Smoking isn’t simply about putting a cigarette between your lips and lighting up—it’s about a relationship, a dependency, and a way of taking comfort in something unhealthy. Many smoking cessation programs encourage you to substitute gums or other substances for your smoking addiction. However, by utilizing a substitution method, these smoking cessation programs fail to address the underlying urge to smoke.
To truly free yourself from a smoking addiction, you need to understand your psychological addiction to smoking and not simply find another substitute. A complete cessation of smoking is reliant on a mental change in perspective. To truly quit, without having to ingest any pills, gums, or other substitutes, or experience undue anxiety or stress, you must begin to eliminate cravings and replace them with a healthy mindset.
To quit smoking, despite what many smoking cessation programs may tell you, is not simple, or a matter of a few quick steps. The most effective smoking cessation programs teach you how to quit smoking psychologically, which is the first and most important step to physically quitting. This process involves opening yourself up to understanding your relationship to smoking. Why do you feel the need to smoke? Undoubtedly, it’s a habit you’ve developed to calm yourself down in a time of stress, or perhaps as a method of comfort, a dependable release.
No one would disagree that modern life is stressful, and that once someone has started smoking, the simple thought of giving up that release can seem impossible. However, no one is born a smoker. Remembering what it was like to live without the need for an artificial release is a major component of the psychological healing when it comes to refraining from smoking altogether, and not simply popping a piece of gum in your mouth when you feel the familiar craving.
It’s important to keep in mind that smoking is a disease, in whatever form it may take, whether that’s cigarettes, cigars, or smokeless tobacco. The actual cigarettes themselves are only a manifestation of the disease. Quitting smoking requires identifying the psychological triggers that cause you to smoke, and finding ways to take apart those thoughts and habits and rewire them into a healthy lifestyle.
Defeating the craving to smoke is perhaps the most difficult component any smoker faces. A good smoking cessation program will help you understand that this craving is based within the mental and emotional way you perceive smoking. The program won’t opt for a quick fix; instead, from the outset, it will recommended pursuing a deeper cure, one that advocates finding out who you are, and what specific help you need to overcome your psychological barriers to quitting smoking. By understanding how smoking impacts you specifically, you will be able to change your fundamental relationship to smoking.
Don’t participate in smoking cessation programs that rearrange, instead of cure, your disease; instead, seek out programs that help you address the underlying causes of your addiction, and help you to start making healthy, smoke-free choices.
The author has many years of experience in the smoking cessation industry. He has delivered training on weight loss, smoking cessation, and other cognitive based programs.