SolveYourProblem eLearning Series: Smoking
I'd Rather Not Die From Smoking
Learn The Harmful Effects & Quit Smoking Now
( 27 pages )

Quit Smoking Support:
How Counseling & Rewards Help

Counseling

Counseling is one way in which you can strengthen your resolve to quit smoking. It is not required that you consult a professional counselor. If you have a doctor or a dentist who you trust, that person is more than enough. In the initial stages, ask the person to detail fill you in on all the harmful effects of smoking. Then the person can monitor your efforts and your progress and can give you helpful hints as well.

You might also consider possibilities like group counseling or telephone counseling. Group counseling has a wonderful effect, because there is nothing that feels as good as having others who face the same problems that you are encountering. When you hear the fears of others, and how difficult it is for them, you will feel surprisingly encouraged. Group counseling will provide you a wonderful arena to compare notes with other fellow quitters and you can watch and monitor your progress.

Try reassuring others, it has a wonderful effect on you. When you talk convincingly to others, without knowing it you are really convincing yourself as well. This will go a long way towards building up your own confidence that you will succeed.

Telephone counseling is also a possibility that many people tend to ignore. The best thing about telephone counseling is that it can be done at any time without too much of a strain. Just consider the possibility, it is not always easy to dash off to your counselor when you feel the urge to smoke, know you are not supposed to and end up feeling depressed about it. On the other hand if, at such a moment you can just pick up your telephone and dial your counselor’s number, you can get what you want and with the minimum loss of time and effort.

A Financial Reward

Sure cigarettes are expensive, but because people buy them in small quantities, the expense doesn’t seem like much. So, what you can do is start saving the money you do not spend buying packets and cartons of cigarettes. Save the money for something special and if you can, try to make it special for your family as well.

Promise the kids something like a trip to Disneyland or a cruise vacation. The advantage of making such public declarations is that you have all the more reason to refrain from buying cigarettes. Your kids too will be very enthusiastic about reminding you not to splurge on cigarettes and there is something to look forward to for all the family.

What if you do not have a family to save for? Well, go ahead and save for yourself! You'll find something you want but have refrained from buying because it might have been slightly out of your budget. So, now you can add the money that you are not spending on cigarettes to get yourself that little something.

The point that I am trying to drive home is that you should be rewarded for your efforts. Your attempt to stop smoking should not become a sort of punishment, but must promise better things for you later.

Reducing The Number Of Cigarettes You Smoke

This again is another pitfall. There is often a misconception about quitting. Many people believe that instead of stopping cold turkey they should try to bring down the number of cigarettes that they smoke. Wrong! That is not the way that it should be done. If you try to reduce the number of cigarettes that you smoke, you will still be smoking and that just doesn’t help.

Oh, and if you are still carrying cigarettes with you, then you are in fact tempting yourself. You may have reduced the number of cigarettes you smoke, but since you still have a box with you, you are in fact waiting for the slightest provocation and that number will shoot up once again.

What is it that makes you smoke? Tension, excitement, anxiety, problems, the need to unwind, stress? Can you ever really free yourself from any of these? The next time one of these stressors hit you with a wallop, that'll become your green light for you to whip out that packet, light one of them and start puffing away to glory. The excuse that will be reverberating in your mind is that “it’s just this once, just to get over this small problem.”

And then before you know it, you will be back to smoking the same number of cigarettes.

So let me emphasize that point again, you have to quit once and for all if you are really serious about quitting. It just does not work if you try to reduce the number. The number will never become zero. I have met many people who say, “I used to smoke 6 packets a day but now I’m down to just 2 packets a day.” I look at them out of the corner of my eye and I do not say anything to them though the message on my face is, “but you are still puffing away like a steam engine aren’t you?”

Water Flows Down...

It’s strange isn’t it how everything in this world always keeps coming down. Sir Isaac Newton explained this phenomenon using the laws of gravity. But I must admit that I am still amazed how everything in this world tries to reach the lowest possible point.

If you have ever watched water flow you will understand what I am talking about. A waterfall never thunders upwards, a stream always flows downwards (remember the nursery rhyme, “Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream”) even a tiny pool of water on a table tries to find the easiest way downwards.

So what about it? You must be wondering what the connection is between quitting smoking and flowing water. There is a very deep connection as you will see for yourself. There is an unwritten rule in this world that everything must try and find the easiest route downwards. When you take something to a higher state, it becomes unstable and tries to find the easiest route downwards.

Over here we are trying to precisely the same thing. We are trying to take you from a lower state (the state of being a smoker) to a higher state, (the state of being a non-smoker). So you must bear in mind that it is the easiest thing in the world for you to relapse and again pick up that packet of cigarettes. It is going to take a lot of effort and willpower on your part to refrain from smoking. That’s why I keep saying that you will need all the support and encouragement while you are still working at it.

But then you might wonder if you have to keep up that willpower and constantly keep battling against the urge to smoke for the rest of your life. The answer is no. Once you have given up the habit once and for all, once you have overcome all the withdrawal symptoms, then you have arrived. You will automatically pick up a new lifestyle and there will be no room for cigarettes in that new life.

You will start to realize how much better your life has become without cigarettes. You will feel the power in your hands, you will be in absolute control of your life and at that stage there is absolutely not coming back. Once you have tasted the sweetness of success, there is no going back. Then you are safe and there is no fear of relapsing after that.

The whole thing is like a threshold. When you are controlling yourself for the first time, you are at the very middle of the threshold. You can fall upwards or downwards and it is much easier to fall downwards. This is where you need the support, help and encouragement of others. But gradually as you overcome the urge, you advance further and further upward and once you are beyond a certain point, then you have reached the point of no return and then there is no going back.

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