GIVING UP SMOKING » give up smoking

What If I Fail or Failed Giving Up Smoking?

StopSmokingCoach — Wed, 11 May 2011 04:35:50 +0000

Some of you might have tried giving up smoking before and failed. Then there are some of you who are hesitant to try because you are afraid to fail to give up smoking. Here’s what you don’t know though and is the fact that most people fail on their first try. From my knowledge there has never been a statistical study on the percentage of people who had success on their first try to quit smoking, but I have quit smoking myself and I have dealt with dozens of former smokers over the years and I only remember a couple of individuals who were able to quit on their first attempt.

I, like many others before was not able to quit cigarettes on my first try. In fact, it took me many attempts before I was finally able to quit for good. I haven’t smoked a single cigarette for over 3 years now. I can tell you from firsthand experience that just the attempt to quit really helps you give up smoking in the long run. There is a big difference between knowing what to expect and not knowing at all what you the challenges will be. For me, the failures served me well in the end and on my last try I was very relaxed about the whole process of quitting smoking.

The first time you stop smoking, the urge to smoke catches you by surprise, because it is much stronger than you ever expected it to be. I remember on the first day of my first attempt to stop smoking, I was so nervous about not being able to smoke that I could not relax not even for a minute. Needless to say, I failed miserably on my first attempt and I believe I lasted about 5 hours without a smoke. I tried again after couple of months, but I found it very surprising that I wasn’t as nervous as the first time. I thought I’d be even more stressed, but knowing what to expect really kept me composed and relaxed. I had failed again on my second try, but I lasted a little over 24 hours without a single cigarette.

I found myself more and more used to the idea of giving up smoking and at every attempt I lasted a little more than the previous without having to smoke. I can’t even remember after how many attempts, but at some point I just because extremely confident about my ability to go without smokes. I told myself that if I could go without smoking for 3 days, then I probably would have gone past the most difficult part of the whole quitting process. I was right. I was able to last for 36 hours without a cigarette and by then the urge to smoke was not as intense as the first and the second day. I knew I had succeeded to give up smoking and it had happened after multiple tries.

Do not concern yourself over having failed to quit smoking or to fail to quit smoking on your first try. Every attempt you make, you are one step closer to kicking the habit for good and it is not a failure by any measure. So go on and give your second and third try, you will quit smoking in time but you have to continue trying. If you feel that you need some additional help to quit smoking successfully, then click here to quit once and for all.

Giving Up Smoking One Step At A Time

StopSmokingCoach — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 18:24:02 +0000

Why is it so hard to stop smoking?

Smoking brings about changes both in your mind and in your body. The physical changes are brought upon by the nicotine addiction. The changes in your mind are brought upon the act of smoking over a long period of time. Combine these two and you have a smoking habit.

Smokers enjoy accompanying cigarettes with numerous other activities. Generally, smokers like to enjoy a cup of coffee with cigarette, as well as alcoholic beverages, and phone calls seem to go hand-in-hand with cigarette smoking as well. Other activities that may not be as enjoyable, but often done with a lit cigarette are; driving, when bored, when stressed, when scared, when concerned, and while socializing with other smokers.

Why you should stop smoking right now

Stinky breath – your breath smells worse than poop.

Stained teeth – brushing and whitening can only help so much.

Cough – quite simply it hurts.

Increased blood pressure – check your family history.

Second and third hand smoking – it sounds terrible, but you are slowly killing the people around.

Cost of smoking – cigarettes tax will continually increase with time.

Decreased lung capacity – you will make a habit of catching breath.

Toxic chemicals in cigarette smoke – just to name one, rat poison.

Cancer – many cancers are associated with the smoking of cigarettes.

Advanced aging – seriously, this is not a myth, smoking cigarettes increases wrinkles.

Heart disease – you do not want to know the waiting list for a heart transplant patients.

Children – you don’t have to smoke in front of them to bring about harm to them due to your smoking habit.

Preparing to give up smoking

First, you have to get ready. Speak your family and friends about your undertaking. Learn as much as you can about how to cope with the stress that comes from the urge to smoke. Stop smoking aids such as nicotine gums and nicotine patch are optional. Relapse can occur and in fact, most suffer from it at least once. Doesn’t matter that you fail, the key is to keep trying until you are successful.

Additional steps giving up smoking

Although you should try to quit smoking as soon as you can, it is better to prepare your mind for the tough road ahead and give yourself a few weeks of time before giving up smoking. Keep a quit smoking diary if you can, there you can write about your motivation for quitting smoking, write down when you smoke the most, and write down the time of the day when you feel the biggest urge. Continue to make note in the diary and use it as a motivational tool.

Be sure to throw out all your cigarettes, ashtrays, lighters, matches. It would be wise of you to get rid of anything that reminds you of smoking a cigarette.

How to deal with the urge to smoke

You can no longer smoke when you are stressed. However, there are other means to deal with the stress that comes with quitting smoking. Exercise helps a lot, so go for a brisk walk or a light jog when the urge is unbearable. Drink a lot of water, it is important to keep yourself well hydrated during this stressful time. Hot bath is also proven to help curb the urge to smoke.

Final advice

It is very stressful to think that you’ll no longer be able to smoke another cigarette, but giving up smoking is not about losing control and it is the complete opposite. Until now, your life revolved around cigarettes. Your girlfriend/boyfriend, wife/husband, family and friends, they all complained about how much you stunk up their nose. Work hours seem to go on forever until you could have that one puff of smoke. You always felt uneasy when you were down to the last few cigarettes. You were enslaved to your smoking habit and it controlled your life.

Giving up smoking is much more than just breaking an addiction to improve your healthy. The whole world changes once you give up smoking and that should be enough to motivate you to at least try. Don’t be afraid to fail, because half the battle is won just by you trying. Even if you fail once, or even twice, you will eventually succeed.

5 Effective Giving Up Smoking Tips

StopSmokingCoach — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 03:19:23 +0000

Giving up smoking will surely test you as an individual and it’s important that you don’t jump in unprepared. Knowing what to do and avoiding the pitfalls many cigarette quitting hopefuls fall in, can mean the difference between success and failure. Here are some helpful tips that could help you give up smoking for good this time.

1. Consider seeing a doctor – Your doctor can help you determine whether you’ll need prescription drug to help you cope with the withdrawal symptoms. It really depends on your smoking habit, but generally withdrawal symptoms are intense and the use of quit smoking product or prescription drug may give you the best chance to stop smoking for good.

2. Throw away all the cigarette related products – If you have a box of cigarette available for “just in case”, then trust me you are just setting yourself up to fail. Get rid of the ashtrays, lighters, matches, and anything else that may remind you of cigarettes. If you want to finish that last box that you have saved up, then just finish it and leave no cigarettes that you can fall back to.

3. Set a date to quit and stick to it – If you don’t set a quit day and push yourself to quit smoking, you will continually keep pushing it for the next day and the next week until you no longer even try. This is a fight between your will to stop smoking and your addiction pushing you to take another puff. Push yourself for that ultimate goal to give up smoking for good.

4. Announce it to the world – Tell all your friends and your family that you are quitting cigarettes. Make it difficult for you to fail by letting it be known to everyone you know that you will successfully quit. This will surely give you an extra incentive to kick the habit in one shot. Don’t become that guy that talks the talk, but never walks the walk.

5. Something to chew on – Keep your mouth busy with anything but cigarettes. You will get urges to smoke or to just stick something in your mouth, help relieve these urges by chewing on carrots, chewing gums, straws, or even toothpicks will do. Avoid chewing anything for an extended period of time though, it could cause gum disease or damage your teeth.

Follow the tips above to help you in giving up smoking and don’t give up even if you fail on your first try. What’s important is your willingness to quit and that will ultimately lead to a successful quit smoking experience.

Giving Up Smoking – Finding The Motivation

Derek Kim — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 17:42:12 +0000

Some studies show that only 3 percent of the first time cigarette quitters give up smoking for good. This is a grim outlook for any smoker hoping give up smoking, but it should also be noted that different studies have shown a more favorable success rate. In any case, one common trend among these studies is that they show very low success rate among first time quitters. As someone who quit smoking for good for many years now, it is my personal opinion that giving up smoking is all about the motivation. So here are some powerful methods to motivate yourself to quit smoking for good on your first try.

The first and the most effective motivating factor are the people that you care about. If you are a father, then what more motivation do you need than giving up smoking for the sake of your children. If you are a husband, then you have a responsibility be there for your wife through the good and bad, smoking will make that difficult for many reasons I shouldn’t have to explain to you. As a son or a daughter of loving parents, the worst thing you can do to your parents is to die before they do, smoking can make that possibility very real. As a friend, maybe your early departure from this life might not have as profound effect as it might have on your family, but you will still be leaving many people who care for you and love you, to grieve for you for the rest of their lives.

For most people, I would assume that family and friends should be the main motivator in giving up smoking. But to be fair, quitting smoking is extremely difficult feat to achieve and you may need additional motivation to stop smoking for good.

Ask yourself this question. When was the last time you felt fresh and energized when you woke up in the morning? You probably can’t remember because smoking will do that to you. No matter how young and or fit you may think you are, if you are a smoker you will not have good mornings. You will wake up with a lump of mucus in your throat and your first action would be to force that lump out of your throat into your mouth and into your garbage with a forceful gag. Not the way to start an ideal morning if you would ask me.

Do you play sports? Try jogging for 5 minutes and I assure you that you’ll feel like dying. Hold the tip of a spoon with your thumb and your index finger. Try to hold the spoon steady and I assure you that you will shake like a 100 year old man. You are not normal and smoking has left you crippled in many more ways than you can imagine.

Think about everything that I’ve noted here so far and use them to motivate yourself. When it comes to giving up smoking, you or anyone else for that matter cannot force it onto you. You have to want it, giving up smoking is very difficult but it becomes so much easier if you truly want it and having the motivating factors to give up smoking will mean the difference between success and failure. Giving up smoking is all about the motivation, find that x-factor that pumps you up and free yourself from cigarettes today.

Giving Up Smoking – An Impossible Task for Me

StopSmokingCoach — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:52:09 +0000

Giving Up Smoking

Giving up smoking is extremely difficult for anyone who’s smoked for a prolonged period of time. Dependency to nicotine grows over the period of your addiction and the years that pass by turn you into a junkie. I don’t use the word “junkie” lightly, but that’s essentially what you become as you regularly have panic attacks when cigarettes are not readily available to you. Giving up smoking may seem like an impossible task, but I can give you a few tips that will go a long way in helping you kick the habit.

Do you have extra packs of cigarettes stashed in your house? You may even keep extra packs in your car and you are most likely very mindful of how low you are running on cigarettes. If this is you then it’s seriously a good time to give up smoking. This is basically addiction running your life and the sign that you have completely lost control over your nicotine craving. You should not need scary statistic to convince yourself to at least entertain the thought of giving up smoking.

It’s completely normal to feel uncertain and uneasy about the thought of giving up smoking. In fact, you are better off cutting yourself some slack and expect to fail on your first try. It is my experience that people who’ve smoked less than 2 years tend to quit fairly easy. As for those who’ve smoked over 2 years, some studies suggest more than 70 percent failing on their first try.

The sooner you quit the better of course, but you have to concentrate more on the quitting part than the when. It may as well take you several tries to give up smoking and it may even take you a year or two to quit for good, but if you quit for good, that’s all that matters really.

The truth is the initial shock that you feel the first time you try giving up smoking gets less and less intense as you try to quit again and again. A big part of giving up smoking is psychological, the more you know what to expect, the better you will cope with the stress of nicotine withdrawal. So in an essence, a failure in giving up smoking is only a step forward to ultimately quitting for good rather than a flat out failure.

The key is on giving it a try, just try quitting smoking. You may give up in just one hour or in one day, that’s OK because you’ve tried. That first step is very important, you can talk all you want about how much you’d like to quit but ultimately only actions count. Persistence will eventually pay off and you will be nicotine free as long as you are willing to take actions. Giving up smoking is all about persistence.

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