Moments, Which Give Me an Urge to Smoke

By Nicotinist On July 29, 2010 Under Tips for Quitting

Since I am going to quit smoking at Saturday, I have been trying to figure out, why I really smoke. One reason for that is my nicotine addiction. However, I was talking about certain moments in my life, which make me want to smoke a cigarette. I feel that identifying these moments is important, because it might give me a better understanding of my smoking habit. I truly believe that my smoking problem has got two parts: my nicotine addiction is the physical part of the problem. The other part of the problem is psychological. That is the part I am interested in.

I have noticed that I am smoking when

I am waiting for something. If I find myself waiting for a friend, a buss or a train, I suddenly get an urge to smoke. It cannot have anything to do with my nicotine addiction, because I can end up smoking several cigarettes in a row. Thus, it is clear that I am not smoking, because I need my dose of nicotine.
I am bored. Smoking is also my way of spending time, if I am bored or just don’t want to do anything. It helps me to divide a longer period of time to shorter periods, which reduces the boredom. I know that might sound a bit silly, but I have to say that it really works.
I have finished something. After I have finished doing something, I often reward myself by smoking a cigarette. I am also using this as a method to motivate myself for doing something, which I would not like to do. And since I happen to be a nicotine addict, it is working perfectly.

What can be learned from all this? It feels obvious that quitting smoking will be a lot easier for me, if I can find other things to do when I am facing one of the mentioned situations. That was the easy part. The hard part will be finding out replacement activities for smoking. The problem is that I have been used to smoke in different places, and the same strategies cannot be applied everywhere. Here are some of the methods, which I have used during my previous attempts to quit smoking:

Minimizing the waiting time. If possible, I tried to minimize the time I had to wait for something to happen. When I am waiting something, my mind often starts wandering around. In the end, I reached a state, where I did not think about smoking. It took some time though, and minimizing my waiting time made things easier for me.
Putting my mouth to work. When I was quitting smoking, I used a lot of chewing gum, because it gave me something else to think about. This monotonic task actually reduced my anxiety and acted as a good replacement for smoking tobacco.
Finding motivation from the outcome of an unpleasant task. Previously I wrote that I used tobacco to motivate myself to perform unpleasant tasks. However, I always felt good after I had done something unpleasant. The outcome of the task was the only reward I really needed.

I have now described the situations, which give me an urge to smoke. I have also discussed about the methods, which I have used to make quitting easier for me. If you are going to quit smoking, I suggest that you spent some time to identify your own smoking habits and find out methods, which work for you. It might seem a bit hard or silly at first, but I can ensure that it is worth it.