVERY situation was to reach for a cigarette”.
I think a lot of us can relate to that sense of a constant urge to
light up. However, that retrospect view of a nonstop urge allows no
way of gaining a hand hold. Listing the events that made up our
smoking habit provides individual, and a very finite number of, points
where we can examine and begin to disassociate the smoking pattern. So
please, all of you, make up your lists.
Steve”
This is how list-making worked for one of our quitters, Donna, who’s
been cognitively quit now for several months now :-