Quit Smoking: Your Most Important Tool is Your Game Plan

When making the decision to quit smoking, there are many ways you can go about it. You can go cold turkey, take a pill, wear a patch, use an inhaler, or even opt for acupuncture aimed at quitting. No matter what route you take to quit smoking, the most important tool you should have is your main game plan with a contingency plan.

Some of the more familiar smoking cessation aids that are available include Chantix, Zyban, nicotine patches, and inhalers. While on Chantix or Zyban, you can keep smoking on the drug, but you need to set a a solid quit date and stick with it. These two drugs work by taking the edge off of your nicotine cravings. While on the nicotine patches and inhalers, you should not smoke because of the risk of nicotine poisoning. The patch and inhaler gives you nicotine to reduce the urge to smoke.

If you have these aids helping you quit, then why do you need a plan? It does not matter how strong or powerful your chosen smoking aid, the cravings will linger for the rest of your life. Your mind and body will remember the sensation of having a cigarette. What does this mean for you? You will need tools and a strategies to ward off cravings and deal with situations that put you at high risk of smoking.

What do you need in your smoking cessation plan?

Get Honest and Clear with Yourself

What has smoking done to you? How many minutes per day do you lose to smoking? Do you avoid places that you want to go because you can not smoke there? Right now is the time for you to honestly and thoroughly assess what smoking has done to your life.

Many smokers do not realize what they are missing out on. Being a former smoker myself, I realized that I was spending anywhere from 100-200 minutes per day smoking. I can not smoke at my workplace, so I lost on time at work to be productive. I can not smoke in my apartment, so I lost time that I could be getting housework accomplished or just flat out finding healthier ways to unwind.

What happens when you go to a friend's house where you can not smoke? Can you walk up stairs with ease or do you have to catch your breath every time? Do you find yourself tired more often because the last cigarette you smoked did you in? By the way, do you have any children or plan to have children?

Write down all the reasons why you want or should quit smoking. No matter how trivial the reason may be, write it down. At the bottom, write down the benefits you want from quitting smoking. Recite those reasons and benefits everyday, either out loud or to yourself. What will this do?

Reciting your reasons and benefits everyday will reinforce the reality of your situation. Your situation, whether you like it or not is that you are a psychological slave to cigarettes and you need to liberate yourself from a habit that does not do you any good. The smoker side of you will try to rationalize reasons why not to quit or how you will fail to quit smoking. After a few days of reciting your reason, your motivation to quit smoking should gain some momentum, because, no matter who you are, there are too many reasons in your life to quit smoking.

Set a Solid Quit Date

When selecting a quit date, here are a few things to consider. Think about the part of the week that you tend to smoke the least. For some it is when the work week starts, because there is not much time for smoking. For others, it is the weekend because work may drive them to smoke more than on the weekend. You should pick a time when you are at your strongest and least vulnerable. This will set you up to be successful in your first few days after you quit smoking.

Identify and Utilize Your Tools to Fight the Cravings

What do I mean by tools? Your quit smoking tools will be the actions you take in order to fight the cravings. Be sure it is something you enjoy or distracting enough for you to change your focus. A few things you can do is get out of your environment, deep breath, jogg, read, chew gum, eat a healthy snack, chew on a straw, squeeze a stress ball, clean or repair something, take a nap, call a friend, do small exercises at your desk, surf the net for something exciting, meditate, etc.. I am sure you get the point by now. When compiling your tools, write down a list of 100 things you will do instead of smoke. When you reach the point where you are fighting the cravings, you will find what works best with you. Also, you will have a list of things to do in case you get tired of any of the things you initially started doing to keep from smoking.

Avoid or Plan for Situations that Make You Smoke

You know what makes you smoke. The first cup of coffee, your 15 minute morning break, driving, playing card games, and drinking are a few triggers that are common among smokers. If you can avoid these situations, then by all means avoid them. If it is not practical for you to avoid, such as that morning break or drinking coffee, find alternative ways to go about these situations. For example, during your morning break, walk around the building instead of stopping by the smoke pit. When you have your first cup of coffee, find another activity to occupy your hands, such as preparing and eating breakfast for a change.

Develop Your Social Support Network

Tell all your friends and family that you are quitting. Tell them your quit date and show them your plan. The more people you tell, the more you will be held accountable for your actions by others. Also, this support network will help you if you need any distraction and will remind you of your "tools" and your plan to quit smoking. They can be their to vent if you are angry, instead of you making a trip to the smoke pit. They can be a shoulder to cry on, instead of you fighting your tears with a cigarette. Your friends and family are there to help you along the way and will be very proud when you quit smoking and stay that way.

Create a Contingency Plan for Relapses

If you do find yourself smoking after you quit, do not be hard on yourself or give up. Relapses do occur. For most smokers, it takes quite a few times to quit. The trick to quitting is to be persistent. When you are initially making your smoking cessation plan, set a specific time that you will quit in case you relapse, such as five days or one week after your relapse. Ask for help from your support network to help you reach this goal.

Next, analyze the situation that caused you to start smoking again. What exactly caused you to light up that cigarette? Once you know what caused you to smoke, then you can plan and create ways to deal with that situation if it ever occurs in the future. Find ways that you can distract yourself or avoid that situation all together. You have to be honest with yourself. If you are not, then you will have a higher risk of relapse.

Dropping the habit may be one of the hardest things you will do in your entire life. Remember, for most smokers, it takes more than one time to quit. Make a promise to yourself to stay persistent. Smoking is truly an enemy to your well being and you must treat the habit as such. Constantly reflect on your reasons to stay away from smoking and the benefits you stand to gain. If you have to, review your reasons every morning and every evening. You, as does everyone else, have what it takes to quit smoking forever.