Keeping the Date and Stopping Smoking for Real
Setting a stop smoking date is an essential tool for stopping smoking, and if you fail to keep your promise, there is a good chance that you will wake up every morning and promise to stop smoking tomorrow. Most of the smokers have been in this situation, and I am currently one of them. What has led me into this situation?
I am ashamed to admit that I am a master of making excuses. Here are some of the excuses, which I have used during the last few days:
- It is only a one more day.
- It is better to stop smoking during weekend when I am not stressed.
- I am not smoking so much than I used to.
- What harm can a few cigarettes do?
As you can see, every one of those excuses can be used also at tomorrow. Their purpose is to convince me that continuing smoking is not such a bad thing, especially when I am not smoking nearly as much as I used to. Unfortunately I cannot continue lying to myself like that, and I am forced admit that this time stopping smoking will not be so easy. The question is, what I am going to do about it?
I am not smoking at all during the day when I am at work. My problems begin at the evening when I get back to my home. When I sit on my couch and try to relax a bit, I usually get an instant urge to smoke a cigarette. However, I have noticed that if I do not follow that urge, it will eventually go away. Unfortunately, there is a huge difference between theory and practice. Luckily, I have got an idea how I can transform theory into reality. Before revealing my idea to you, I will briefly describe the essential principle of stopping smoking.
Stopping smoking can be summarized into following phases:
- Don’t smoke!
- When in doubt, go back to phase one.
Now we know that the first principle of stopping smoking is to understand that you cannot smoke anymore. This might sound self-evident, but you must understand that the mind of an addict does not follow the logical thought pattern. Its first priority is to ensure that the addict will get regular doses of the addictive substance, which in this case is Nicotine. My plan for beating my urge to smoke is simple:
Every time when I have got an urge to smoke, I will use my exercise bike for five minutes (or long as it takes for me to forget my urge). My goal is to transform these urges to something useful and I have noticed that physical exercise is the best way to deal with them. The best thing about this method is that I can stop smoking and get in a better shape at the same time.
P.s. If you feel that I have no chance in hell to stop smoking by using this method, feel free to leave comment by using the form, which can be found below this entry. Naturally, supportive comments are appreciated as well 
