Quitting Smoking Can Be So Hard

Watching television last night I was reminded how difficult and daunting it can be to stop smoking even when faced with a life threatening situation. I was watching a reality show about Accident and Emergency departments in hospitals. A patient was admitted with severe chest pains and it was later confirmed he had suffered a heart attack, he was 42 years old......42!. He was overweight and he smoked. When he was inteviewed at home after making a recovery he explained that he had adopted a healthier lifestyle. He had changed his diet and ate much more healthily. He had not, however, stopped smoking.

It is to be applauded that this person made the choice to change his diet, accepting that one of the reasons for his heart attack was what and how much he ate. It amazed me though that he did not apply the same reasoning to his smoking. Smoking had made a hugely greater contribution to his situation than his diet, why couldn't he see this?

Then I remembered what it is like to be a smoker, the fear of being without, the terror of facing a life without cigarettes, terror all caused by the mental conditioning that comes with addiction to nicotine. Even when faced with death from heart disease at 42 this guy could not let go of his smoking. That is very powerful mental conditioning. This is the sort of person I wish I could communicate with directly, to show them there is a way out. All I can hope is that people read this blog and take some sort of inspiration to change their lives.

Start changing your life and take the first step here My Free Report - 10 Things to do Before You Quit Smoking

4 Months After Quitting Smoking

I have been smoke free for four months now. It is now starting to feel normal to be a non-smoker.I went to a party last night and spent most of the night in the garden (it is Summer after all), this meant being surrounded by people smoking. Just after I stopped smoking this would have made me feel very uncomfortable, very nervous about how I would deal with the situation. I think the uncertainty of how I would behave is more unsettling than actually dealing with being around smokers. Four months on and with the experience to support me I now feel quite comfortable around smokers and safe in the knowledge that I am in no way tempted to smoke.

I also got off my high non-smoker horse last night and didn't try to convert anyone to quitting :). The feeling of normality helps a great deal when faced with smoking situations, it also helps to observe other non-smokers, they aren't affected by people smoking around them so why should I be? If you have recently quit keep at it, life begins to get more normal.

This 4 month milestone is something to be celebrated, now is the time to start developing your new found clarity of mind and energy. This is something I found the other day that can help you to unleash your new self and start making your life more enjoyable since casting off the slavery of smoking. Try it, you might like it!

Click here for a way to stay focused and develop your creativity!!

10 Things To Do Before You Quit Smoking

After some very hard work I have finally finished my first report about quitting smoking. I did a lot of research and examined how I have tried, failed and finally succeeded in quitting smoking. I hope everyone who reads this finds themselves closer to quitting at the end. It is not too long, only 12 pages but I think (and my friends who proof read it tell me) that it is full of relevant and insightful information. This is how I prepared to stop smoking and I hope you will too.

You have to give an email address to download it. If you absolutely object to doing so post a comment and I will provide an alternate link.

Here is the link My Free Report go download and enjoy.

Any comments are welcome I will try to answer all.

Nick

3 Months and Counting

Well here we are, 3 months now as a non-smoker and still counting. I think it is important to keep track of how you are doing when you undertake something as life changing as stopping smoking. Some would argue that focusing on your progress makes it harder as you are thinking about smoking all the time as you measure how you are doing. I disagree, I would encourage anyone quitting smoking to think about it, but think about it in the right way. It is all a question of attitude, as is quitting in the first place. If you think about smoking in a way that you feel you are missing something, then chances are you will start again someday. If you think about smoking as something you needed out of your life, like a bad relationship, for example, then there is no harm in focusing on it. It makes you more determined to never let it back into your life, just like that person who may have hurt you.

If you have quit, keep going, keep counting, every day you don't smoke is a success and should be celebrated. If you are thinking of quitting, go for it, it will be one of the best decisions you have ever made. Also keep looking back here I am about to release a new report titled "10 things to do before you quit smoking". This will be a free download, I am currently putting the finishing touches to it.

To your success as a non-smoker!!!

2 Months It's Official

That is officially the score, I have now been a non-smoker for 2 months. I was going to post this on Sunday but that was only 8 weeks, this is properly 2 calendar months. It has got easier and easier to stay quit, I still have no desire to smoke. I will occasionally get a very brief urge when I do a task that I associated with smoking in the past or I visit somewhere that I associate with smoking for the first time since becoming a non-smoker. These urges are very brief and easily overcome. The most recent example was last Saturday at a birthday party. The party was a 40th and was being held at the same place as a 40th I went to last year, as a smoker. I associated the venue, the party and the people I was with, with a time when I smoked. That was quite a powerful combination but still easily overcome by remembering exactly what the benefits of smoking are: NONE. In the end it was quite amusing watching the smokers scuttle off outside, missing the fun, while I remembered what that was like and really was glad that I didn't do that anymore.

Here's looking forward to the next month smokefree.

Time Off to Reflect

Wow it has now been over 6 weeks since I quit and smoking is becoming a distant memory. I was lucky enough to be able to face and pass a test this weekend. It was my mother's birthday so we had a party for family and friends, my cousin with whom I used to slope off to smoke, was there. He is still a smoker and I wanted to find out if I would have a desire to smoke when he did, old habits and all that. I survived the test with no trouble whatsoever, in fact I felt very smug at how I didn't feel the slightest inclination to smoke. Poor chap he was the only smoker there and I felt a little sorry for him, you could tell he felt a bit like an outcast and went to hide down the drive to smoke.

I am taking time off this week for the Easter holidays to spend some time with my son. It is also a new test for my resolve to stay a non-smoker, I always smoked more at home than away but so far this week everything has been fine, no desire at all.

More and more it seems that smoking is dying as an occupation among all the people I know. Let's hope the non-smokers to be increase in number every day.

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

The 1 Month Milestone

I meant to post this on Sunday but have just been too busy. I have now been a non-smoker for a whole month!! Still waking up earlier and starting my days fresher but still feeling more tired earlier at night. I have looked on some forums and apparently this is normal. I suppose my body will eventually adjust to not having the nicotine stimulant and my daily cycle will return to normal.

Some very good news this week is that a close friend of mine has been inspired to stop smoking as well, I spent some time trying to explain to him on the phone how easy I had found it and he read this blog and took the plunge. He is at the moment preparing to stop, very important if you want to succeed, you must be mentally prepared. Hopefully in the next week or so he will, for good.

Apparently now I have been stopped for 1 month my body will benefit in the following way

Appearance improves – skin loses its grayish pallor and becomes less wrinkled

Hmmmm, spending less on the face creams then, another saving :)

If you are stopping or thinking of stopping smoking DO IT, don't wait, make the decision today and just go for it.

The Fresh Start

Matt Godson is a clinical hypnotherapist who has developed a ONE HOUR stop smoking program, called The Fresh Start Program. Matt's program works by changing your attitude towards smoking, it removes the fears that every smoker has about quitting, the fears of suffering intolerable cravings for the rest of your life. That fear is actually founded on a myth, you will not suffer cravings for the rest of your life, the cravings go away quite quickly, I can vouch for that, and are very easy to control. Most of the cravings of a smoker are not physical they are based on how the smoker percieves smoking, once this perception has been changed the cravings are insignificant. You can check out Matt's program here.

The Fresh Start Program

He has a great FAQ section that I suggest you read first and he offers an 8 week full money back guarantee so what have you got to lose.

Stop smoking, start living.

Still Going Strong

Now into my fourth week as a non-smoker I am starting to feel the benefits of stopping smoking. I used to be terrible at getting up in the morning, after a supposed good nights sleep I would be lethargic, sluggish and coughing and spluttering. After just three weeks I have lost the cough and I am waking up fresh and ready to start my day. I have been arriving at work earlier, getting more done and reducing my work stress, spending more of my days being productive and positive, again reducing the total amount of stress in my life, and I used to think cigarettes did that.

My son has stopped being suspicious that I am smoking in secret, I haven't, but he was so used to me doing so that he found it hard to believe that I had finally stopped. After three weeks of sniffing my clothes and checking my pockets he has accepted that Dad has kicked the filthy habit and he no longer has to nag me.

Here is a little advice from someone who inspired me in my cause to quit smoking, Allen Carr.