Oh how I tried to quit smoking over the next 25+ years. However, quitting was always something everyone else seemed to be able to do, never me. Sure, I used to try - using gum or patches mainly, but even had a go with acupuncture and hypnosis. I really used to think that if I got enough ‘tools’ together I’d sail through it. I really did used to think quitting was just about weaning myself off nicotine and nothing else. I recognised there was a ‘habit’ element to it all, having a cig at certain times eg after a meal, but never for one minute did I realise that each cig was inextricably intertwined with every moment of my day, every feeling I experienced and every emotion I was going through.
The 10 or 15 cigarettes I smoked a day for so long had very gradually stepped up to 20-25 a day, and sometimes even more than that. During the last 5 years I’d experienced being made redundant from my job, the death of my mum, plus some health worries. There was always an excuse to keep on smoking ‘because I was stressed’, or ‘under pressure’, or ‘depressed’. I honestly believed that cigarettes were helping me to calm down, cheer me up, see things more clearly, relax, get me moving - you name it and there was a valid reason (in my mind) to keep on smoking.
I didn’t like being a smoker though. I didn’t like the fact that I was the odd one out in my circle of friends, and I knew it wasn’t doing my health any good either. I had smoked most of my adult life and had somehow avoided getting a cough. However, I realised some months ago that my chest was feeling congested and tight sometimes, that I didn’t have much energy. And one day I stopped and worked out - honestly- just how much I was spending a month on my nicotine addiction.
Around Christmas time in 2000, I started to look into other ways of quitting. I wasn’t even sure what was out there, but I did know that tackling the nicotine addiction alone wasn’t going to get me very far. I knew there was more to it than that, more to it than just ‘kicking the habit’ - but couldn’t find any answers. I found one or two ‘Stop smoking’ sites on the Internet at About.Com, and started to visit them and did a lot of reading up. It was all very helpful and interesting, but still I couldn’t find the answers I was looking for. One day I ventured into a smoking cessation chatroom at About.com (my first ever time in a chatroom - and I was nervous!), and the first person I met in there was ddsteve (who went on to become my 'quitcoach' ). In chatting to him I started to learn about cognitive quitting and about a very different way of tackling my smoking habit/behaviour.
I set a date to quit, and worked towards it, feeling very excited about regaining control over my life. I smoked my last cigarette on February 24th 2001, and enjoyed stubbing out that last one. I have a great memory of that cigarette - maybe because I was so keen to start my quit I had found I wasn’t enjoying smoking any more, and that last one actually tasted rough and made me cough.Through Steve`s knowledge, skills and support over the ensuing months I became comfortably -and I believe permanently- quit. Learning about my smoking behaviour and how to change my responses to smoking urge situations was the key. Learning how to understand what my body needed and addressing it, rather than making an automatic association with a cigarette was another.
This time I was developing skills to take an active part in managing my quit instead of ‘hanging in there’ and hoping for the best.
I’ve had some amazing support throughout my quit, which is still there just as strongly, and this has made all the difference to me reaching this point. In previous quits I had never been able to last for longer than a few days, but this time I am not only determined to stay smoke free, but believe I now have a blueprint for staying quit - knowledge and skills to keep me on track. Best of all are the quitbuddies I`ve made along the way, some of whom have become good friends, and who`ve kept me going in some tough times. I now help other people online to quit smoking, through email and chat, and find it really rewarding.
I said at the outset that I used to think quitting was just about weaning myself off nicotine, and didn’t appreciate that it was much more than that. I came to learn that smoking was bound up in most aspects of my daily life, that I’d spent my life hiding behind cigarettes, letting them mask my true feelings. Cigarettes started, punctuated and finished most things I did throughout my days. I used cigarettes as a response to everything I felt - joy, pain, sadness, excitement, fear, stress, apprehension. Once I quit I realised I was finding out so much about myself - who I am, how I really feel about things, how I deal with things. I find out more about myself each day, and now I don’t need to hide behind a cigarette to face a difficult situation. The stress/upset/anger etc haven't miraculously disappeared from my life - but how I respond to and deal with them now has changed beyond recognition.......