How to get started on quitting smoking
Being a smoker, you will come upon a time when you wish to quit. That time may even be right now. Any number of reasons may be making you look to quit – a nasty smoker’s cough; growing health concerns; or maybe you’re just tired of the smell. Why you want to quit isn’t as important as the fact that you do want to quit. You know how it affects your life. You know what it does to you. And you know eventually you need to stop. The hard part is actually setting plans in motion to help you do this.
Perhaps, due to the ever-increasing methods of quitting available nowadays, choosing one has become a more difficult task. The best recommendation I can make here is to analyze each for its pluses and minuses and try to choose one that goes with your current lifestyle. Just by doing a little homework first, finding the method that will be the most successful for you, becomes far easier.
The difficulty when I quit was that I had no idea as to which method of quitting was the right one for me. Therefore a quick visit to the doctor helped me determine which method was right for me, both in effectiveness and fewest side effects.
We discussed many of the methods available and their side effects, but we also focused a lot of the conversation on the psychological part of quitting as well, since for most people, including myself, that would be the most difficult part of quitting smoking.
I hadn’t even considered mentally preparing myself to quit. It was always just an assumption to me that you quit, became really grouchy for a week or so and that was it – you were a non-smoker. It never crossed my mind that this non-smoking thing was a lifelong committment.
So after the conversation with the doctor and after choosing the treatment method I was comfortable with, she told me to pick a quit day a couple of weeks out and use the time in between to prepare for my new smoke-free lifestyle. In those two weeks it became evident how much my life revolved around smoking and how much I wished to be rid of the habit. So I began to take positive steps like smoking outside; throwing out my ashtrays; and even cleaning my carpets, bedding and curtains.
As I have told everybody looking for my advice on quitting smoking, it is one of the hardest things you will ever do in your life. But it is also one of the most rewarding. Start now. Get your game plan in place – and quit! Nothing will give you more satisfaction.
Looking for a way to stop smoking? Better be quick to read Darren Warmuth’s article on how to get going quitting smoking