Getting the Fear

If you are a smoker you may or may not recognise the following, it depends on how you percieve your smoking. This does not just apply to smokers and smoking it can apply to any addiction but let us stick to smoking for now.

Why don't smokers who know that smoking is killing them just stop doing it? Why on earth would someone commit suicide slowly when it is in their power to stop and live healthily instead? Reasonable and significant questions which usually get answered flippantly by the obvious "because they are addicted". I say flippantly because often no thought goes into answering those questions, either by smokers or non-smokers. It is assumed that a smoker is a hopeless addict and that is reason enough to dismiss putting any effort into reasoning why a smoker can not quit.

In my experience there is only ONE reason why a smoker can not quit smoking, just one. No matter what number of reasons a smoker will give for continuing to smoke, the real reason is that they are frightened to quit. Many smokers will probably not agree with this point of view, especially the hardcore that take the view that smoking is what they want to do and it is their right. Consider this though, how do you feel as a smoker at the end of a night out when you are running low on cigarettes and do not know where you can get some, when you are faced with visiting a new place, perhaps for a holiday, is one of your first thoughts,"where can I smoke?". I can certainly say that in my own experience, running out of cigarettes with no way of knowing where some more would come from would at best cause irritation, at worst panic. When faced with new surroundings I would actually visualise myself smoking and planning where I could smoke.

This is what I mean by the fear, the smoker is so frightened of being unable to smoke that under certain circumstances it takes over their thoughts, becomes their focus, but one they don't discuss, because the fact that smoking has such an influence on their lives is also frightening. The smoker will then cover their fear with excuses.

The fear of being without smoking is the one reason that smokers will not quit. When smokers realise this and start to face their fear is when they can begin the road to quitting. If you smoke start to face the fear, realise it is there, realise that is what is keeping you smoking.

STOP SMOKING NOW