Smoking Relapse

By Tim Frymyer

You've made your plan to quit smoking. Your support network is in place; you've thrown away the cigarettes; the calendar is marked; you're confident that this time will be the time you quit smoking for good. No longer a prisoner to nicotine. The plan will work.

After one day you start having withdrawal symptoms. By day three, you're about to pull your hair out. The symptoms seem too strong. They are coming at you from all sides. First of all, you're starving. "That can't be good," you think. Then you start to feel anxious and nervous. The hands get a little shaky. Now you're starting to feel depressed. Then you start thinking about the cigarette. "If I could only have one cigarette, it would make everything go away." The urge starts to become greater and greater.

In confusion you address each symptom in the order it arrives. You order a pizza and then try yoga to calm down. Next you play some kind of video game to keep your hands under control, but the game starts to make you feel more anxious. Then you reach for the nicotine gum and hope the urge will subside.

Does this sound familiar? Do you start to think, "It can't be done. Anyone suffering like this can't quit successfully, right? I'm a failure." Then you pick up a cigarette and feed the beast within you. The symptoms go away and so does your motivation. You convince yourself that you'll try again in a couple of months; maybe next year.

But what if I told you that withdrawal symptoms were normal; what if I said that they would pass over time? What if I told you there was only one symptom you really needed to worry about? Could you hang in there; could you see it through to the end?

Some researchers have discovered that one symptom in particular seems to be the one we should be worrying about the most. They looked at hunger, physical symptoms, negative affect, and urge to smoke as the most common symptoms associated with smoking cessation. So which of these fell out as the one most directly related to relapse, both in the short term and long term?

It turns out that urge to smoke was the most troublesome issue which led to relapse in the most cases. Makes sense when you think about it. The urge is the toughest part of smoking cessation. Not only is there a physiological dependency at work with nicotine, but a behavioral one as well. This is what makes addiction so difficult to master.

But what is nicotine? Why is it so good at keeping us wanting cigarettes after we've decided to quit them? These are great questions which need answered if you're going to have any hope of quitting successfully. You have to know what you're dealing with and then you'll be empowered to achieve success.

Fortunately, we've got the answer to the question: ' what is nicotine?' We provide all the information you need to quit successfully. We help with all the aspects of smoking cessation from designing a quitting smoking timeline, to showing you how addicted to nicotine you are with our addiction quiz. There is so much for you. Give it a try. You'll be glad you did.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tim_Frymyer

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How I Gave Up Smoking

By Linda J Hales

I decided that I was sick of smoking. It was becoming far too expensive and was not doing my health any good, so it was time to give it up. I knew I would not be able to go cold turkey from previous experience, so I decided the best way to go about it was to gradually cut down on how many cigarettes I smoked a day until I could go without them. I was roughly smoking about 30 to 35 a day. I also needed to get rid of the bad habits I had with smoking too, to help me cut down.

The bad habits - lighting a cigarette up in bed as soon as I opened my eyes in the morning or during the night, having a cigarette every time I had a cup of coffee and having a cigarette every time I had something to eat.

The first step I made was to get rid of the ashtray next to my bed and leave my cigarettes in another room, so that I could not have one as soon as I opened my eyes. If I wanted one, I would have to get out of bed to get them, so I found this habit very easy to break as I couldn't be bothered getting out of bed to get them, so I would just wait until I got up. The next step, was, as I always had to have a cigarette every time I had a cup of coffee, was to learn to drink a cup without a cigarette. I would only have to have a sip or two before I would be lighting up, so I started making myself finish a cup before I lit up. As it was only a habit, it was not that hard to do, so it wasn't very long before I could drink a cuppa without a cigarette and could even wait for awhile after the coffee before lighting up. I also had to have a cigarette every time I ate something, even if it was only a couple of spoonfuls of something. The minute I finished the last mouthful, I would light up, so I started making myself wait for about 5 minutes after I had finished before I had a cigarette and gradually without realising it, I could go longer and longer after eating without a cigarette.

OK. THAT'S THE EASY PART .

Now it's time to cut down. Making myself go a certain amount of time between each cigarettes seemed like a good way of helping me to cut down and helped me keep a check on how many I had a day. I needed to be realistic though. It was no good making it too hard or I would give up, so I made it relatively easy at first. Fifteen minutes to start with, between each cigarette before I could have one, gradually increasing the time between each one once I became used to going that amount of time without a cigarette. It was fairly hard at times and also got quite monotonous watching the time continuously. Some minutes seemed to drag at times when I was hanging out for a cigarette. Persistence and determination was needed to keep going on with it. I few times I cheated and had a cigarette sooner than I was supposed to, but overall I stuck to the times I was meant to and gradually it became easier and easier to go longer and longer between cigarettes. Eventually I found I was counting the hours between cigarettes and spreading it out so that I would only be smoking 5 a day. There was a few days when I might have had a couple of extra ones, depending on what sort of day I had, but that was OK, as long as I stuck to 5 a day as much as possible. For awhile I was quite happy to smoke 5 a day, but gradually cut that down to 3, then 2, then none. It has now been just over 2 years since I quit and I am glad that I did. Food taste better, I am fitter, healthy, have more energy and more money in my pocket. They say you never get over smoking and they are right because there are times when I miss it and occasionally feel like a cigarette and I know I could so easily take it up again, but I won't because I DON'T WANT TO BECOME ADDICTED TO SMOKING EVER AGAIN.

Open the door to quitting - doortoquitting.com.au

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Linda_J_Hales

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