Quitting Smoking -  Reality Check

I have smoked for over 15 years and quit dozens of times only to start up again.  Each time I would start smoking again it did not take long to start feeling the guilt and depression for smoking.  I knew it was damaging my health and preventing me from enjoying many of the things I used to like to do.  Yet at the same time smoking seemed to help me feel in control and complete.

I always seemed to be in constant turmoil whether I was smoking or not.  When I wasn’t smoking I wanted to smoke, I felt it would make my life better and easier to handle.  On the flipside when I was smoking all I could think about was wishing I never started smoking, I hated it.  What is a person to do?  I felt like I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t.

I often thought the reason I would start smoking after quitting was due to nicotine withdrawal symptoms.  I have recently discovered that I was way off base.  In reality the physical nicotine withdrawal symptoms are far less severe than the psychological effects of smoking.  I had always thought if I could just kick the habit long enough to get through the withdrawals then I would be okay.  If I felt like I needed to smoke I could chew a piece of gum of have some hard candy to keep my mouth occupied.  In my mind this should have been enough to quit smoking.

In reality I was trying to quit smoking by addressing the wrong issue.  I should have been looking at the psychological effects of smoking.  No wonder I continued to fail time and time again.  The psychological effects of smoking is what had me convinced that I was missing out on something, that smoking had something good to offer.  I was completely duped in to believing that if I smoked I could manage my anger, stress, or anxiety better and in return I would be in control.  The sad thing was; I was not in control at all, the nicotine was.  Smoking did not help me manage anything.  The only thing that smoking did was cost me a lot of money, ruin my health, stink my car up, stain my teeth and fingers, alienate me from others, control my mood, and much more.

Quitting smoking is about taking control back and living a healthier longer life.  When I finally realized that I was not giving up something good in my life I was able to really want to quit smoking.  I wasn’t quitting because I had to, I was quitting because I wanted to. 

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