Tuesday, April 29, 2014

QUITTING STORY (1)

In the beginning of April I was asked to help Dave to quit smoking. His wife asked me, knowing that Dave had tried so many times and his last attempt made him smoke again after 2 weeks, even more than before. He was too proud to ask for help and besides he considered his duty to make it alone, as far as nobody had helped him start, 30 years ago – his wife said.
Typical, I thought.
I met Dave in his garage. He was skeptical about the help he could get and considered himself doomed. In spite of the new, severe chest pain, in spite of the doc’s advice, in spite of his own will, he was trembling so badly and he was so irritable without smoking that he was unable to stay free of cigarettes longer and behave like a normal person. E-cig, medical advice, medication, NRTs, drops, pills, sprays, lozenges, teas and what not, all of them failed to help.
I asked him about his first cigarette. Alone, in the toilet, coughing and spitting. He wanted to be like and with the tough guys in school.
Therefore he was not at all the only responsible for starting to smoke, I needed to say in loud voice.
The NEW,2014 fast quitting plan rose Dave’s interest. He needed only few clues about motivation and he started working diligently to his personal reasons to stop smoking and stay away of the habit for the rest of his life.
Too good, too easy to be true.
In deed. The next day - Dave’s quitting day - he was already anxious, anticipating wild, impossible cravings, tremblings to make him unable to work and quarrels with everyone. I told him that it would be different, totally different this time. He had already started to find out and use things he had not Known before, about the manipulative addiction, about the brain only partly able to fight and win against nicotine, about the strong reasons to empower the fighting brain…I continued some good minutes till he calmed down. I noticed his LIST and I asked him to read it, supposing that his own quitting motivation would comfort and put him at ease. In my dreams.



to be continued

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

QUIT SMOKING WITHOUT CRAVINGS

It is perfectly possible to quit smoking tobacco and nicotine without any cravings. Most patients who report zero cravings when giving up smoking conect to the fact that their extrasolid motivation to quit melts down any attempt of nicotine to bring to their attention such cravings.
The next - in dimension - grup of successful quitters have detected lots of ways to meet and face cravings, postponing and replacing them with many other options. For instance when the temptation to smoke apears, the quitter starts doing something different - from what he was doing when the nicotinic addiction rose in its head - and captivating.
 He may stand up , head to the shelf and grab the newest best selling adventures book he had intended to read for some time. He reads for a while, till the craving has passed - in 2-5 minutes - or he can dive into reading more time, if there isn't anything else urgent to be done. Then he resumes the previous activity, if needed.
Reading is able to catch efficiently all quitters' attention and when it is to read about quitting itself and more information about beating cravings, as the next site is, nicotine cravings lose any power upon their former slaves comitted to stop smoking for ever.