Beating that old demon nicotine

Beating any addiction is hard; just ask anyone who has tried. However, addictions can be beaten; just ask anyone who has succeeded. What about cigarettes? For many, they are the toughest addiction to overcome – perhaps tougher now than ever, given these stressful times.

Smokers can find tons of information on topics including quit smoking medications, nicotine replacement therapy, and nicotine withdrawal symptoms and quit smoking programs. If you are now a smoker who has tried to quit and failed, or if you’re a former smoker, who has passed successfully through the hells of withdrawal, then you too are likely smiling, because you know that smoking is one of the most harmful things ever.

If you are a smoker and you want to quit, you might need to try a different way. There are numerous options to beat the addiction, including simplest and arduous cold turkey quit smoking process. If you are brave enough to quit cold turkey, there is a popular book among ex-smokers titled "The Easy Way to Quit Smoking" by Allen Carr. The book, written by a man who almost let the addiction kill him, is compelling, non-preachy and asks you to use your mind to overcome addiction.

There is no easy way to quit smoking when you have been hooked for a while. You must really be determined to stop. Moreover, you must tough it out no matter what method you use. Take it day by day. Eventually, the cravings become less intense and you begin to feel deep relief.

Talk To Your Doctor

A new year can bring new motivation, but motivation isn’t what will help you quit smoking. You can’t just wake up one morning and expect things to be perfectly smooth from there on, it takes time, it takes effort and it takes some work, but when people engage in groups and take the right treatment, most are able to succeed.

Half of the smokers will try to quit at the start of January each year, but the majority of those who try to use self-control and go cold turkey will not succeed. However, fewer than 10 percent of those who quit cold turkey stop smoking for a year or longer. It's tough because smoker are going to go through nicotine withdrawal; smoker will get depressed, will get the shakes and will get irritable. This could go on for weeks.

Smokers sometimes try other methods to quit, including laser treatments, hypnosis and acupuncture. Few, if any, studies exist on their effectiveness. They all work in the area of suggestion, which can help some people, but another thing that works well is simply talking with your doctor for 15 minutes about why you should stop smoking.

Relapse Experience

Many smokers try to quit without any preparation and education on quit smoking issue. They try just to "NEVER TAKE ANOTHER PUFF". This is route to nowhere. You need to change your attitude to smoking at first. If nicotine addiction secure itself in yours mind, you have no chance to success. If you still thinking that smoking is pleasure or help you to relax or to concentrate, it will be too hard for you to stay smoke free.

Let us talk about relapse experience. You had some cigarettes while quitting and no withdrawal symptoms after it. This is not strange - you just did not get what you think you should get from these cigarettes - pleasure. It was disgusting experience instead of pleasure expected. The key moment is that somewhere inside you, your soul is waiting for some joy and pleasure from smoking. You should say STOP to these feelings. Smoking will never give you any value. If you know it for sure, you will never have reason to check this out with one, two cigarettes or even the pack.

Change Your Mindset

In the long run cold turkey is the easiest, quickest, least expensive and most effective technique of quitting smoking. It only takes 3 days before your blood becomes nicotine free and the symptoms of physical withdrawal reach their peak. There are over one billion ex-smokers on earth today and almost all of them quit cold turkey.

To quit smoking successfully using cold turkey method, simply ensure that you are changing your mindset while you are still smoking. You have to fall out of love with smoking, you have to know why it is a bad habit, you have to know why you do not need it, and you have to know why it is not a part of you. You need to answer all these questions to quit the habit for good, and ensure that being an ex-smoker isn't a day-to-day battle for the years to come.

Do not debate with yourself how much you want a "cigarette." You don't crave a cigarette any more than the heroin addict craves a needle. The cigarette and needle are simply drug delivery devices. What you want is the drug inside. Be honest! Truly, see yourself as "addicted to nicotine" because you are! Just one puff and you will either immediately or shortly thereafter experience full and complete relapse back to your prior level of nicotine use or higher. Do not look at it as taking just "one" puff, look at it as taking all nicotine addiction back.

Never Take Another Puff

Find a smoker who once quit smoking for a large period, say one year or longer and then relapsed. Ask him how he liked not smoking. Ask him how he now likes smoking. Then ask the main question, how did he return to smoking?

Probably answers will look like the ones below. "Not smoking was great. I hardly thought of cigarettes any more. I felt healthier, happier, and even calmer. Cigarettes smelled disgusting. The thought of smoking at my old level was odious." To the second question, how do you now like smoking, the answer will typically be, "I hate it, I smoke as much or even more than I did before. I feel more anxious, do not have as much energy, and generally feel like a fool when smoking in public. I sure wish I could quit again." The answer to the third and most important question of how did he return to smoking is almost always the same, "I took a cigarette."

It may have happened under stress, at a party, or at home alone with nothing-special going on. Whatever the cause, the result was the same - addiction to nicotine and cigarettes smoking. Learn from others' mistakes and not your own. Your smoking friend is folded in powerful and deadly addiction arms. Maybe he will get the chance and strength again to quit smoking; maybe he will smoke until smoking kills him.

You have successfully broken free of the nicotine addiction. While your smoking may have been a potential risk to your life in the past, now your risks are dropping down to that of a person who never smoked. As long as you stay off cigarettes, you never will have to worry about the physical, psychological, social and economical risks of smoking again as long as you follow one simple practice...