Cognitive Quit Smoking

Hi all-
I must apologize for some of the confusion that seems to exist around
lists and timers. Cognitivequitting is a program that’s been evolving for
the past 8+ years. The past year or two have seen the greatest changes as
far as a structure within which a quitter can work toward a comfortable
quit. Unfortunately, administration and house keeping aren’t strong points
of mine so there exist several areas with material that might be seen as
‘conflicting’, or at least confusing.
By way of explanation….
it was clear early on that most of the cigarettes we
smoke are cued by physical sensations. However, many of us were aware only
of some event that may or may not include certain emotions/conditions. We
rarely, if ever, included the physical sensation part of the equation. To
rectify that situation, the 3 lists were developed. List 1- all the
reasons/places/events we could think of that are connected to smoking. List

2- all the emotions and conditions we could think of. List 3- all the
physical sensations we experience with each emotion and condition we
named. The difficulty most people found was in accurately recognizing the
physical aspects that had been so ‘below our radar’ for so long. Most
people could imagine an angry situation and come up with a reasonably
complete list of physical elements. But it was far harder to identify the
physical elements if it was a situation of simply working at the computer,
or watching TV, or doing yard work.
It occurred to me that rather than attempting to gain a comprehensive
overview of minute details by observation from afar, it might be much
easier if we made individual observations ‘in the moment’ throughout a
routine day. Hence, the timer exercise.
The advantages of the timer exercise became apparent almost immediately.
The lists required a degree of ’speculation’ in areas where we weren’t all
that aware to begin with. However, the timer exercise required only that we
observe this moment, which promised to be a bit easier simply because ‘this
moment’ was right here in front of us. Additionally, ALL the information
we observed with each ’snapshot’ of our day was interrelated. For example,
lets say my noon time entry was “12 noon, lunch time, hungry/tired, smoking
situation, hollow/empty feeling in stomach with a bit of foggy thinking and
thirsty, eat balanced lunch and do some walking and breathing and
stretching after eating”. This was something I could observe that was
happening NOW and all of the observations were connected i.e. lunch time =
being hungry and maybe tired = specific abdominal sensations and mental
acuity = always a smoking situation = could probably be addressed
immediately with proper eating. Here I had information that could be easily
plugged into an ABC that would be appropriate to any and every ‘hungry’
situation. This is the beginning of preparing nonsmoking responses to
routine daily events.
As for whether or not we’re smoking when we’re doing the timer
exercise, it makes absolutely NO DIFFERENCE. Once more, most of us smoked
most of our cigarettes in response to physical sensations that were the
result of life and not necessarily a fluctuating nicotine level. The
primary purpose of the timer exercise is to provide us with accurate
related bits of information about our day. (While we were certainly
nicotine addicts who needed to maintain a ‘comfortable’ nicotine blood
level, that was usually accomplished as a side effect of ‘responding to
life’.)
I don’t know if this has cleared any of the confusion or simply added
to it. Comments are welcome.
Steve

This entry was posted on Friday, July 28th, 2006 at 10:26 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.