[chris21]

in reply to: Smoking and Graves Disease #1169348

Hi, although I didn’t join this Forum to talk about quitting smoking, it is a subject, that being a successful ‘quitter’ myself I feel that I can contribute something which hopefully will be of value.
Let me say straightaway that I am vehemently anti-smoking, having not only been a victim of it for eight years but also having witnessed at first hand through my voluntary work in Africa following graduation, the appallingly cynical and totally irresponsible way that those connected with the big tobaccco companies, at ‘arm’s length’ needless to say so that denying involvement is easy, give children free cigarettes to get the next generation started on the road to declining health and premature death.
Sorry, I told you I was vehement!
Anyway, I won’t embark on a long sermon, but I have studied the subject of quitting in some detail and I have an honours degree in a science discipline, so hopefully my advice is reasonably sound.
Firstly, Will Power is NOT a factor in quitting. Apparently some people have sufficient will power to do all sorts of wonderful things, but my research hasn’t yet found anyone in this category and nobody should be under the illusion that it is a serious weapon to use in your endeavours to stop.
Secondly, cutting down gradually is most definitely NOT a viable option. If you seriously intend to quit, you quit right from the word go – but there’s no use saying ‘go’ without some definite plan to enable you to reprogram your mind away from cigarette dependence.
Will power, if there is such a thing, is absolutely no good but imagination is.
Imagination in the form of visualising yourself as a non-smoker, experiencing in your mind your freedom from cigarettes and the better life you have ahead of you. Seeing yourself as a more attractive person, who doesn’t smell like a stale ashtray, who doesn’t repeatedly demonstrate to people that they’re not in control of their own lives by being unable to avoid putting a smouldering drug stick in their mouth and dragging the revolting smoke and tar and toxins into their own vital organs.
It’s easy for me to write this now but at the time I knew I needed help, which some of my friends could give me, but they weren’t going to be there all the time.
The only help I found I could rely on that was available 24/7 was self-help in the form of self-hypnosis
.
OK, maybe it sounds a little quirky, but if you check out the results, it’s got a good track record, is easy to integrate into your life and has many other benefits.
I promise you that I’m not an agent for any courses or books or anything else on this subject but I would urge anyone who knows deep down that quitting is the only option, to just have a browse round the internet and get a feel for the subject.
It’s really easy to get your own personal technique established which I firmly recommend that you do well before smoking that last cigarette.
You can just drift into the world of self-hypnosis over a couple of weeks; it’s wonderfully relaxing and you can really get to know yourself and then to appreciate yourself so much that you can’t envisage continuing to poison yourself any more.
That’s when quitting feels so natural that you really don’t even have to decide to do it!

Here endeth the lesson!

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