Over 1000 Americans die every day of smoking-related diseases. Quitting reduces or eliminates all of the harmful effects of smoking. But all too many who quit, go back to smoking.
Quitting smoking takes practice. It takes more practice for some people than for others. In fact, almost everyone who tries to quit slips up once or twice and smokes a cigarette.
Having a couple of cigarettes is one thing. It’s a slip-up. And you should not get depressed over the fact that you had a cigarette.
But having a couple, then a couple more, then a couple each day –is quite another thing. Before you know it, you’re back to smoking at least a few cigarettes every day. It’s a judgment call, but at that point you’ve probably gone from slip to relapse.
If you realize that you have relapsed, don’t get down on yourself. It doesn’t mean you’ve failed. Give yourself a break. And forgive yourself. Millions of people who have quit smoking don’t succeed on the first try, or even a second or third try. Mark Twain said: “Quitting smoking is easy. I’ve done it hundreds of times.”
But many ex-smokers who relapse do end up quitting for good. So each time you try to quit, you make a real step forward. Research has shown that those who try to quit make at least five unsuccessful attempts. Most of these smokers who tried to quit started smoking again within a month’s time. Many said they began smoking again because they faced a stressful situation and needed a cigarette to cope. Being around others who smoke was also a common reason for resuming the smoking habit.
How to Get Back on Track
If your most recent attempt didn’t succeed, what can you do about your smoking now? You have two choices:
• If you have smoked just a few cigarettes for two or three days, and you feel you had made some good progress toward successfully quitting, treat this setback as a temporary slip. Stop smoking immediately! Throw away all your cigarettes! Find out what went wrong, and do better this time around. Remember, this is an emergency. You must act now.
• If you have gone back to smoking several cigarettes a day for more than a couple of days, you may conclude that you have relapsed. At this point, you need to decide whether to re-start your quitting program immediately, or take a few days’ break to get your thoughts together.
What is important is the fact that you must quit with determination and clarity. You may do better if you take some time to gather your thoughts, review your reasons and plans for quitting and start over.
Keep in mind the following facts:
• Slips and relapses are often part of the path to success.
• Half of the smokers (millions of heavy smokers) have already quit.
• Quitting is more important than the other things you do for your health.
• You really want to quit!
If you have relapses, you should consider sticking to your commitment to quit. You should do an immediate re-start, to get right back on track. You have invested considerable time and effort in your success thus far. You may not have finished your plan, but you have made a good start! Don’t give up now! After all, your time off cigarettes has already cleared much of the nicotine out of your system. You’ve survived the worst days of nicotine withdrawal. And you’ve already had some good practice in coping with smoking triggers and in using creative alternatives to give your substitutes for cigarettes when you get the urge to light up.
Fast Way to Re-Quit!
Every cigarette you don’t smoke, every time you say, “No!” is a small victory. Every small victory helps you beat your old smoking habit. Practice makes perfect. If you slipped up, it means you didn’t quite handle a temptation you faced. It doesn’t mean that you are a failure or that you are addicted and can’t quit.
So before you go any further, add up your victories:
• On a calendar, check off the days you went without cigarettes.
• Record the days on which you smoked one, two, or more cigarettes.
• Give the reason why you smoked.
• Write down what steps you could have taken that might have helped you to avoid smoking in that situation.
The goal is to pinpoint what went wrong each time you slipped and had a cigarette. Forget guilt and blame. Instead, focus on what caused the slips and what you will do differently next time. For example, you may find that your slips occurred only in the evening when you were home relaxing and watching television. An alternative can be that you have some substitutes ready while watching television in the evening, perhaps busy work or some hobby you can do at the same time, or perhaps some reasonably healthy snacks.
Long-term, successful ex-smokers almost never puff. Virtually all of them feel that it’s easier to have none, than one.
Mental Preparation
When you first decided to quit smoking, you began the process of learning to be a nonsmoker. You thought about the benefits smoking had offered you (such as stress relief, weight control, social acceptance). You also became aware of the negatives (the health risks, the expense, the loss of control over your life). Then you identified alternative activities you could use to replace smoking in your life. The next step was to begin practicing those alternatives.
You’ve had some practice over the past few weeks, but you’re still learning. This learning stage will continue until you get really good at nonsmoking. That usually takes at least several weeks, but often two or three months. So if you’ve stumbled recently, it doesn’t mean you can’t accomplish your goal. It simply means you will have to continue in the intensive learning stage for at least another month or two.
You will probably go back to smoking if you tell yourself too often that you’re deprived. So talk to yourself. Talk about the benefits of not smoking. Remind yourself that you are healthier now that you are a nonsmoker. Remember, this has been a great accomplishment. You will begin to like yourself as a nonsmoker. It’s in your power to let either deprivation or determination take over. The best thing to tell yourself is: “I can do it! I can keep myself from smoking!”
When you’re in a difficult situation and feel like smoking, tell yourself, “The urge will pass whether I smoke or not.”
If you’re at a social gathering and someone tempts you by offering you a cigarette, think to yourself, “I can say, No! I feel good when I stand up for what I believe in.”
Here are some things to say to yourself when you want to smoke:
• “The urge will pass whether I smoke or not.”
• “I’m not going through the pain of quitting again!”
• “I like my body when I’m not smoking.”
• “I’ll distract myself until the urge passes.”
• “I deserve credit for quitting smoking.”
If you’ve ever participated in sports, you will understand the value of this mental preparation. Just as athletes get mentally ready for a big event, you will have to “psych yourself up” for the smoking challenges you’ll face each day.
Visualization is another tool that athletes use. They “see” themselves scoring the winning run or clearing the high hurdle. In the same way, you can visualize yourself as having achieved the goal you have in mind – becoming a nonsmoker. Then act as if it were true. Here’s how you can do it:
• Choose a positive phrase you are willing to repeat to yourself each day.
• Visualize yourself in a new situation and continue to repeat that phrase until you begin to believe it.
Here are a few examples of phrases that you can use:
• “I feel better since I’ve stopped smoking.”
• I feel a lot more in control of myself.”
• I am so glad that my world no longer revolves around cigarettes.”
• There’s nothing that could ever get me to go back to smoking.”
• I’m doing this because I finally decided I want to.”
Encouragement From Family and Friends
Just as athletes rely on team members and encourage each other, you also have a team – your family and friends – who will cooperate and encourage you in your efforts to win. Take time to talk with your family and friends.
At this point, you probably have a better idea of who is really helpful in guiding you around temptations, or just understanding what you’re going through. Follow these leads. Make a point of getting more of their encouragement.
If you have one key family member or friend whom you’ve looked to for help, review how that’s gone. Because you’ve slipped up in your nonsmoking plan, you may have hesitated to keep in touch with that person. Maybe you’re too embarrassed to call and admit your problems. But chances are good that your key person will be a lot more understanding than you may fear.
If your friends or family are ex-smokers, they will know how good it feels and will be happy to give you all the encouragement they can. And if they had trouble quitting, they can make you feel understood. Maybe with their help you can come up with new strategies to help you win.
Also, think about your family situation. Under the best of circumstances, your family members will be rooting for you all the way. But maybe your spouse or your parents are smokers themselves, and they may unknowingly resent your efforts, or feel guilty about not trying to quit with you.
If this has been a problem in your family, it could be the reason you’ve had trouble staying off cigarettes. Studies show, for example, that those who fail to quit or who relapse are more likely to be married to a smoking spouse and/or to have many friends and family members who smoke.
Try to think of your quitting as separate from your family’s smoking. It’s their right to smoke, and it’s your right to quit. You cannot make your spouse or family members quit smoking. So focus on cooperation and support from other family and friends who don’t smoke.
But of course you don’t want to avoid the people you love. Try to separate your quitting from their smoking. Make them cooperate and not angry.
You can still expect your family to cooperate with your quitting. You might want to negotiate with them about:
• Limiting their smoking in specific situations that are heavy temptations for you, like in the kitchen after dinner. You can’t ask them not to smoke, but you can identify situations in which it would be a big help if they didn’t smoke.
• When it’s possible, ask them to smoke outside the house (perhaps on the front porch, back patio, or terrace). But it’s their house too, so you may want to take a walk when they’re smoking. Try to keep this friendly and cooperative, not demanding.
• When they do smoke inside, ask them to smoke in rooms that have windows or fans to send the smoke outside.
• Ask them not to smoke in the car.
• Ask them to sit with you in nonsmoking areas.
Some of this may seem like asking a lot. But when you think about it, quitting smoking is such an advantage for your health that it doesn’t make too much sense for others to do anything that will stand in your way. But attitudes and family patterns change slowly. Also, your smoking relatives may be so conscious of their own wishes to stop smoking (whether or not they acknowledge it) that asking them to limit their smoking, or even the fact that you’re quitting, may annoy them. So you will need to cooperate and compromise with your family. One approach that may be helpful is to stress that you are just asking them to cooperate with you for the first month or so, while you get used to life without cigarettes. It’s not that you are asking them never to smoke in front of you again.
What Else You Can Do
Smokers who are thinking of quitting often worry that they will be too stressed out, or that they will gain too much weight. Did this happen to you? If so, go back to the sections on stress management and weight control in this Kit.
Exercise is a good remedy for both problems. So if you haven’t been getting regular exercise, think about doing about 30 minutes (three times a week) of moderate exercise. Even going for a daily walk for fifteen or thirty minutes is great exercise. It’s a stress fighter and a creative alternative during the times when you otherwise might light up.
You don’t need elaborate equipment to exercise. You don’t even need to join a gym (although it is a good idea, if it appeals to you). Just get out and walk, or ride a bike, or go for a swim. The idea is to have fun – active fun.
One other tool that you can use to help yourself is to plan rewards and celebrations. Right now, you may tend to be a bit hard on yourself. Maybe you thought about rewards for your progress, but if you’ve had some slips, you may really think there’s not much to celebrate now.
This is just the time to consider a different approach. Maybe you need to lighten up and go easy on yourself. You probably have made a lot more progress than you would have thought a month or two ago. See if you can get into a generous spirit with yourself and give yourself the credit you deserve for the progress you’ve made.
Forget about words like failure or will power. You haven’t failed, you’re still practicing. Use rewards to help you set small goals. Don’t let small victories go by unnoticed. It reminds you that you’ve done far too much work to go back to smoking.
Starting Over
If you feel you need a break before tackling quitting again, that’s not a problem. Remember, the average person who succeeds as a nonsmoker may quit a few times and then relapse before finally getting it right. You can learn from your relapse, regroup, and get it right.
Although you feel that you’re not ready to quit right now, don’t put the thought out of your mind. Before you forget, take a few notes about your experience this time, so you’ll have something to build on next time. Here are some questions to ask yourself:
• What was the best part of my effort?
• What did I do that was most helpful?
• As I was working on quitting what reasons for quitting and benefits seemed most important or meaningful to me?
• What problems turned up that I didn’t expect?
• Was I bothered by a major life change or stress that is unlikely to occur in the future?
• Where did I get cigarettes when I slipped up? Did someone give me one? Or did I find a hidden stash at home or at the office?
• What do I think is the most important thing for me to remember the next time I quit?
Here are some other factors to consider in trying to learn from your efforts:
1) Timing. Maybe the time of the year wasn’t right for you to quit. If you quit in the summer this time round, when you take vacations and have lots of free time, you might want to plan your next Quit Date for the winter, when your time and activities are more structured.
2) Quitting group. Some people enjoy and do well working together with others who are also trying to quit. Next time, you might try joining a group program. Look for your local chapter of the American Lung Association for clinics in your area.
3) Nicotine replacement. If you did not use nicotine replacement product this time (nicotine gum, patches, nasal spray or nicotine inhaler), you might want to consider doing so next time. Some of these products are available over-the-counter, without a prescription. If you did use nicotine replacement and it didn’t help enough, ask yourself whether:
• You should have used it longer, or used a stronger dosage.
• You used it correctly.
• You may have relied too heavily on the nicotine replacement and not enough on doing things to organize your quitting, maximize your motivation, and combat temptation. Nicotine replacement is not a “magic tonic.” You may want to consult your doctor or pharmacist on this. You might also ask them if other medications might be helpful for you, like Zyban.
4) Doctor’s advice. Just because you don’t need a prescription for nicotine gum or nicotine patches, doesn’t mean you should not consider seeing your doctor. If you didn’t check with your doctor this time, you might plan to do so the next time you’re ready to quit. Your doctor may also advise you to use one of the prescription nicotine replacement products, such as nicotine spray or inhaler.
5) Weight gain. Did increased weight cause you to go back to smoking? That’s a common occurrence. You might want to speak with a nutritionist to plan a weight-control diet. That way, you’ll have weight control tools ready the next time you quit.
6) Exercise. It can be a real help. If you haven’t exercised much, it may have been hard to get it started at the same time you were trying to quit. You might want to start an exercise plan now, before quitting again. Then, when you quit, you’ll have exercise to fall back on.
7) Moods and relapses. Many people relapse when they are feeling anxious or sad. If that’s what happened to you, you might to work on your stress management. Lots of people control their moods by smoking. When they quit, they can be surprised that they have feelings of real sadness or anxiety that they hadn’t realized before. It shows how effective nicotine is in blocking feelings. Consult your doctor, or see a counselor if you’re having problems with your feelings after you quit.
Finally take the time to think about the pros and cons of quitting smoking. When you try again, you want to be clear on your own reasons for wanting to quit. And you want to be clear that you want to quit, not that someone or something is driving you to it. A half-hearted, renewed attempt to quit is likely to end in relapse, which runs the risk of lowering your motivation and confidence. Give your quitting the attention it and you deserve. Start fresh – go back through all the previous chapters so that you will be clear that you want to quit smoking, and that you’re confident that you will quit smoking. You have already made a lot of progress and learned a lot. You can do it.
