Quitting smoking.

[Someone here]

@BlackMaze there is no "when I feel like it" man. This is an absolute necessity. I cannot continue like this im raping (sorry) my health. Yet all this doesn't seem to make me stop. I have other reasons that I believe are making it difficult for me but I won't get into them here to not make this too abstract. 

[BlackMaze]

@Someone here i know! It's the same for me unfortunately.. Maybe it will be easier if you stop right now again that the experience of quitting is still fresh. It sucks to ruin all the effort just because you believed that just one will do nothing. I experienced this many times by now. Almost everytime something stressful made me smoke again. The last time was different, i was drunk and i believed that i can now enjoy just one because i quited and it's no big deal. I did not have a real craving but after this cigarette i had. Maybe you can turn this to anger about this trap in society and use this anger as the energy required to stop again. But this is using willpower. The last time what helped me was to observe the other smokers and be happy that i'm not trapped anymore. I still postpone it but i will try again soon. Good luck

[Ananta]

13 hours ago, Someone here said:

@BlackMaze there is no "when I feel like it" man. This is an absolute necessity. I cannot continue like this im raping (sorry) my health. Yet all this doesn't seem to make me stop. I have other reasons that I believe are making it difficult for me but I won't get into them here to not make this too abstract. 

Aww, well, been there before. I remember when I thought I could never, ever, ever live without smoking or vaping. I even vaped in the airport and on the plane when I went to Mexico. I could have been arrested. Lol.

My best advice is that it would serve your best interest if you quit again RIGHT NOW or it could be months or years from now that you try again. Not even kidding. 

Start reading again or read ..."Easy way to stop smoking" by Allen Carr. You can read it on pdf online. Putting a link to it is against forum guidelines, so I can't do that.?

 

[Someone here]

16 hours ago, BlackMaze said:

@Someone here i know! It's the same for me unfortunately.. Maybe it will be easier if you stop right now again that the experience of quitting is still fresh. It sucks to ruin all the effort just because you believed that just one will do nothing. I experienced this many times by now. Almost everytime something stressful made me smoke again. The last time was different, i was drunk and i believed that i can now enjoy just one because i quited and it's no big deal. I did not have a real craving but after this cigarette i had. Maybe you can turn this to anger about this trap in society and use this anger as the energy required to stop again. But this is using willpower. The last time what helped me was to observe the other smokers and be happy that i'm not trapped anymore. I still postpone it but i will try again soon. Good luck

Yes I'm not postponing it. I'm totally in. But it's disappointing how. Weeks of discipline could just end by moment of weakness. I actually think about isolating myself so I can stop. 

[Someone here]

4 hours ago, Ananta said:

My best advice is that it would serve your best interest if you quit again RIGHT NOW or it could be months or years from now that you try again. Not even kidding

Yes totally agree. I've hit rock bottom I'm considering isolating myself so I can quit. It's a bit extreme but extreme proplems require extreme solutions I guess. Will get rid of all cigarettes in the house. 

[BlackMaze]

Whatever works for you! It's true better quit now again because you don't know when the next attempt will be if you let it

[Someone here]

I'm back to smoking again after a month of quitting... Need to take this seriously once again. Day zero. 

30 days challenge. No smoking. 0️⃣?

[flowboy]

@Someone here  Do you want a golden, but counter-intuitive tip?

 

[Someone here]

@flowboy sure.. Go ahead 

[flowboy]

The negative emotional reaction that you have when you slip up, or "fail", or even when you think about the lung damage, is actually what keeps you going back to it.

I learnt this after many years of attempting to quit. I have zero cravings now.

On the surface level, it seems that associating smoking with pain (by negative self-talk or scaring yourself with facts), would deter you from it.

Actually though, it keeps the attachment in place.

Why this is, has to do with the subconscious, and its desires not aligning with your conscious ones. (it secretly enjoys the emotional pain that you give yourself. I know it's weird)

To be successful in quitting, you have to associate smoking not with pain and hate, but with NOTHING.

Meh.

That's the key.

(if you are wondering how to do this, start with forgiving yourself for starting to smoke ever. Leo's forgiveness exercise may help. And then any time you slip up, become good at quickly forgiving yourself and just go "yeah whatever. Stupid but I'll be fine. I am allowed to make mistakes", and go right back to being quit without giving it a second thought.)

And simultaneously work on associating NOT smoking with awesomeness.

What I did was write down an affirmation everyday about why I loved being a non-smoker. Example: "I love that I can walk up two flights of stairs without seeing stars, because I am a non smoker". Or: "I love that I can talk to people for hours without needing to go outside and interrupt the flow, because I am a non-smoker." Or: "I love breathing freely as a non-smoker." Et cetera. I used to hang them up on my wall. My entire wall was covered, but it did help.

- Make sure that they state that you are a non-smoker in the present

- Make sure that they have no negativity in them, but give you a light, warm feeling. This is super important for lasting change

Try to come up with one every day for your 30 day challenge.

Edited March 23, 2021 by flowboy

[Someone here]

@flowboy thank you 

[flowboy]

@Someone here  You may find that you have resistance against doing this (the forgiving yourself, and releasing the emotional attachment, moving to a 'meh' state). For me, it felt like I much preferred to keep hating on myself and scaring myself. That's a sign that it's true, though. The attachment to the negative emotion = the attachment to smoking. I had to read this in two books before I got it (Psycho-Cybernetics and Existential Kink)

Good luck