You’ve made some significant changes in your life. But quitting smoking is tricky business. In one way, it is very simple – you simply stop putting those white cylinders to your lips. But it is also very complicated. You had used smoking to cope with all sorts of challenges, from feeling energetic in the morning, to getting out of a bad mood during the middle of the day, to calming down before trying to go to sleep. Smoking was woven into many different areas in your life.
Having quit, you have learned to look at yourself, your habits, and your habits in a whole new way. And because quitting smoking was so hard, you may feel a particular sense of pride or satisfaction in your ability to have really done it.
One of the reasons this is especially true is because quitting smoking requires the vigilance mentioned earlier. You have found that you need to stay off cigarettes every day to stay quit. This has required an extraordinary commitment on your part.
Often meeting one challenge makes us feel more confident in our ability to meet others. This certainly applies to quitting smoking. What you’ve accomplished is a lot harder than most of the goals people set for themselves, such as to exercise more, eat healthier foods, or get their taxes done early. Now that you feel like a success with quitting smoking, you may want to take on some other challenges you’ve been hesitant about.
If you gained more weight than you wanted to in quitting, now may be the time to begin focusing your attention on losing it. But a word of caution: it is far more important to stay off cigarettes than to lose 10 or even 20 pounds that you may have gained. So if working on losing weight makes you want to smoke, stop worrying about your weight until you have completely destroyed your urges to smoke.
Make sure you tell your doctor that you have quit smoking. Don’t get mad just because your doctor does not remember that you were trying to quit. Most doctors do not keep track of their patients who are trying to quit. That’s why you should bring up the subject. There are several good reasons for this.
First, the fact that you’ve quit may help your doctor and you discover how being a nonsmoker can improve other problems for which you are treated. Your doctor might also want to change or adjust some of your medications now that you’re no longer smoking.
Second, if you’ve gained some weight, you want to make sure the doctor knows it’s “for a good cause” – especially if you have diabetes, hypertension, or a history of heart disease. It’s important for your doctor to know your weight gain has come about from quitting smoking. Otherwise, you may be pressured to lose it too soon, which could jeopardize your new status as a nonsmoker.
Another reason to tell your doctor is to encourage the two of you to take other steps to improve your health. Doctors love working with patients who do things to help themselves. When your doctor finds out you’ve quit smoking, he or she will be happy to work with you further to improve your health.
If you are trying to tell someone you care about how much you would like them to quit, you might try a simple statement like:
“I like you (or love you, or care about you) and want to have a lot of time with you. But I’m afraid smoking could take you away much too soon.”
They will not be insulted by your telling them you’d like to spend more time with them. And the statement of your fear of losing them makes your point without making them feel you are telling them what to do. You might want to end with a simple offer of help:
“I’d be willing to do whatever I can to help if you want to try it.”
But make sure that this does not sound like nagging.
If they look away when you proudly announce that you’ve made it three months without a cigarette, you will need a subtle approach. Try telling them four things:
You would never try to push them to quit.
You really were unsure about it, but now you are glad you quit.
What got you serious about quitting was realizing that smoking is so much more dangerous than all the other things we do to ourselves.
You’d be happy to talk to them about it, if they ever thought that would be helpful.
So be kind to smokers. Most (about 90%) would like to quit and wish they’d never started. Your goal now is to help them quit, just as this Kit has helped you quit. Some may even be ready to get the Kit and start on their own.
