New quit date
I wrote once before, I forget how long ago but I never followed thru
now I have picked a new quit date my 16th wedding anniversary as a
present to my husband, but I am so scared of not being able to follow
thru with my commitment. We have been together 19 years. He is a
quitter but he only smoked for 6 years and now only has an
occassional cigar on special occassions (maybe 3 or 4 a year) He is
a man of tremendous self control and I am so afriad of letting him
down. I also have a 15 yr old daughter (the last of 5, MY OOPS baby)
and I want to be around to see her children.(I already have 6 soon to
have 7 grandchildren ages 10 to O) I have already been diagnosed with
early stages of COPD/Emphysema/Asthma and take Advair twice a day.
Each and every day I feel the ache in my chest each time I light up,
I know when I smoke the most (reading or spending time alone or doing
stuff for others.) I know if I keep busy with many projects or
chores I forget about smoking, but then it suddenly is time for a
break and all I want to do is have a smoke.
I also take care of my mother who was a smoker and now suffers with
severe COPD/Emphysema but she finally quit smoking 3 years ago. My
father died from Emphysema in 1991 one month before my 15yr old was
born, and I have been her anchor and helper ever since. (Basically my
brothers dumped her on me)
There is alot more to add to the stress that I undergo on a daily
basis but it would take quite a lot of time to list it all.
I am trying not to look for sympathy but for help. With my job (a
clerk/temp manager working nights in a grocey store) the timing
doesn’t work all the time. Breaks are far and few minutes at a time,
just enough to run out for a quick smoke. At home I can be busy with
house work, but if I have to deal with doing things for my mother,
every time I am in the car or running her errands it is one smoke
after another.
I just figured out I am rambling a bit but it’s not often I have the
opportunity to vent the frustration and anger I sometimes feel and I
know this is part of the reason I smoke.
I am 53 years old and smoke anywhere from 5 to a full pack a day
depending on what I have to do in the day. (Work, Mom, etc…) I do
know that if I spend just quiet time with my husband or youngest
daugher (I have 5 children, ages 31 to 15) the desire to smoke is
almost non exisitant. If I am going to quit for me it will have to
be cold turkey. As i stated earlier my quit date is my anniversary
which is Sunday April 29th. HELP!!!!!
August 22nd, 2007 at 6:45 am
Jody-
you wrote:
“It is when I let the outside world interfere that I tend to stress
out and start smoking alot. I let those outside my relaxed circle
stress me out, and I have to find a way to maintain that mellow and
relaxed state, but not with drugs. I do not want to depend on anything
but myself and those who support my decision to see me thru the first
couple weeks while I change my habits. Once you change a habit for
two weeks or so it is easier to deal with.”
What ‘habit’ specifically (details) are you changing? The ’smoking
habit’, while simple, may be something other than you think.
How are you planning to change it? Simply not smoking for a few weeks
isn’t likely to create the sort of change that’s needed to stay smoke
free.
Do you really think you can “maintain that mellow and relaxed state”
where you won’t get stressed? In my experience, life and reality
rarely afford us that luxury. If not becoming stressed is a
prerequisite, you may have a problem.
Quitting smoking is about dealing with the basic physical needs that
result from life, needs that have become associated with reaching for
a cigarette. Quitting successfully means dealing with those needs
right from the start and then building on that experience.
Have you considered setting a timer?
Steve
August 22nd, 2007 at 2:00 pm
Hi Jody,
I think you are focusing in the wrong area.
Examples- exercising, working out, dieting, eating habits… all very
important. But they are general issues. You don’t light up a cigarette
because of general issues, you light up because of very specific and
immediate physical cues.
Staying ‘busy’ is a good idea only because boredom produces physical
cues that are instantly relieved by inhaling cigarette smoke. But being
busy produces it’s own physical cues and those are associated with
smoking. You’ve said so yourself… you can be busy and not want to
smoke but as soon as you take a break, there’s an urge to smoke.
As for the timer being realistic only if you’ve nothing to do but stay
at home or if you had a desk job, that may be an excuse. At any rate,
I’m afraid you’re missing the point. The timer alerts you to take a
moment and pay attention to your body cues. The busier you are, whether
it’s running errands for your mother or working in a noisy hectic
environment/job, the more critical it is for you to learn to recognize
when your body sends you signals. The reason is that those are the
signals that you connect to smoking and that connection happens on an
automatic level and WILL CONTINUE to happen if you don’t create the
necessary level of ’self aware’. If the timer doesn’t work for you with
your particular schedule/job situation, then find a way to create other
‘reminders’ through the day. Others in jobs just as demanding and hectic
(nurses, EMR personnel, crisis center operators)have found ways to
become aware of their body cues, you can too.
Jody, the reason it’s so hard to quit and stay quit is because we try to
deal with the wrong issues. You can’t control stress by avoiding it,
life IS stress. But you can certainly control the way you respond to
your physical experience of stress in the moment. You don’t smoke
‘because’ you’re stressed, you smoke ‘when’ you’re stressed because
nicotine helps relieve the physical experience of stress. You can’t deal
with anger by trying to not get angry. You don’t smoke ‘because’ you’re
angry, you smoke ‘when’ you’re angry because nicotine helps relieve the
physical experience of anger. Instead of trying to avoid the situations
that generate the body cues that are being connected to ‘relief by
cigarette’, you need to start to deal with the body cues. That’s all
smoking is, dealing with body cues… it provides immediate focused
relief , not of the situation but only of the physical experience of the
situation.
We can not control urges by trying to manipulate what’s going on ‘out
there’. We take control by recognizing what’s happening ‘in here’, what
your body is saying it needs in this moment.
I keep harping on ‘this moment’. You light up because of what your body
says it needs right now … not an hour ago and not an hour from now…
RIGHT NOW. Smoking is a focused effective response that creates an
immediate change, within seconds. Anything you want to use as a
replacement to smoking or as a response to an urge must satisfy two
criteria: 1- it has to accurately address the specific need (body cue)
and 2- it has to work within the same time frame as a cigarette. Once
more, exercising for some period of time during the day is a wonderful
change to make in a general sense as is changing diet and eating better.
But these are general and do not have a significant effect on urges and
the mechanism of your smoking habit. If you want to eliminate urges, you
must become aware of what your body needs in any particular moment and
you must be ready, and willing, to provide proper focused effective
responses.
Good luck Jody, I hope you’ll choose to begin to deal with your body cues,
Steve