Quitting is Easy !!!
I was a smoker for over 25 years and smoked around 20 a day, probably more when socialising. I tied to quit several times because I knew it was bad for my health and each time I only lasted between three weeks to three months. I also found I put on weight, which for me, was a good excuse to start again.
Having now stopped smoking for over three years ago I still can’t believe how easy it was! The only thing that was different this time was my mind-set. This time I stopped purely because I wanted to, not because I thought I should, or because it was the right thing to do, or to please anyone else. This time I stopped for me, because I truly wanted it. I didn’t have to prepare myself or psyche myself up for it or pick a date. I decided to stop one morning in the garden whilst smoking my first cigarette of the day. I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the patio window and saw the smoke coming from my mouth, I decided there and then that this would be my last cigarette, I took the last puff and said out loud “I will never smoke again”. I knew from that minute that I was now a non smoker. When my partner came home that evening, I told him, he laughed and asked “since when”? I replied “I stopped this morning”.
There were times when I thought of a cigarette but I knew that this was just the nicotine in my bloodstream getting low and wanting a top up. I also knew that soon the nicotine would be gone. At stressful times when I would normally have a cigarette, I wondered how I ever came to believe that having a cigarette could help or change any situation. I actually felt calmer for not smoking and this time I did not put on any weight. There are smokers who are overweight so smoking is clearly not a slimming aid. I realise now that the only reason I put on weight previously was because I felt deprived and therefore needed a substitute, which for me was food! When you stop with the right mind-set there is no need for a substitute because you do not feel deprived in any way. You have made a choice for you and you are in total control.
Some people say they don’t want to quit because they ‘enjoy it’. What is there to enjoy? There is nothing enjoyable about breathing smoke into your lungs. You don’t smoke because you enjoy it; you smoke because you are addicted. Smoking will increase as time goes by because even more nicotine is required to maintain the level of satisfaction.
Many people use patches and other aids to help kick the habit, and if this works for you then great, however personally I don’t see the point, because although they say nicotine is just as addictive as Heroin the actual withdrawal symptoms are zilch in comparison.
If you truly have a desire to stop you won’t need any help at all. All you need is to make the choice. You can achieve and conquer anything once you have the true desire to do so.
We are conditioned to believe that quitting is hard, that there are numerous withdrawal symptoms, that it will be so difficult you will need counseling or need nicotine patches to help you! This is simply brain washing! If this was true then you would need a patch on your arm every night to get you through the eight hours or so of sleep to the next morning!
Having now discovered NLP I realise I put myself in a new state of mind, the state of mind of a non smoker! In the time it had taken me to smoke a cigarette I had changed my association with smoking
Smokers associate smoking with pleasure and quitting with pain. When I saw myself in the window, I immediately associated smoking with disgust. I didn’t have to quit I just stopped.
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