Plenty of time left to quit? Such thoughts are very likely to prove both deadly and wrong. Nicotine dependency ignorance costs half of all smokers an average of 13 years of life, claiming one-quarter during middle-age.
Instead of equipping smokers with the knowledge and skills needed to dramatically increase their odds of success, failed government cessation policies continue to demand that all quitters to toy with replacement nicotine and new designer drugs which imitate nicotine (Zyban, Wellbutrin, Chantix and Champix), drugs which teach absolutely nothing, and in "real-world" use are likely to continue to perform no better than quitting without them.
Bryan started smoking at age thirteen. A 34 year-old Marlboro Light smoker, Bryan thought that because his mother still smoked that he had plenty of time left to quit. He was wrong.
This is a photo of Bryan with his two year-old son, Bryan Jr. It was taken on March 29th. The photo above was taken just 63 days later on June 3rd, the day Bryan died. It shows the aggressiveness of smoking induced small cell lung cancer. In Bryan's hands is a copy of the picture of him with his son.
Try to imagine nearly five millions tobacco victims each year. Imagine having a 50% chance of already knowing the cause of death that will appear on your death certificate.
According to the CDC, 41% of U.S. smokers made a quitting attempt of at least one day during 2002. Nicotine is so gripping that 95% who attempted quitting during 2002 failed.
Unless you put your most powerful weapon to work (your intelligence) and stop treating your chemical addiction as though it were some nasty little habit that can be molded or manipulated, your odds of success in quitting for one full year during your next attempt will be about 1 in 20. When quitting there is no such thing as smoking just one. Like alcoholism, it's all or nothing.
Unlike many other nations, there is no U.S. cigarette pack addiction warning label. As shown in this photo, Canada's required label covers one-half of the front face of the pack and reads, "Warning - Cigarettes are highly addictive - Studies have shown that tobacco can be harder to quit than heroin or cocaine."
Although your nicotine induced dopamine/adrenaline high reflects alert intoxication, chemical dependency upon nicotine is every bit as real, deep and permanent as alcoholism, crystal meth, or heroin addiction. Once hooked the remaining questions become, on which side of the bars will you spend the balance of life, what quality will your life have and how long will it last?
Have you been telling yourself that you're not a "real" drug addict? A June 2005 study (Kandel) found that 87% of students smoking nicotine at least once daily were already chemically dependent based on dependency standards contained in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, 4th Edition.
Although the precise manner of control by each chemical is a bit different, as with alcoholism or cocaine or heroin addiction an external chemical has taken your brain's dopamine reward pathways hostage. Nicotine has physically rewired your brain growing millions of extra acetylcholine receptors in eleven different regions.
Your mind is now de-sensitized to its own natural neuro-chemical flow. Quitting is a temporary journey of readjustment where you allow the time needed to restore natural sensitivities, where you break subconsciously conditioned links to smoking triggers and where you allow your conscious mind time to move beyond the years of smoking rationalizations you created in order to justify that next nicotine fix.
Do you remember the calm and quiet that resided inside your head before nicotine took control, before your reserves of the alkaloid nicotine became subject to rapid depletion by stressful acid producing events? Are you ready to return home to the "real" you? The below quitting tips may help make your temporary journey of recovery far less challenging. We also invite you to visit www.whyquit.com for additional motivational resources, to download our free 149 page quitting book, to watch free video quitting lessons, to have your quitting quesitons answered by a full-time professional counselor or to share in free online peer support.
WhyQuit's Quitting Tips
WARNING: The below information is NOT MEDICAL ADVICE and you should IMMEDIATELY CONSULT YOUR PHYSICIAN should you experience ANY condition or symptom that causes you concern or alarm, including difficulty breathing or continuing depression. The information provided is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your physician. Do not rely any tip to replace individual consultations with your doctor or other qualified health care provider.
- Law of Addiction - The law of addiction states, "administration of a drug to an addict will cause re-establishment of chemical dependence upon the addictive substance at the old level of use or greater." Yes, just one powerful puff and you'll be faced with again enduring up to 72 hours of nicotine detox. We're not that strong. Adherence to a simple four word restatement of the law of addiction guarantees success to all. No nicotine just one day at a time ..."Never Take Another Puff."
- Be Honest With Yourself - Nicotine dependency is every bit as real and permanent as alcoholism. Don't play games with yourself. Treating a true addiction as though it were some nasty little habit is a recipe for relapse. There is no such thing as just one puff. It truly is an all or nothing proposition.
- Enhancing Motivation - Are you having trouble getting started? Is your motivation in need of a boost? Visit WhyQuit.com and meet Noni, Bryan, Brandon, Kim or Sean, or watch more than 30 short determination fueling movie clips. If you don't have Internet access visit your local library.
- Education is Power - Visit WhyQuit.com (the source of these tips) read Joel's Library one time from cover to cover, download his free book, watch free video quitting lessons, or get online support.
- Measuring Victory - Forget about quitting "forever." Like attempting the seemingly impossible task of eating an entire elephant, it's the biggest psychological bite imaginable. Instead, work hard at adopting a more manageable "one day at a time" quitting philosophy for measuring victory. If you insist on seeing success only in terms of quitting forever then on which day will you celebrate?
- Recovery Phases - When quitting, the amount of nicotine remaining in your bloodstream will be cut by half every two hours. Within 72 hours all nicotine and 90% of the chemicals it breaks down into will have passed from your body. Physical withdrawal peaks by day three and is substantially complete within 10 days to two weeks. Subconscious trigger reconditioning normally peaks during the first week and all but your remote, infrequent or seasonal triggers should be reconditioned within a month. Conscious thoughts of wanting will gradually grow fewer, shorter in duration and generally less intense. Within a few months they'll become the exception not the rule, as you'll gradually start to develop an expectation of going your entire day without wanting to smoke nicotine.
- Withdrawal Symptoms - Within reason it's fairly safe to blame most of what you'll feel during the first three days on quitting. But after that you need to listen to your body and if concerned give your doctor a call. Don't blame your symptoms on where you're going but on where you've been. See each symptom as a true sign of healing it reflects.
- Possible Hidden Conditions - Each puff of smoke contained more than 500 different gases and 3,500 different particles. One or more of these 4,000 chemicals may have been masking an underlying hidden health problem such as a thyroid condition (iodine), breathing problems including asthma (bronchiodialiators), or even chronic organic depression (nicotine). Your cigarette's chemicals may also have been interacting with medications you were taking and an adjustment may be necessary. Stay alert and if at all concerned immediately contact your physician or pharmacist.
- Emotional Phases - Chemical dependency upon smoking nicotine is one of the most intense, repetitive and dependable relationships you've likely ever known. It has infected almost every aspect of your life. Be prepared to experience a normal sense of emotional loss when quitting. Expect to travel through and experience six different emotional phases: (1) denial, (2) anger, (3) bargaining, (4) depression, (5) acceptance, and (6) complacency.
- Quitting Cold Turkey - According to evidence tables in the June 2000 USDHHS Guideline, a smoker's natural six-month odds of quitting "on-their-own" are roughly 10%. Education, new behavioral skills (such as adopting a one day at a time quitting philosophy), and ongoing support can easily more than triple those odds. Contrary to the marketing hype of those selling a growing array of quitting products, almost all successful long-term quitters quit smoking cold turkey (80 to 90%).
- NRT - The pharmaceutical industry has not been entirely candid with smokers regarding their odds of success while using nicotine replacement products (NRT) such as the patch, gum and lozenge. A March 2003 study (Hughes) combined and averaged the seven over-the-counter nicotine patch and gum studies. It found that only 7% of study participants were still not smoking at six months. It gets worse. The odds of success appear to actually decline during a second or subsequent NRT quitting attempt. A 1993 study (Tonnesen) found that 0% of second-time patch users succeeded in quitting for 6 months and a 1995 study (Gourlay) reported a 1.6% six-month quitting rate.
- Zyban - Zyban (bupropion) performs at rates similar to NRT. It is a dopamine uptake inhibitor.
- Chantix - 2006 studies boast a 1 in 5 one-year quit smoking rate but were inflated by 16 one-on-one counseling sessions, telephone support and the exclusion of hard to treat smokers. Real-world use rates will be substantially lower. It is marketed in Europe as Champix and causes the release of 35 to 60% of the dopamine that nicotine would have released if sitting on the same receptors.
- Hypnosis - A 1998 Cochrane Review of nine different hypnosis quit smoking studies concluded that "we have not shown that hypnotherapy has a greater effect on six month quit rates than other interventions or no treatment."
- Acupuncture - A 2002 Cochrane Review of 22 different acupuncture studies concluded that, "there is no clear evidence that acupuncture, acupressure, laser therapy or electro-stimulation are effective for smoking cessation."
- Don't Get Intimidated - Don't let the above quitting method study findings intimidate you. Instead use them to gauge just how serious the challenge before you actually is. Quitting is entirely do-able, as evidenced by the fact that here in the U.S. we have more ex-smokers than current smokers. Although quitting isn't easy it is simple, and considering that you have never taken a puff that didn't destroy more of your body's ability to receive and transport life-giving oxygen, and add more cancer causing chemicals to your body, it is worth the effort. There is just one rule: no nicotine today, Never Take Another Puff!
- Record Your Motivations - Once in the heat of battle, it is normal for your mind to quickly forget many of the reasons that motivated you to quit smoking. Write yourself a loving reminder letter, carry it with you, and read it often. Make it your first line of defense - a motivational tool that you can pull out during moments of challenge. As with achievement in almost all human endeavors, the wind beneath your recovery wings will not be strength or willpower but robust dreams and desires. Keep your dreams vibrant and on center-stage and no circumstance will deprive you of glory.
- Do Not Skip Meals - Each puff of nicotine was our spoon, releasing stored fats into our bloodstream. It allowed us to skip meals without experiencing wild blood-sugar swing symptoms such as an inability to concentrate or hunger related anxieties. Learn to again properly fuel your body by spreading out your normal daily calorie intake more evenly. Do not skip meals.
- Three Days of Natural Juices - Drink plenty of acidic fruit juice the first three days. Cranberry is excellent and a bottle will cost you about the same as a pack of cigarettes. The acidic juices will not only aid in more quickly removing the alkaloid nicotine but will help stabilize blood sugars. Take care beyond three days as juices can be rather fattening.
- Weight Gain - You'd need to gain at least 75 extra pounds in order to equal the health risks associated with smoking one pack-a-day. Eat vegetables and fruits instead of candies, chips and pastries to help avoid weight gain. Engage in some form of moderate daily exercise if at all concerned about weight gain. Keep in mind that you can expect a substantial increase in overall lung function of up to 30% within just 90 days of quitting. Enhanced lung function will aid you in engaging in extended periods of physical activity, in building cardiovascular endurance, and in shedding any extra pounds.
- Stress Related Anxieties - Recognize that contrary to popular thinking, smoking nicotine did not relieve stress but only its own absence. Nicotine is an alkaloid. Stress is an acid-producing event capable of quickly neutralizing the body's nicotine reserves. As smokers, we added early withdrawal to every stressful event. You will soon discover an amazing sense of calm during crisis. There are a host of anxiety management techniques you can employ during this temporary journey of re-adjustment called "quitting," including the practice of slow deep breathing while focusing your mind on your favorite object, place or person to the exclusion of other thoughts.
- Quitting for Others - You cannot quit for others. It must be your gift to you. Quitting for a child, spouse, parent or friend creates a natural sense of deprivation that is likely to ultimately result in relapse. If quitting for another person, how will an addict's junkie-mind respond the first time that person disappoints us?
- Attitude - A positive can-do attitude is important. We are what we think. Take pride in each hour of healing and freedom and in each challenge overcome. Celebrate the full and complete victory each reflects. The next few minutes are all that matter and each is entirely do-able. Yes you can!
- Patience - Years of smoking nicotine conditioned us to be extremely impatient, at least when it comes to our addiction. A deprived nicotine addict could inhale a puff of nicotine and have it arrive and release dopamine in their brain within just 8 seconds. Realize the importance of patience to successful recovery. Baby steps, just one hour, challenge and day at a time and then celebrate the new found patience you just demonstrated.
- Keeping Cigarettes - Get rid of all cigarettes. Keeping a stash of cigarettes makes as much sense as someone on suicide watch keeping a loaded gun handy just to prove they can. Toying with a 50% chance of depriving yourself of 5,000 sunrises isn't a game. Fully commit to going the distance and seeing what it's like to awaken to new expectations of a nicotine free life.
- Caffeine/Nicotine Interaction - Amazingly, nicotine somehow doubles the rate by which the body depletes caffeine. Studies have found that your blood-caffeine level will rise to 203% of your normal baseline if no intake reduction is made when quitting. Although not a problem for most light to moderate caffeine users, consider a caffeine intake reduction if troubled by anxieties or if experiencing difficulty relaxing or sleeping.
Subconscious Smoking Triggers - You have conditioned your subconscious mind to expect nicotine when encountering certain locations, times, events, people or emotions. Be prepared for each to trigger a brief crave episode. Encountering a trigger cannot trigger relapse unless you take a puff. Take heart, most triggers are reconditioned and extinguished by a single encounter during which the subconscious mind fails to receive the expected result - nicotine.
- Crave Episodes Less than Three Minutes - In contrast to conscious thought fixation (the "nice juicy steak" type thinking that can last as long as you have the ability to maintain your focus), no subconsciously triggered crave episode will last longer than three minutes.
- Time Distortion Symptom - A recent study found that nicotine cessation causes serious time distortion. Although no crave episode will last longer than three minutes, to a quitter the minutes can feel like hours. Keep a clock handy to maintain honest perspective.
- Crave Episode Frequency - The "average" number of crave episodes (each less than three minutes) experienced by the "average" quitter on their most challenging day of recovery is six episodes on day three. That's a total of 18 minutes of challenge on your most challenging day. But what if you're not average? What if you established and must encounter twice as many nicotine-feeding cues as the average quitter? That's 36 minutes of significant challenge. Can you handle 36 minutes of serious anxiety in order to reclaim your mind, health and as much life expectancy as possible? Absolutely! We all can. Be prepared for a small spike in crave episodes on day seven as you celebrate your first full week of freedom from nicotine. Yes, for most of us smoking was part of every celebration. Also stay alert for subtle differences between crave triggers. For example, the Sunday newspaper is much thicker and may have required three cigarettes to read instead of just one.
- Understanding the Big Crave - The average quitter will be experiencing just 1.4 crave episodes per day by day ten. After that you'll soon begin to experience entire days without encountering a single un-reconditioned subconscious crave trigger. If a later crave episode ever feels far more intense it's likely that it has been some time since your last significant challenge and you've dropped your guard and defenses a bit. It can feel as though you've been sucker punched. If one does occur, see the distance between challenges as the wonderful sign of healing the incident reflects.
- Crave Coping Techniques - One coping method is to practice slow deep breathing when experiencing a crave episode. Try briefly clearing your mind of all needless chatter by focusing on your favorite person, place or thing. Another popular three minute crave coping exercise is to say your ABCs while associating each letter with your favorite food, person or place. For example, the letter "A" is for grandma's hot apple pie. "B" is for warm buttered biscuits. I think you'll find that you'll never make it to the challenging letter Q.
- Embracing A Crave - Another coping technique is to mentally reach out and embrace your crave. A crave cannot cut you, burn you, kill you, or make you bleed. Try being brave just once. In your mind, wrap your arms around the crave's anxiety energy and then sense as it slowly fizzles and dies while in your embrace. Yes, another trigger bites the dust and victory is once again yours!
- Confront Your Crave Triggers - Recognize the fact that everything you did as a smoker you will learn to again comfortably do as an ex-smoker. Meet, greet and defeat your triggers. Don't hide from them. You need not give up anything when quitting except nicotine. Everything you did as a smoker you'll soon discover can be done as well or better as an ex-smoker.
- Alcohol Use - Be extremely careful with early alcohol use during the first couple of weeks. Using an inhibition diminishing substance and then intentionally surrounding yourself with smokers while still engaged in early withdrawal is a recipe for relapse. Get your quitting feet under you first. If you do use alcohol, once ready to challenge your drinking triggers consider breaking the challenge down into manageable trigger segments. Try drinking at home first without smokers around, go out with smokers but refrain from drinking, or consider spacing your drinks further apart, or drinking water or juice between drinks. Have an escape plan and a backup, and be fully prepared to use them both.
- Support Expectations - Don't expect family or friends who have never been chemically dependent themselves to have any appreciation of your challenges or the time required to achieve substantial comfort. It simply isn't fair to them or you. Find an ex-smoker and ask them if they'd mind being your mentor for the next 90 days. Online you'll find a number of wonderful quitting support groups.
- No Legitimate Excuse for Relapse - Recognize that smoking nicotine cannot solve any crisis. Fully accept the fact that there is absolutely no legitimate excuse for relapse, including an auto accident, financial crisis, the end of a relationship, job loss, a terrorist attack, a hurricane, the birth of a baby, or the eventual inevitable death of those we love most. Picture yourself not smoking through each and every step needed to overcome the most difficult challenge your mind can possibly imagine.
- Conscious Thought Fixation - Unlike a less than three-minute subconscious crave episode, we can consciously fixate on any thought of wanting to smoke for as long as we're able to maintain our concentration. Don't try to run or hide from thoughts of wanting but instead place the thought under honest light. Flavor? Are there any taste buds inside your lungs? Just one puff? For us nicotine addicts, one is too many and a thousand never enough. Treat nicotine dependency recovery as if it were no different than alcoholism. Don't debate with yourself about wanting "a" cigarette. Instead, ask yourself how you'd feel about going back to your old level of consumption or greater.
- Reward Yourself - Consider putting aside the money that you would have spent buying cigarettes and treat yourself to something you really want after a week or a month. Save for a year and go on a vacation. Even if unable to save, reward yourself by quickly climbing from that deep smoker's rut and spending time in places where you couldn't smoke, such as movies, libraries and no smoking sections of restaurants, by engaging in activities lasting longer than an hour, and by ever so slightly pushing your normal limits of physical endurance in order to sample the amazing healing within.
- Fully Commit To Going the Distance - Don't be afraid to tell people around you that you have quit smoking. Fully commit to your recovery while taking pride in each and every hour and day of healing and freedom from nicotine, and each challenge overcome. Shed your fears of success.
- Avoid All Crutches - A crutch is any form of quitting reliance that you lean upon so heavily in supporting your quit (yes, a noun) that if quickly removed would likely result in relapse. Do not lean heavily upon a quitting buddy who quits at the same time as you, as their odds of successfully quitting for one year are relatively small. Instead ask an ex-smoker or never-smoker for support, or visit a free online support forum such as WhyQuit.com's Freedom from Tobacco.
- The Smoking Dream - Be prepared for an extremely vivid smoking dream as tobacco odors released by horizontal healing lungs are swept up bronchial tubes by rapidly healing cilia and come in contact with a vastly enhanced sense of smell. See it as the wonderful sign of healing it reflects and nothing more. It has no profound meaning beyond healing.
- See Marketing as Bait - Your quitting means thousands of dollars in lost profits to the tobacco industry. They do not want to lose you. See store tobacco advertising and the hundreds of neatly aligned packs and cartons for what they truly reflect - bait. Behind the pretty colored boxes and among more than 600 flavor additives is hidden what many dependency experts now consider earth's most captivating chemical.
- It's Never Too Late - Regardless of how long you've smoked, how old you are, or how badly you've damaged your body, it's never too late to arrest your dependency, become its master, and commence the most intense period of healing that your mind and body have likely ever known.
- Study Smokers Closely - They are not smoking nicotine to tease you. They do so because they must, in order to replenish a constantly falling blood-serum nicotine level that declines byhalf every two hours . Most nicotine is smoked while on autopilot. What cue triggered the public feeding you're now witnessing? Watch acid-producing events such as stress or alcohol quickly neutralize their body's nicotine reserves. Witness their endless mandatory cycle of replenishment.
- Thinking vs. Wanting - There is a major distinction between thinking about smoking and wanting to smoke. After years of smoking you should expect to notice and smell smokers but it doesn't necessarily mean that you want to smoke. As for thoughts of wanting, with each passing day they'll gradually grow shorter in duration, generally less intense and a bit further apart.
- Non-Smoker or Ex-Smoker - What should you call yourself? Although it's normal to want to be a non-smoker there is a major distinction between a never-smoker and an ex-smoker. Only the ex-smoker can grow complacent, use nicotine and relapse.
- Complacency - Don't allow complacency to destroy your healing and glory. The ingredients for relapse are a failing memory of why we quit and of the early challenges, rewriting the law of addiction to exempt or exclude ourselves, and an excuse such as stress, celebration, illness, finances, war, death, or even a cigar at the birth of a baby.
- Relapse - Remember that there are only two good reasons to take a puff once you quit. You decide you want to go back to your old level of consumption until smoking cripples and likely kills you, or, you decide you really enjoy withdrawal and you want to make it last forever.
- As long as neither of the above two options appeal to you - no nicotine just one day at a time ... Never Take Another Puff, Dip or Chew!
About This Quitting Tips Guide
This quitting tips list was created by John R. Polito, a nicotine cessation educator and editor of www.whyquit.com. These tips are primarily a product of medical studies and lessons from Joel's Library (http://whyquit.com/joel), an insightful collection of 95 short quitting articles available for download as a free electronic PDF book at WhyQuit.com (http://whyquit.com/joel/). While there, watch a few of Joel's new free video quitting lessons.
Be sure to print and share or e-mail these quitting tips to friends and loved ones who smoke. Not discovering the "Law of Addiction" through the school of hard-quitting-knocks or learning it from booklets such as this is a horrible reason to die. These quitting tips may be reproduced and shared for all health education purposes, so long as it there is never any charge or cost to recipients. Comments may be addressed to John R. Polito, 1325 Pherigo Street, Mount Pleasant, SC 29464, (843) 849-9721 or via email to john@whyquit.com
© WhyQuit.com 2006
