Ron, Hope you made it through day 2. You are two third of the way through breaking the "addiction" That part only takes 3 days Nicotine free to break. that is the achy physical stuff. It is the "Habit that lingers after that, but is usually what causes people to fail. So Many people Never really get their mind wrapped around just what it is they are fighting. and with a foe as difficult as Cigarettes. I believe it is all the more important to Know your enemy. So much of our lives are a product of Habit. we wake up from habit, eat at approx the same time each day from habit. Often go to work and do what feels like mindless tasks because they have all become habit. Come home take the same shower, washing with the same routine, and even have a selection of normal meals that we cook at home when we could have almost an endless variety.
In a huge way our lives are not only easier because we rely on habit, but in some cases our lives are actually dependent on it. imagine waking every day and having to learn to make a new breakfast, or having a new unfamiliar job to go to. For the most part Habit is something we need and our minds and bodies accept it as a good and necessary thing. Even the bad ones. We have a very strong force in us to keep and maintain our habits regardless of them being good or bad.
I ask you to read this and contemplate on what it means about breaking a habit. Understand it as well as you can. Because this is now the enemy you are in contention with.
Habits take 21 days to break. there are some things you can do to help.
1. find a different but similar activity to replace the habit with. suck on lollipops, chew on toothpicks. start biting your nails. at first this will not seem to help at all. but it will be having an effect even if you don't know it.
2. you can tell yourself that the urges are only in your head. Do this again and again. Studies have shown that 16 repetitions of a behavior can completely alter our mental and physical reaction to a stimulus. I suspect I may have lost you with that statement. So here is an example. Lets say you are afraid of snakes. If I can convince you to hold a snake once. it will help in retraining your mental and emotional reaction to the presence of one. But if I can get you to hold a snake on 16 separate occasions. Your original fear of them will be completely gone. it will have been obliterated.
Now I am not certain this will work perfectly for the urge to smoke, a lot requires on your ability to imagine and stay focused. But you may very well want to try this.
Go get about two dozen of whatever you want to use, it really does not matter. Also get some music that your really like. You know that tape of all your oldies but goodies. all those sounds that really got your foot tapping sort of stuff. what we want to do is flood your senses as much as possible. Your wife screaming at you from the other room would work also, but I think you will enjoy my way better. So lets say you chose 24 snickers bars. every time you think about a cigarette I want you to grab a candy bar. turn on your tape and really concentrate on letting your self be carried away by the music as you eat the candy. It does not matter what you eat. it can be a carrot, a fist full of dried cereal or whatever. just whatever it is make sure it is your favorite. If you can do something that is visual along with this even better. what you are trying to do is overwhelm you senses. Sight, sound, smell, taste and feeling with any other stimulus you can find. but it needs to be the same one every time. 16 repetitions according to the studies I know of say you will completely obliterate the urge to smoke and replace it with wanting to listen to music and eat carrots. Seriously. but you have to do it right. you can't really be thinking of how much you want a cigarette while doing it. you can't imaging the carrot is really a cigarette either. you have to think about what you are eating and really be liking it.
Okay now I know you are thinking I am cracked a little or something. So at the risk of violating the PG13 code here I will share with you the actual University studies that support this. Warning it is of a sexual nature so I will keep it as clinical as i possibly can.
It has been demonstrated that men of College age can and have been trained repeatedly and reliably to be aroused at the sight of a jar of pennies. the purpose of using sexual urges to demonstrate just how powerful this technique is is that Sexual urges are at the very core and considered some of our deepest and most ingrained natural urges. smoking is also a product of urge. But Sexual urges are tied to our very basic ability to reproduce. they are extremely difficult to alter. If you would like details on exactly how this jar of pennies thing was accomplished I will be happy to provide details privately. otherwise it requires descriptions that are not PG13 friendly. I will for now say that it worked, it worked every time, and it worked well.
So for now get that CD, some sort of munchy and hopefully something that you have a strong reaction to looking at. If you have the urge to smoke once an hour, and you do it right. you can end those urges in 16 hours.
At the very least Good luck I am rooting for you and you are now only 18 days from beating the very hardest part of all this. The good news is it gets a little easier each day. After 21 days the habit is broken and from then on it is nothing more than making a choice each day. It may not feel that way. but that really is the truth. there is no longer any mental or physical reason to desire a smoke after that.
I know of one other mess with your mind technique. But I will only share it if this attempt fails because it requires that you continue to smoke and I don't want to do anything to encourage you to have even one more cigarette. it is also not nearly as effective as the stuff I described above.
