You deserve a great big hug! You’ve made it past your first day without smoking. You may not have thought you could do it – but you have!
Think a little about how you feel about this. Don’t let your victory go unnoticed. Here are questions to think about:
• Why do you think you were successful?
• Where did you almost trip but kept going?
• How did you manage to avoid getting tripped up?
• How does this make you feel about your chances of staying off cigarettes?
As you answer these questions, you will begin to feel a little proud of yourself! Enjoy the feeling, and use it as a springboard to keep going.
You probably don’t feel like a new person as yet but you are already changing. You’re likely to feel more energetic and more alive than you have in years. A lot of self-repair work is already going on inside you. Your body is at work repairing smoke-damage tissues this very minute. You may not notice the changes yet, but you will.
It’s Tough
Reading about the wonderful advantages of quitting may not be so comforting to you if you’re feeling symptoms of recovery. You feel very cranky. You may have discovered nerves you never knew you had. You may be ready to take someone’s head off for the most stupid reason. And you desperately want to smoke and get back to feeling “normal” with a cigarette in your hands.
All these feelings are normal, even if you’re having them all at once. It’s no secret that quitting can be a very tough job. Remember that you have accomplished things successfully when you’re angry. You’ve accomplished things when you were nervous and you have accomplished things when you felt sick. Your physical and emotional feelings don’t have to direct your actions. You can quit in spite of them!
The first week is usually the worst. After that, the cravings lessen and lessen. Each day you will feel better and better.
Remember, things will get better. Most of the symptoms don’t last long – a week or two at the most. Of course, a week or two seems an awfully long time. But after your first week of not smoking, the nicotine finally will be out of your system, and much of the tension you feel, as well as some of the other physical symptoms, will disappear.
This isn’t to say that you won’t have cravings after the first week. You probably will. But they will become weaker and less frequent, and easier to deal with.
Right now, though, you’re still in the learning stage. Quitting is an extended process, not a single act. You still need to learn to become a permanent non-smoker.
Breaking the Nicotine Addition Cycle
The physical recovery may be the most difficult during the first week or two. When you were smoking, you felt nervous and tense when your body craved nicotine. When you smoked a cigarette, you felt better because the craving was temporarily satisfied. But as the nicotine disappeared from your system, your nicotine craving again increased, and you again felt nervous and tense.
You’re quit smoking now, but your body is still caught up in the nicotine addiction stress cycle. You have withdrawn the addictive substance (nicotine) and that has caused a traumatic jolt to your whole body. The result for many people is a huge assortment of changes in your eating, sleeping, breathing, digestion, thinking, and everything else your body does.
What’s important to remember is that while you were taking nicotine by smoking many times each day, your body was not functioning normally. It seemed normal to you. But in reality you were always “Under the Influence” of nicotine. Now that the nicotine is gone, your body is working to relearn what is normal.
Signs of Physical Recovery
Right now, you are probably all too familiar with some of the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal. Reading about them won’t make them go away. But understanding them may make them a little easier to tolerate. Most importantly, remember these are not new problems that have now become part of your life. They’re just your body getting back to normal. Here are some of these problems.
Irritability. This is perhaps the most commonly reported reaction of people giving up cigarettes. In removing the effects of nicotine as well as hundreds of other chemicals found in smoke, you have caused your body considerable stress. It’s understandable that you may feel short-fused for the first few days. Knowing to expect this normal reaction may help to keep it under control. So be easy on yourself and don’t expect to be perfect during this stressful period.
Nervousness. This is part of irritability. You might want to ask your family, friends, and coworkers to understand that this is only a temporary effect that will disappear. Drink lots of liquids, especially fruit juices, to flush the nicotine out of your system as fast as possible. And avoid or limit stimulants like caffeine in coffee and cola drinks. Try decaf.
Coughing. This symptom may increase too because your lungs are cleaning themselves out, getting rid of residues built up from years of smoking. Smoking deadens the cilia in the lungs. These are little hairlike cells that help brush out dust and other residues in normal, healthy lungs. One of the reasons smokers have more infections is that their cilia are not working, so foreign matter accumulates in their lungs. When you quit, the cilia get back to work within a couple of days. The result is that you start coughing up more phlegm and sputum. Sometimes, smokers see this and get scared because they think that they have some new problem. But it’s not a problem at all – just another example of your body getting back to normal. This “ex-smoker’s cough” is temporary and usually lasts only a week or two at most. Cough drops or cough syrups will relieve most this cough in the meantime.
Slight sore throat. This is another common symptom. Although tobacco irritates your throat, it also numbs it. So when you stop smoking you may feel some brief discomfort as your throat returns to its natural, normal state. Water and fruit juices can help.
Constipation. This another sign that your body is readjusting itself to the lack of nicotine. Drink plenty of water and supplement your diet with fiber from fruits and whole grains.
Sleeping problems. This is a result of tension. Use the stress release exercise described above and other relaxation techniques like deep breathing and a long, hot bath. Take a long walk to work off your nervous tension. If you fall asleep normally but wake in the middle of the night, you may be missing the nicotine your brain was used to. Consider using a nicotine replacement product during the day to give your body some of the nicotine it’s missing. If you still have trouble sleeping, talk to your doctor.
Tiredness and fatigue. This often occurs as your body readjusts to functioning without the artificial stimulation of nicotine, especially if you’re having trouble sleeping. You may have headaches too. Try to increase your exercise or allow yourself a little extra time for sleeping.
Difficulty concentrating. Many smokers rely on nicotine for alertness. In a short time, you will find this gets better. Your intense focus on quitting may also cause your mind to block out other thoughts. Nicotine replacement therapy can help.
The Psychological Recovery Process
Many smokers are only slightly bothered by physical symptoms of nicotine withdrawal, but experience a lot more trouble with the psychological symptoms of recovery. Getting over the psychological loss can be very complex. It may even take several months for you to restructure a lifestyle without smoking.
The reaction to giving up smoking can be like the reaction to death. Something dear to you is gone forever. It was something dangerous, but it was something that you were used to and liked in many ways, maybe because it made you feel sophisticated or able to handle things or attractive or sexy. Maybe it relaxed you and put you in a better mood.
Think of giving up smoking like the death of a close friend. A cigarette has been your friend. It was always there for you. It didn’t tell you that you were making a mistake or that you were being unreasonable. It never got angry at you or demanding. Instead, it made you feel more relaxed and confident about what you were doing.
Any time we experience a major change in our lives, we grieve for the old ways before we learn to make room for the new. Here is what you should be working on:
1) Reject the feeling that you have given something up. It’s actually the opposite – because you have gained something – your freedom and self-mastery.
2) Quitting is not an exercise in self-denial, but in self-determination. You’re now in charge of your life again. You have a tremendous sense of self-control.
3) You are giving a gift to yourself and to those near you.
4) You are getting rid of a harmful habit. You’re working hard, and you’re getting important benefits in return.
5) You deserve a lot of praise for your efforts. Give yourself a big pat on the back. Reward yourself in small and big ways.
Replacing the Psychological Benefits of Cigarettes
As you go through the stages of physical and psychological recovery, you will have lots of feelings. Chewing stirring sticks or going for walks might help control urges to smoke when you’re bored or fidgety. But these creative alternatives won’t do as long-term substitutes for the cigarettes you use to control your feelings.
Not smoking will be easier if you keep in touch with your feelings, likes, dislikes, worries, and irritations. Start taking your feelings into account. Instead of just saying to yourself, “I need a cigarette,” ask yourself what feeling is leading you to this question. If you can get in touch with that feeling you can begin to find better ways than smoking to handle it.
When tempted to reach for a cigarette, ask yourself:
• What am I feeling?
• Why am I having this feeling?
• What do I really want now?
You will find that often what you want is not a cigarette, but something else.
Dealing With Bad Moods
Sometimes you feel sad, anxious, or frustrated for good reasons. Bad things do happen. But there are other times you may get down on yourself because you’re judging yourself too harshly or negatively. If you’re like most people, you sometimes blow things out of proportion or over-react to incidents you would generally find only mildly annoying. And, as much as it happens to all of us, blowing things out of proportion can be a big problem when you’re quitting smoking.
Once you quit smoking, what else can you do? Here are a few practical alternatives:
1) Check your assumptions. When you’re upset or in a bad mood, write down what you’re thinking and feeling. Then question why you feel the way you do. Here are some assumptions you may be making about yourself. They may make you feel bad about yourself and may make you want to smoke:
• I should never disappoint anyone.
• I need to be loved or liked by everyone.
• I should be such a good and worthy person that everyone will treat me with respect.
• In order to be happy, I have to be successful in everything I do.
• If I make a mistake, it shows I’m not really very good.
• If someone disagrees with me they don’t think much of me.
• My worth as a person depends on what other people think of me.
• Life is fair. If I am nice person, if I’m cheerful, if I do my best for others, bad things won’t happen to me. If bad things do happen to me, it means I just haven’t been good enough.
2) Change your expectations. If you find yourself expecting to be perfect with your family, if you find yourself feeling you always need to be on time, if you find yourself upset whenever anyone shows they’re less than delighted with you (whatever may be the mistakes you’re making in judging yourself), try to figure out a more realistic way of looking at things.
The Reward Cigarette
Stress and bad feelings can lead to cravings. But many people also smoke when they feel good. If you’re one of them, you may often think, “I deserve this cigarette.” After you’ve quit smoking, you won’t be able to reward yourself with a cigarette. So you’ll have to work on new rewards. For example:
• Ask yourself what healthy activity would make you feel good right now, and would make you feel rewarded.
• Make a list of nonsmoking activities to do to make yourself feel good (call a friend, see a movie, visit some place, etc.).
Positive Self-Talk
Tell yourself good things about yourself. This is a good way to combat bad moods. Many people spend too much time telling themselves they can’t do things, aren’t doing a good job, aren’t capable. That’s all negative self-talk. On the other hand, positive self-talk simply reverses all that by changing the negative thoughts into “I can do it” statements. For example:
• I can do it if I take it one day at a time. It will get easier with time if I just persist.
• I can get the same relaxed feeling if I sit and chat with a cup of tea and a good book.
• I feel good when I do what’s really good for me. This decision to quit smoking is important to me.
Here are positive self-statements that you can use to help you think more rationally and calmly:
• I should think about what I really want for myself.
• Relax. I can calm down with a slow, deep breath.
• I can handle this. Take one step at a time.
• This is a chance for me to use what I have learned.
• Tough times don’t last.
• Look for solutions.
• Stop. Look on the positive side.
• I can get support, advice, and help if I need it.
And here are some specific smoking-related, positive self-statements:
• Cigarettes make me cough, feel breathless, trigger heart trouble, and cause lung cancer.
• Cigarettes deprive me of life and health.
• Quitting has shown me personal strengths I didn’t know I had.
Managing Stress
Physical craving for nicotine causes stress, along with the psychological stress of quitting. When you were a smoker, you usually had cigarettes to reduce your stress. Now you seem to have no skills for dealing with stressful situations.
You need both short-term and long-term solutions to stress. The short-term help will get you through the day. The long-term solution is to figure out what’s causing the stress and try to change it. Exercise is a great way to combat stress. Here are some other useful suggestions:
1) Get up 15 minutes earlier in the morning. The inevitable morning mishaps will be less stressful.
2) Prepare for the morning, the evening before. Set the breakfast table. Make lunches. Put out the clothes you plan to wear.
3) Don’t rely on your memory. Write down appointment times, when to pick up the laundry, when library books are due, etc.
4) Make copies of all keys. Bury a house key in a secret spot in the garden. Carry a duplicate car key in your wallet.
5) Practice preventive maintenance. Your car, appliances, home and relationships will be less likely to break down at the worst possible moment.
6) Be prepared to wait. A paperback book can make a wait in line almost pleasant.
7) Procrastination is stressful. Whatever you want to do tomorrow, do today. Whatever you want to do today, do it now.
8) Plan ahead. Don’t let the gas tank get below one-quarter full. Keep a well-stocked “emergency shelf” of home supplies. Don’t wait until you’re down to your last bus token or postage stamp to buy more.
9) Don’t put up with something that doesn’t work right. If your alarm clock, wallet, or shoelaces are a constant aggravation, fix them or get new ones.
10) Allow 15 minutes extra time to get appointments. Plant to arrive at airport one hour before your flight.
11) Eliminate (or restrict) the caffeine in your diet.
12) Relax your standards. This world will not end if something does not get done.
13) Say no to extra projects, social activities, and invitations you know you don’t have the time or energy for. Unplug your phone when you want to take a long bath, meditate, sleep, or read without interruption.
Deep Breathing Techniques
This exercise will show you how to breathe without cigarettes in a way that slows down the pace of your whole body and therefore promotes general relaxation. Deep breathing should be done using your stomach muscles as well as your lungs.
Before doing this exercise, put a hand on your abdomen. As you inhale deeply, feel your stomach pull in toward your spine. When you exhale, feel your stomach muscles release. As you do the exercise, pause comfortably at the end of each exhalation until you feel ready to take the next deep breath.
Think of your lungs as balloons that you are trying to fill as completely as possible.
Here is the exercise:
1) Breathe in deeply, letting your stomach expand until your lungs are filled. Pause for a moment and then exhale until your lungs are emptied.
2) Pause for a moment, then take another deep breath, filling your lungs completely.
3) Hold for a moment, and now let the airflow out, focusing your mind on restful thoughts.
4) Keeping the pace regular, again breathe in deeply, hold a moment, and now let the air out, feeling more and more relaxed.
5) Take another breath in, hold it for a moment, and gently breathe out, and let the tension escape from your body.
6) Once more, breathe in, pause a moment, now exhale, and feel the deep relaxation.
After you’ve learned how to do it, you can achieve even greater relaxation if you close your eyes during deep breathing. Let you mind focus on a restful scene or a word like “calm” to give you a feeling of mental quiet.
Your Will-Power Plans
Now that you are a nonsmoker, you need to actively review your plans for coping with temptations. Look back at the temptations you identified and the plans you had for coping with them. Which ones have you tried so far? Which ones have worked and which ones have not worked as well as you expected?
Based on your results so far, you want to revise your list. Concentrate on things that helped you stay off cigarettes.
Now think of two or three situations coming up this week that may make you want to smoke. Then think of two or three things you could instead of smoking.
You may also want to treat moods and feelings like temptations, and work out a plan for coping with these emotions that will make you want to smoke. If an important meeting next Monday is making you anxious, make sure that you do some “defense tactics” to make sure you don’t resort to smoking to deal with stress. For example:
• Take extra care to allow ample time for the task, so meeting your deadline won’t be stressful.
• Plan fifteen-minute walks both morning and afternoon over the weekend to keep things a little calmer.
• Ask your spouse to give you encouragement over the weekend. Be sure to say exactly how you want to be encouraged (a pep talk, a hug, etc.).
• Plan your work so you can take a 10 minute break every hour to do your breathing exercise.
• Make sure you plan some things you’ll enjoy doing over the weekend so the anxiety of making the deadline won’t be compounded by feeling sad that you don’t have enough fun.
• Make sure the area where you work does not have any reminders of smoking so you are not caught off guard.
You have to identify the right strategy for you. Find out what your temptations are, and then come up with specific strategies that you feel good about. One word of advice, don’t take a drink to relax – because drinking alcohol will increase your urge to smoke.
Remember, quitting smoking is long process. You have to work on your will power first and foremost. People lapse when they let temptation come over them without doing anything about it. It doesn’t matter so much what you do as long as it makes sense for you. But you do need to do something to keep those temptations at bay.
What If Will Power Does Not Work?
Of course, nobody’s perfect. There will be times when all your creative alternatives and will power will not work against a tough temptation. When things don’t go well, ask yourself:
• Could I have anticipated the temptation sooner?
• Did I look at all aspects of the temptation situation that I could change or avoid?
• Did I make a concrete plan?
• Did I carry out my plan or just think about it?
Different control strategies work for different people. Don’t give up if a strategy that works for other people fails for you. Try something else. Keep at it and be creative. You can and will find a strategy to avoid temptation. Be creative about the strategies and make sure you carry out your plans. You will find that a little creativity and effort will often solve a temptation.
By the time you get to this part of the Kit, you may have been smoke-free for five days, seven days, ten days, or even longer. Well done! You’re doing a great job. And you’re probably feeling more and more confident about being a nonsmoker.
But there probably have been several times when you’ve been tempted to have “just one” cigarette. When the temptation is really high, you may think to yourself, “If I have just one cigarette, it’s no big deal.”
Don’t kid yourself! Even one cigarette is a big deal, and it will hurt your chances of quitting. One cigarette can easily lead to two, and before long, you’re buying a pack, and soon a carton.
Having even one cigarette reduces your chances of success. You need to be determined that you will not smoke, not at all – not even a puff.
Most successful quitters, however, have failed a few times before they got it right. For many, relapsing and trying again is part of learning to be a nonsmoker.
So be as determined as you can be. Don’t start letting yourself have a cigarette here, a cigarette there. But, if you do have a setback, don’t get down on yourself. You are still on your way toward eventually being a nonsmoker.
What Happens if You Slip?
It is not the end of the world. Many people slip up and have a cigarette once or twice, but quickly get back on track. So if you do slip, it doesn’t mean that you’ve failed. If you get down on yourself, you aren’t giving yourself a chance. So give yourself a break – learn to forgive yourself. If you get down on yourself, you aren’t giving yourself a chance.
If you really look at it, quitting is a process and backsliding is just part of this whole process. Just make sure you find out what went wrong that you picked up a cigarette – and next time you’ll do better.
Millions of people who have quit smoking slip and smoke. And many of these smokers still end up quitting. Here are some steps that you can take to fight slip-ups:
• Stop smoking immediately.
• Take action. Throw away the cigarettes or leave the place where you smoked. Treat your situation like an emergency and get out of it.
Once you’ve removed yourself form the situation, look back and consider what went wrong. Where were you? What were you doing? Who were you with? Was it your mood that made you vulnerable?
• Analyze the situation and learn what caused the slip-up.
• Prepare yourself for the next time. Ask yourself what you’ll do if this situation happens again.
• If the problem was a temptation that got the best of you, then come up with a specific plan to fight the temptation next time.
If you have been using nicotine replacement therapy, take time now to review the package instructions. Maybe you need an increase in your dosage or follow the suggestions on how to use these products more effectively. If you’re unsure, you might contact your doctor or pharmacist for guidance.
It’s not always easy to get out of a slip-up. Even one slip can plunge people into a sense of helplessness and a feeling that failure is inevitable.
The reason this happens is that there’s a part of you (your “inner culprit”) that would actually be relieved by proof that your case is hopeless, and the lapse proves it. Then you can just sit back, relax, recognize the age-old fact that “we all gotta go sometime,” and simply accept your smoking, and get on with enjoying life.
People know that this isn’t really true. We all do “gotta go sometime,” but smoking makes us go a lot faster than we would have if we didn’t smoke. That is an undeniable medical fact. Perhaps at this stage, you should go back and review all those depressing facts about what smoking does to you, and how it kills you faster.
Don’t let your “inner culprit” allow you to justify smoking. Here are two ways of fighting back:
• Recognize that quitting smoking is much more important than most of the other things you do for your health.
• Remember that most ex-smokers relapsed several times before they succeeded, so you’re just kidding yourself if you think your case is impossible.
Reviewing Your Progress
It’s not easy to break a long-term habit like smoking. But you’re doing it! If you’ve reached this point, you’re motivated and determined. But the battle is not won yet. You will have to stay alert.
One way to do this is to monitor your progress each and every day. Get a sheet of paper and at the end of the day, write down all the difficult situations that you faced, and the coping strategies that you used successfully. Then make a list of things you will do during the next day, instead of smoking. Get in the habit of reviewing your progress each and every day. This will be a great record of your wonderful achievement, and it will provide you with loads of encouragement that what you’re doing actually works, and that you have the ability to fight back and win over the urge to smoke.
Also, don’t forget to enjoy the rewards that you promised yourself each week and each month you go without smoking.
Stay alert most of all, because relapses can occur for several months after quitting. Those old associations between cigarettes and all the times you used to smoke have not all gone away. Just as with all the other hard and important things you’ve done in your life, you need to give this one the attention it deserves until you’ve really got it licked.
But it is not just struggling and more struggling. Each day you go without smoking puts you another day closer to becoming a confirmed nonsmoker – for life. That will take about 6 months. But think of something that happened 6 moths ago. Seems like yesterday, right? It will get easier and you will get through the next weeks and months to arrive at your goal – nonsmoking – and not missing cigarettes.
