Quit Smoking : Quit by Giving Up "Giving Up"
By Kevin Jones
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Quit Smoking
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It
has never been harder to be a smoker. Quite apart from the
cost, which, if you consider your annual outlay, would keep
a small Sierra Leone township alive for a year, there is the
growing social stigma.
When this author was a 20-30 ciggies a day man, everyone
was a 20-30 per day man, or so it seemed. These days, the
social and legal
constraints are closing in.
You can't freely smoke in people's houses, in their cars;
you haven't been able to toke away in good restaurants and
cafes for years and the time when your local pub stash the ashtrays is over forever.
Then there is the nagging doubt that most smokers have in
the back of their minds. You know, the one that says "I'm
trapped; addicted. I can't give up". Even the one that every
smoker tries to ignore: "This is killing me."
I smoked heavily for just over 10 years. The product of an
only averagely misspent youth, my smoking habit was par for
its era and for the area in which I was spawned: industrial,
working-class Liverpool, England. I mean, what chance did
I have? Mum, Dad, three older sisters, The Beatles, my friends,
their families, even several of my soccer heroes at Everton
were regular and visible smokers. It was the Fifties/Sixties/Seventies
and it wasn't a case of if you start smoking but when.
By the time I was 22, I had tried, unsuccessfully, to quit
smoking about 10 times. My failure, on every occasion, was
down to my flawed approach.
You may well have been guilty of the same mistakes: the grand,
public gestures that told the world that you had just put
your last ciggie out; the crushing of your remaining fags
in front of your incredulous smoker friends; the contrived
taunting you gave your mates as they sat, cig in mouth, while
you sat there, basking in your sudden, perhaps two-day-old,
sainthood.
I stopped smoking cigarettes 20 years ago. Twenty years on,
I'm left frustrated only by one thing: that I did not write
a "how-to" book and make a financial killing in America or
somewhere.
When I decided to forego the weed, the simplicity of the
whole procedure astonished me; the ease with which I ended
a 10-year addiction was - still is - stunning to me. Put simply,
when I gave up, I didn't give up. I still haven't, officially.
Instead of an ultimately humiliating public gesture, designed
in error to solidify my initial resolve, I said to myself:
"See how long you can go without a ciggie." No more, no less.
My rationale was that if I lasted two hours, I would try
again later and see if I could go for longer. At no point
did I say to myself - and, crucially, to others - that I was
trying to give up. Not even my girlfriend at the time (who
had just bought me a very expensive lighter for Christmas!)
knew this. It was my little secret.
With absolutely no self-pressure; no pressure from my smoker
girlfriend or my friends or workmates, I found that I did
not have the groaning insecurity that had dogged my previous
attempts to quit because, after all, I wasn't quitting, was
I?
The addicted, I quickly realised, need their addicted mates
to stay right there with them. Conducting my experiment, I
found that I had no one chipping in, every couple of hours,
with: "How's the non-smoking kick going?" or, more destructively:
"I bet you really want a cigarette by now".
I came to realise that just about every smoker I knew was
kept bound in nicotine-stained chains by their nearest and
dearest - if those people were smokers.
Now, this might say as much about my susceptibility at the
time to peer pressure as it might about a relative shallownessness
of addiction, but I don't think this is the case.
During several of my anger-studded attempts at quitting,
I had been continually reminded of my addiction by totally
unsupportive offsiders. Hence, my stress levels were sky-high
- especially if had started the whole process off with a rash,
grandiose gesture - and I found I quickly became preoccupied
with tobacco.
Only after a surprisingly long time - four or five days from
day one of my experiment - did my peers realise that I wasn't
smoking. The peer-sneers started. "What? Trying to give up
again?" and the like. Shamelessly, I played a less-than-straight
bat, saying things like: "No, I've got a bad throat and I'm
cutting down for a while" or "I'm skint and I don't want to
spend my time bumming fags off people". Anything to take the
heat off and move on to another subject.
You would be surprised how well it worked; how easily my
fiercely addicted smoking buddies copped it sweet; how quickly
they were happy to change the subject and take my mind off
tobacco because I hadn't said the "Q" word.
I could go on, but you might be looking around for your
smokes by now. But, if you want to avoid cigarettes and all
they entail, give the "Jones Method" a go - by not "giving
up". What have you got to lose?
I succeeded first time, to my astonishment, but I was quite
prepared to give it as many goes as it needed until I felt
strong enough to try an all-out attempt to quit. I was a perhaps
lucky first-timer.
PS: This is a suggestion that might work for some but
not all smokers who want to give it away. Click on the links
below for a bit of extra help because there is more than one
way of skinning a cat, as they say. Happy breathing!
Helpful "Quit Smoking" Links:
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