Changing Shame and Guilt into Hope and Optimism

What I find so common among those who smoke, is the feelings of either shame and/or guilt. Shame that there is something wrong with me that I don't want to quit smoking knowing that I "should", and/or guilt because I want to and haven't been able to quit. I am certainly familiar with both of those emotions.

I had quit for 2 months the first time I was diagnosed with BC in 1987 when I was 32. I relapsed during chemo, I just couldn't handle the stress--back then they didn't have the anti-nausea drugs they have now and every worst story you have heard about throwing up from chemo is what I went through.

Back then you could smoke anywhere and everyone I knew was on my case to quit--even other smokers would say, "VJ why are you smoking, you've had cancer?" I would just last back at them, "how do you know you don't have cancer?" My anger was just a cover up for my feelings of shame that I just couldn't quit smoking and guilt every time I relapsed. I would be able to go for a couple of months and then bam--I'd relapse. I call myself the Queen of Quitting since I've quit for at least three months--9 times.

Yet the common emotions for those who are now smoke-free is the joy and freedom we feel to have broken through and accomplished our goal of becoming smoke-free---one of the hardest things it is to do in life. Yet those who are successful have travel a journey that others are still taking.

I think of of the most important steps is changing our emotional outlook from shame and guilt to one of hope and optimism---from "I can't do this, I don't want to do this, I don't know how to do this" to: "someday I will be able to do this, I will be able to figure out my path to being smoke-free, I can do this with help and support and it will be there for me as I seek out different options".

Optimism opens doors to inner strengths that often we don't realize we have such as: resilience, creativity, persistence, problem solving, confidence, ingenuity, critical thinking, courage and self-control.

I'm not saying it is easy, I'm just saying- I know you can do it!

Check my new videos on YouTube

 I have created several short videos on how to become successful at becoming smoke-free. Check them out on: YouTube

This is the introductory video about how I got started helping others. 

Also check out my new website: www.VJSleight.com

"Calling it Quits" on Frankly Speaking About Cancer

It was like being in the dark ages the first time I had cancer when it came to emotional support-there was none. People I knew asked me to not say the "C" word around them, no one seemed to understand the physical, emotional and financial devastation I was going through with being diagnosed with a life threatening disease at age 32.

When I had a recurrence in 2010, I knew that emotional support would help me through my journey with cancer this second time and I joined Gilda's Club immediately. This free resource, part of the Cancer Support Community, seems to have a magically effect on it's members. Cancer is a horrible disease that not only eats away at your body, it can eat away at your soul if you let it. While being a member of Gilda's may not heal your body, it does heal your soul.  It is a place to talk to others on the same journey who know exactly how it feels to be dealing with cancer. Yes there are tears but there is also a lot of joy, deep friendships develop and life is so very real and in the moment at Gildas. Facades drop away, cancer  doesn't discriminate, it strikes everyone, At Gildas you are accepted regardless of race, color, religion, political preference, sexual affiliation, everyone is welcomed.

While I no longer attend support meetings, I still volunteer to help Gilda's whenever I have a chance. It is important for me to give back to a place that was so important in my emotional healing from cancer. So when I was asked to speak on the Cancer Support Community's weekly radio talk show, I was happy to share my knowledge about how to become smoke-free. You can listen it it here: Calling It Quits.

The best way to treat cancer is prevention and I'm doing my part by helping smokers quit tobacco; smoking is the cause of 30% of all cancers, it's not just lung cancer. Instead of thinking of it as "just a bad habit", it is a time bomb that kills 50 to 75% of it's long-term users. There is no other substance as deadly as tobacco that is allowed to exist simply to satisfy the greed of corporate interests. We could make a huge dent in our "War" against Cancer, if smoking cessation and prevention were actually a priority in our society.

I hope you never get cancer but if you do, please reach out to the Cancer Support Community, they can help. If you want to prevent getting it - stop smoking now.

Why can't I stop crying since I've quit smoking?

Intense, non-stop crying can be a sign of depression, which is also a nicotine withdrawal symptom. It can also be a sign that you need to learn how to deal with your emotional connection to smoking. Most likely it is a combination of both.

Not only is quitting smoking a physical journey but it is an emotional one too. Often quitters under estimate the strength of that emotional connection. Smoking offers the illusion of being able to go through life with the least amount of pain and the greatest amount of pleasure because it enhances positive emotions like pleasure and happiness and suppresses negative emotions such as stress, anger, sadness and loneliness.

My last challenge to ending my relationship with cigarettes was learning how to deal with anger without smoking.

I had been quit for about three months when I got into a fight with my father. I had never been so angry at him before. He was an alcoholic and a prolific drunk dialer. He had been a  real estate broker for most of his life and I was now selling real estate. I'm sure in his mind he thought he was being helpful when he decided to drunk dial the manager of the office I was working at and identify himself as "Santa Claus". Lucky for me his call was intercepted by a sympathetic secretary.

I blew up and headed straight for my local convenience store and bought a pack of my favorite cigarettes - Marlboro 100's. I wasn't kidding myself about only going to smoke "just one", I knew I was going to chain smoke the whole pack and I did.  As I smoked each cigarette what I was really doing was "smoking at" my father and suppressing my anger.

This relapse only lasted a few weeks. After having cancer I knew it was stupid of me to go back to smoking. I had been trying so hard for so many years to quit, that I made the decision that no matter what I was not going to smoke ever again. That meant I had to learn how to deal with not only my anger but all of my emotions.

Almost all smokers start as teenagers, so at an early age we learn to associate smoking with emotions. They help us celebrate the good times and commiserate during the bad. No wonder it feels like we are losing our best friend when we quit.

There are four ways of dealing with emotions: express, suppress, escape and release. With anger I needed to learn how to release it in a healthy manner without smoking, instead of using nicotine to suppress it. I did have help with this from a professional therapist who I had been seeing to deal with the stress of going through cancer treatment.

The best place to start is to talk with your doctor about cessation medication to lessen the withdrawal symptoms. The use of bupropion, which is an anti-depressant, may be a suitable choice. It can also be used in combination with nicotine replacement products. Next, if professional therapy is not an option, join a support group such as nicotine anonymous, or on an online group such BecomeAnEx.org. It helps to share your emotional journey with others who can relate how they are dealing with the same issues.

Realize that smoking has been numbing you to the full range of the emotions of life and without smoking you are just beginning to experience the richness of life. Nicotine is not a best friend but a saboteur and an enemy who doesn't want the best for you but only wants your money.

Robin Williams Mental Health Care Act:

Laughter is the best medicine. If you believe that then I guess that is why it is so hard for us all to believe that such a comic genius like Robin Williams, who gave us all such joy and laughter, could feel such hopelessness and despair that he could take his own life.

I have heard that we all have thought of suicide at one time or another. I certainly have. I've had cancer twice and sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. I have always valued quality of life over quantity and if I was ever at a stage 4, I'm not sure what decisions I would make but chemo might not be one of those choices, but an extra dose of pain killers might be.

But if we can learn anything from the unfortunate event it is that no one is exempt from inner demons. We all have them, some just have stronger more powerful demons. Yet the safety net for those who struggle with depression and other mental illnesses has huge holes in it. Here is a man who had all the resources money could buy, yet it didn't save him. What about the ordinary John or Jane Doe. What are we to do? In the 1980's our mental health system was gutted and it has never recovered.

What I am suggesting is that we use this tragedy to help others. I hope that everyone who reads this, will write to your congressman/woman and suggest a "Robin Williams Mental Health Care Act". This will fund mental health services that are so badly needed in our country. Won't you join me today and write President Obama, your senators, your house representatives. 34,000 people commit suicide every year. We couldn't save one of our brightest actors but we can start to help others. If nothing else just copy this letter and email it:
President Obama:http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments
For Congress: http://www.congressmerge.com/onlinedb/

What Death taught me about Life

In the past two months, three people I have been close to, have died. I watched as each one was consumed by cancer as it ravished their bodies.  It was not pretty yet I felt so honored and blessed that each felt comfort and peace in the moments we shared.

 We were all in the same support group at Gilda's Cub, a cancer support community. Our "Living with Cancer" group was a safe place to share our fears, our secret emotions, and anything we didn't feel safe talking about to "others: (ie. those who haven't had cancer). There was a bond between us all that consisted of no judgement, or "shoulds", just acceptance and love.

The days I spent with each were full of sadness but also with joy and laughter. Each one of these very special people taught me how to live by sharing their last living days with me. You find out what is important, and it's not money. Nobody at the end of life wishes they spent more time at the office.

• Live in the Present: Life is about living in the now, the present moment. I didn't know that my last conversation with each, would be my last one, yet we lived  and talked as if it would be. There wasn't talk about the future when it was known that their future was limited by days. Only the present existed and that made each moment precious and alive. Live now, it's all we have.
• It really is about Love: Our conversations often centered around love--the love they felt for their partners, their children, even their pets. As each faced death, they were not afraid for themselves but for their loved ones being left behind. No one wanted their passing to cause heartache and grief. When someone passes, we lose one person, but the person dying, loses everyone and not everyone is important. While each had many friends, they only wanted to be with those they loved. Learn to love. 
• Be Selfish: Each faced death in a different way but each in their own way. One had total acceptance, while another fought his cancer until his dying breath. One died at home with his partners arms around him, another in  a hospice bed in the middle of the night during sleep, and another in the afternoon after saying goodbye to a close friend. In the last days, it was all about them and what they wanted, whether it was conversation, quiet times, or ice cream. Each limited who they wanted to see and speak to. Each concentrated on what was important to them, they chose what would bring them joy or peace instead of doing something out of obligation. We waste so much of our time on things and people who don't bring joy, peace or happiness into our lives, be selfish with your time and invest in what what does bring joy, peace and happiness to you.
• Death is not to be feared: Nobody gets out of life alive. This transition to another realm is something we all will face at some time. There is NO choice in this matter. It was not death they feared but the physically pain from cancer. Luckily each had understanding doctors who had their pain controlled most of the time. It may have been the medication but one spoke of a beautiful forest with others waiting for her. It's not uncommon for those facing death to have one foot in this world and one foot in the next and it's always something beautiful. Death is the greatest experience of all, that is why they save it for last. 

I am still grieving for my friends. I miss each of them but I am comforted that I was able to tell each of them how much they meant to me and I know they will be waiting for me when I join them in this final journey.

Did a cold turkey sabotage your resolution to quit smoking?

Midnight on New Year's Eve was my favorite time to quit smoking. One particular time stands out. My roommate and I were having a New Year's Eve Party. I rigged a bunch of balloons up in a net to be released at midnight, which is when I smoked my last cigarette. As the balloons dropped and the smoke curled out from my lips, I thought how great it will be to stop smoking. As a cancer survivor, each cigarette only reminded me of my mortality. As I crushed the butt out, I just knew this time would be different, yet I was so wrong.

By 3am, most remaining partiers were smokers. No one noticed as I sat with arms crossed, watching every drag they took and angrily waited for everyone to leave so I could find a pack left behind or even a long butt.  After my big midnight production of quitting, there was no way I was going to smoke around anyone from the party. This quit attempt didn't even last 4 hours, let alone last one week. This time was one of my shorter tries but many times lasted for 3 months and even one time lasted as long as 1 year before I relapsed. My mistake was relying on willpower instead of making a plan.

Maybe you  have found yourself in the same position: wanting to quit but finding it almost impossible.  Yet every ex-smoker will tell you exactly what works and what doesn't work (implying there must be something wrong with you if you tried their final method and it didn't work for you). Statistics say that the average smoker will attempt to quit 6 to 9 times before being successful. The most often used method is "cold turkey."

"I tried everything and nothing works, the patch, gum, hypnosis, and finally I just quit cold turkey."

But what does "cold turkey" really mean? It means relying on willpower alone to quit without any help. But I argue that anyone who is quitting a second time, 3rd, or 4th etc. can't be going "cold turkey" because with each quit attempt, the smoker gains knowledge and different skills that they use on subsequent tries. They are no longer a  "tabula rasa" (blank slate).

With each of my quit attempts, I learned something new:
1. I learned how to deal with the withdrawals without using medications (I pretended I had the flu, drank lots of OJ and stayed in bed until I felt better, about 3 days).
2. I learned what to do with my hands (coffee stirrers from Carl's Jr.), which also worked for driving the car.
3. I learned to not quit when drinking alcohol (like at that New Year's Eve party) and to abstain for a couple of weeks after quitting.
4. I learned one of my weakest moments was being around other smokers. Smoke-free laws weren't in force yet and you could smoke almost everywhere.  When someone around me lit up, I learned how to excuse myself without pointing out that I didn't want to be around them when they were smoking.
5. My final lesson was how to be mad at someone without wanting to smoke AT them and smoke my  anger away.

What I found interesting was even if I relapsed, I had learned something new about my relationship to smoking, so that on the next quit attempt, I didn't have to deal with that aspect again because I had already learned what to do. The hard part was that new stuff would pop up with each quit attempt and it was like starting all over again.

I had to learn many different things before I was finally successful at remaining smoke-free. So my last cigarette was August 19, 1990 and it was a very anti-climatic event. As I put out my last cigarette, I knew this time was different and I would be successful because I had learned how to deal with the physical, behavioral, social and habitual rites associated with the way I smoked and this time I had a plan lasting 1 year on what to do to avoid relapsing.

To say I quit "cold turkey" (even though I used NO medications and it appeared that I just put it out and walked away), is stating an injustice to all the hard work I had done each quit attempt before. Only my very first attempt was "cold turkey", because with every attempt after that, I built on my knowledge until my last quit was an accumulation of skills, behaviors and techniques I had mastered to be successful.

Quitting smoking is like learning calculus: you have to learn how to add and subtract, do your multiplication tables, a little algebra and trig before you're ready for that first calculus class. When you pass the class, you wouldn't say that I know that 1 + 1 = 2 and that is why I passed calculus, yet if you didn't know the basics of math, you would never be successful at that calculus class. Successful quitters are at the end of a journey you are still taking, they have already passed the advanced class, while you may still need to learn some basics.

So if your New Year's Eve resolution was to quit smoking and now after a week, it didn't happen, did you try to learn calculus without learning your multiplication tables? Change your resolution to let this year be the year you start learning the basics of what you need to be successful and develop a personalized plan.  Start by signing up for my blog and I will send you a free PDF copy of "Tips to Win At Quitting". Why not start today?

Smoking causes surgical complications

The doctor was running late for my pre-operative appointment and I had time to talk with Jeanni, the patient coordinator at UCLA. In September I had a bilateral mastectomy (mandatory) with immediate (elective) DIEP-flap (tummy tuck) reconstruction. In two weeks I will have the second stage of the reconstruction. This surgery is on the cutting edge of breast reconstruction and offers the best possible cosmetic result. The surgery is very long (I was under anesthetic for 10 hours) and complicated (fat is harvested from the tummy and transplanted to create a new breast). But I told Jeanni that my recovery has really been a breeze. She said from our first conversation, she knew I would have an easy time because patients that are healthy to start with and have a good attitude, often don't experience problems. Patients that are smokers, have diabetes or hypertension are often the ones with complications. All three affect the blood vessels and smoking affects the lungs which can interfere with the recovery from the anesthetic.
I had been told that anyone who smokes, must quit 6 weeks prior to this elective surgery. Jeanni said that some patients had lied about quitting, and the surgeon cancelled the surgery. The risk of complications is too high. I know of one smoker that had quit 6 weeks to the day, prior of her surgery and she has experienced some complications (she needed an immediate second surgery since her "flap" died due to lack of blood supply) and two months after surgery, continues to have pain. Could it be that after smoking for over 40 years, that the damage to her blood vessels and lungs has already been done?
No one wants to think that any surgery lies in their future but it is another good reason to quit now. If I had been a smoker, I would not have been a candidate for this type of surgery. My options would have been limited, the cosmetic result would have been much worse and I might have had serious complications.
So on this Thanksgiving day, I have so much to be thankful for, including being a good candidate for a leading edge surgical option that has left no emotional scars and minimal physical scars. Cigarettes would have killed my opportunity for this surgery and who knows what emotional and physical scars I would have had after a double mastectomy.

If you continue to smoke, then live with no regrets if you develop a horrible disease

I quit smoking because I had cancer at a young age and knew I was at high risk for a reocurrence for the rest of my life. If the cancer ever came back, I didn't want to wonder if it was caused by my smoking. I know the answer to that question now, since in August, I was diagnosed with cancer again. While I don't know why it reoccurred, I know it wasn't from smoking. Some may ask if I don't  regret giving up  something I enjoyed since the cancer came back anyway. Again, I know the answer is NO. Quitting tobacco is the best thing I could have done for my health. If I hadn't quit, the cancer might have come back sooner, be more aggressive and may have spread to vital organs by the time it was found. Yet others may feel differently, like the writer, Christopher Hitchens.

Hitchens was notorious for his hard drinking and heavy smoking and now he has throat cancer, most likely due to his excessive lifestyle and a genetic predisposition. Yet he feels no regrets that his lifestyle led to a fatal disease. Lung cancer claimed Morton Downey Jr. and was caused by his smoking. He used to rant on his TV program about "health nazi's" trying to get smokers to stop and was a member of the National Smokers Alliance, yet when he developed cancer, he did a complete about-face about smoking and became a strong anti-smoking advocate until his death.

Smoking is like playing Russian roulette except with a 50/50 chance of dying from your smoking. But I don't think the problem with smoking is that you may die too young, it is that you may live too long from the effects of smoking. With the advances in health technologies, the medical profession can keep you alive for a very long time. I'm not afraid to die, but I am afraid of suffering from a long term disability caused by smoking.

But knowing the negative consequences of smoking is often not enough to get us to quit, since we tend to avoid thinking about them. We have every defensive mechanism in place to deny that it will ever happen to us.We all know the dangers of smoking yet we always think that cancer (heart disease, COPD, stroke etc) will happen to the other guy yet, as smokers, we are the other guy. If you continue to smoke, imagine what your life would be, if you were to develop your worst nightmare disease. If like Hitchens, you would have no regrets, then smoke and stop feeling guilty over something you enjoy. But if like Downey, you would do anything to have your health back and it's something that you're doing to yourself, then start the process to become tobacco free.

The old health paradigm was that we got old, got a disease and died. But the new paradigm is that we can live a long healthy life, free of disease. Do you want a short life and a long death, or a long life and a short death? Smoking will give you the former and quitting gives you a good chance of the latter.

So far, my diagnosis looks positive. It appears that the cancer was found early. I've had major surgery to remove the tumor and adjuvant chemotherapy is being recommended. If I had not stopped smoking, I would have always regretted it because I would have blamed myself for the cancer returning. So I will continue my crusade to help others through the quitting process--it's not easy but one of the most rewarding things I have ever done.

We lost Another Great Man to Cancer

Each year 435,000 people die from smoking related diseases and that doesn't mean much to us until we understand that there is a name behind each of those numbers. Paul Newman lost his battle to cancer. He lived a great life and with his philanthropic donations and creating the Hole in the Wall Camp for kids with cancer, he has enhanced the lives of many. Yet, he has become another statistic in this War on Tobacco.
The reason I do what I do is because I am a cancer survivor and I hope to help others quit smoking before they become part of the 435,000 people who die each year or the millions that become disabled. Isn't it time for you to quit to?

Dealing with Stress when Quitting Smoking

It was through a workshop that I quit smoking and 3 months later I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had been quit for 5 months and I relapsed while I was going through chemotherapy.
Most smokers in a very short period of time feel like a non-smoker and think that they will never smoke again until they have to handle a tremendous amount of stress, like I did with having to go through cancer treatment. A woman told me that she thought she had been through the worse when her mother died but it wasn't until all the relatives started fighting about the estate that she relapsed.
We don't smoke that cigarette thinking that we are going to go back to full time smoking, we kid ourselves that it's "just one" to get us through the stress that we are experiencing. Yet that one will always lead to another one because of the effect that nicotine has on the brain, it is a physiological effect that we can't control with willpower.
It is often in times of high stress that smokers will relapse because they are lulled into a false sense of security because they were able to resist smoking for months at a time but without a method for dealing with those times of high stress, a smoker will often turn to the one thing that they have been turning to their whole adult life--a cigarette. at some level, what ever age you started smoking was when you stop develoing new ways of dealing with high levels of stress because smoking worked so well. The time to develop new strategies is before you quit. think of the last time of intense stress and then think of different ways that you could have handle the stress, taking care of yourself phsyically, mentally and emotionally.

Different Reasons Why We Smoke

I have personally quit a total of nine separate times for at least 3 months each time. This is not counting the numerous attempts of a day here or a day there. Each time I have quit, I have learned something else about how I was connected to my cigarette. The first time I quit, it seemed easy, too easy and I thought I could control my smoking. But I was wrong, I needed to learn about relapsing and how just one cigarette can lead to a whole pack.
Another time it was important to learn what to do with my hands and the hand to mouth motion. Chewing on coffee stirrers worked for me. Other times, it was learning how to handle social situations without smoking and having a cocktail. I used to run a social club and often smokers would come up to me with a cigarette in their hand and want to talk. I would excuse myself and say that I would be right back. As soon as they put out their cigarette, I would return and them tell them that I had recently quit and it was difficult for me to be around a lit cigarette. That put the emphasis on me changing, not on changing or making them wrong.
The last time I quit, I needed to learn to control my strong emotions. I had started again because I was so angry at someone else that I had no outlet to vent and I saw no option except to smoke. Each time I quit, I develop another tool for my toolbox in dealing with my addiction to nicotine. Just like a carpenter needs many different tools for different jobs, a smokers needs different tools to handle the many different way they are connected to their cigarettes.
Since I've quit at least 9 times, this also means that I relapsed 8 times before I was finally successful. Most smokers would have given up before that because we want to make it easy to quit, we just want it over with but for some people like me who are truly addicted to nicotine, we need all the help we can get--which is developing more tools for your toolbox.

Introduction to Stop Smoking, Stay Quit

"It's easy to quit smoking, I've done it a thousand times." -Mark Twain
I started helping others quit smoking for very selfish reasons. I thought if I was teaching others to quit, it would help me to stay quit too. I started smoking when I was 14 because I was very shy and self conscious. Smoking gave me something to do with my hands when I was hanging around with my friends.
The first time I quit was because of Mr. O’Kelly. I worked in a medical clinic and Mr. O’Kelly was an elderly gentleman with emphysema that came in for daily treatments. I could hear him gasping for breathe as he walked into the clinic. He died from breaking his back due to complications with his medication.
As I was driving to work one day, smoking my morning cigarette I was thinking of Mr. O’Kelly and that I didn’t want to die like he did. I looked at my cigarette and thought "This is really stupid". I put the it out and didn’t smoke one for a year. It seemed easy at the time, maybe too easy because eventually I was telling myself that I could control my smoking and only smoke when I wanted too. This time I was going to control my smoking but I was wrong. In a very short period of time I was back smoking the same amount I had been smoking before I had quit.
It was several years before I quit again. This time was because I was dating an adamant non-smoker. He wouldn’t allow me to smoke in his car, in his apartment, and finally I couldn't smoke around him. Having to put up with his ravings seemed more stressful than quitting but when the relationship ended, I went right back to my cigarettes. After that I always wanted to quit and I would stop for a day or two every once in a while but it wasn’t until July of 1987 that I made a serious attempt at quitting. I was determined to quit for good and I attended a smoking cessation workshop sponsored by the American Cancer Society. Three months later I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was 32 years old and couldn’t handle the stress of chemotherapy, so I started smoking again.
No one ever told me my cancer was caused by smoking, yet I didn’t think that ingesting a cancer causing substance was a smart thing to do. I was at high risk for a cancer relapse and if I did have cancer again, I didn’t want to tell myself that it was something that I did to myself. What followed was a three year battle of me trying to give up my cigarettes. I quit several times but I always relapsed after a few months.
My last cigarette was August 19, 1990. I was down to the last one in the pack and I asked the friend I was driving with, to stop at a store. Very facetiously she said "So when are you going to quit again".
Her words struck a nerve with me. It became clear I needed to make a decision on what was more important to me, smoking a cigarette or quitting for good. Like a light switch being flipped on, I made the decision I did not want to smoke anymore and I was willing to do whatever it took to be successful.
I had attended a couple of stop smoking workshops and one of my facilitators had told me that the best way to quit for good was to teach someone else. I was already a volunteer with the American Cancer Society and I trained to facilitate their smoking cessation program. My first class started a month after my last cigarette. I was going to teach three classes over the next year and figured that at the end, I would have a good foundation to never smoke again. But I was hooked, I really related to others struggling to quit and discovered I could make a difference.
I became quite active with The American Cancer Society and the local Anti-Tobacco Coalition. I met many health educators, nurses and doctors teaching smoking cessation, but I couldn't understand how they teach other how to stop smoking when they had never smoked themselves. I disagreed with many of the principles being used. If I, as a former smoker, didn't believe what they were saying, why would another smoker? Although these professionals had medical or psychological backgrounds and I didn’t, I thought I knew more than they did about quitting.
Someone who has never smoked has no idea how embarrassing it is to explain how you singed your hair while lighting your cigarette on an electric stove because you couldn't find a match. Or how desperate you feel when waking up in the middle of the night, reaching for your package of cigarettes, only to find it empty. Then, going to the ashtray searching for a long butt, only to find it empty also. Grabbing the garbage can finding those long butts soaked by coffee grinds, but wanting a cigarette so bad, you get dressed and drive to an all night convenience store to buy a pack. I finally realized that most of those teaching others how to quit had no idea what it is like to be addicted to tobacco. But I do. I know the fears, the denial, and the rationalizations.
I started using different techniques in my class that I felt instinctively would work and I received favorable feedback from the participants. I thought that if I could say just the right thing at the right time to a smoker that I could get him or her to quit. My background was in sales and I had learned how to develop rapport with a client, establish a need, and overcome objections. I realized that I was selling good health and there was no objection that I could not overcome because there was no good reason to smoke.
I went back to college and received a BA in psychology. With every paper, every project, I tried to geared it towards additional knowledge about smoking. This blog is a combination of what I learned from helping others quit successfully and the psychological processes I learned from research. I have been trained as a Tobacco Treatment Specialist by the Mayo Clinic and just returned from a Nicotine conference there about smoking cessation for those individuals with a mental illness or substance abuse problem.
Quitting smoking is like walking down a street that is filled with landmines. Some landmines you know about and you avoid those, but others are hidden and if you step on one, you blow yourself up. You have the best intentions of staying quit but something happens and you blow yourself up or relapse back to smoking. What makes quitting hard is that the landmines are different for different people so what causes one person to relapse, may be avoidable with another person. The trick is finding out what will work for you, which may be different than anyone you know who has ever quit. It’s like putting together a jigsaw puzzle and everybody has a different puzzle so what worked for someone else may or may not work for you. When I hear that a method has 100% quit rate, I know that can’t be true. Every method will work for some, but no method works for everyone. The trick to quitting is to figure out which pieces of the puzzle affect you and then formulate a plan that works for you. You need an individualized plan to be successful. You don’t smoke exactly how anybody else smokes. Each person has their own individual triggers, emotions and connections to their cigarettes, and each person, needs a plan that will work for them. Let the Quitting begin!
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