So February 1992, my 16th birthday, I walked into the newsagent on my way to school and bought 20 John Player Special for no other reason than I could, I was legally entitled to buy tobacco products and nobody was going to stop me. It was an act of rebellious defiance from a naive child who had no real clue what he was really doing. It took 20 years before I was able to quit smoking but when I did it was one the easiest things I have ever done and taught me so much about myself and what I can achieve if I apply my mind.
I wasn't planning to quit, I'd tried a couple of times in the past but didn't take the right approach and when I failed I just resigned myself to believing that smoking was too addictive and I just couldn't quit, I just couldn't do it and would never be able to do it, it was going to take patches, gum, stop smoking group therapy sessions, every resource available to climb what felt like Mount Everest and even then I didn't believe I could do it. What actually happened was the complete opposite, with a simple adjustment to my thinking and some mental preparation I gave up smoking with just willpower alone, barely any cravings and 7 years later I am still smoke free.
It started off when I was about 30, my then girlfriend was a vegetarian and cooked some meat free dishes, they tasted quite good so I decided to give up meat and become vegetarian then about 6 years after that I met some people online who opened my eyes to the amount of cruelty involved in just dairy products, let alone actually killing animals for food. I started to look at what was in my diet closer, I bought myself a filter jug for my tap water, started to fill the kettle from the jug, when I cook vegetables I use the boiled jug water from the kettle. I stopped drinking water straight from the tap and after about a week I noticed my thinking had become sharper and clearer. I started cleaning up my diet by removing all the chemicals like colourings, additives, sweetners, flavourings etc. I bought some multivitamins to help boost my nutrient intake and some chlorella to help detox my system.
After a short while I noticed a definite lift in my physical wellbeing, I felt lighter and cleaner inside and my overall mood had lifted. My attitude towards smoking changed too, it used to be my go to for almost anything, anytime there was anxiety or stress I'd reach for the baccy and roll a fag, hungry? aches and pains? boredom? you name it smoking was my answer to pretty much everything. Now my diet had changed and my physical health was improving I felt as if smoking was going to get in the way so I decided I was going to have another go at quitting but this time I was going to do it seriously and mean it. All my previous attempts had been made on the spur of the moment because of trivial matters like not having any cash for 48 hours till payday or the shops were shut on Sundays and a trip to the supermarket was out of the question, yeah!!... today's kids wouldn't believe that once upon a time the shops were not allowed to open on Sundays.. we could do with a return to that in all honesty.
Along with my dietary changes I had started to meditate and apply some mindfulness to my life, I started with breathing abdominally, quite simply by doing so you allow yourself to use the full capacity of the lungs, most people breathe with their chest and only half fill the lung but if you breathe abdominally then you utilise the full length of the lung and this get's more air into your system, this means more oxygen in the blood and that helps you to relax, to calm a bit of anxiety, it helps with cell rejuvination and just overall function of the body in general..it's a good thing!
Breathe in and push your tummy out, hold for 3 seconds then breathe out and pull your tummy right in.
I did this 100 times every morning or when I could grab 5 minutes and after a couple of weeks my body started to breathe like this naturally, you exagerate the movement at the beginning to train the muscles but you won't be sticking your tummy right out when it's normal.
Once I had got the hang of relaxing a bit I started to visualise myself in the future, a future where smoking didn't exist, not one where I had given up but did not exist period. I tried to imagine positive images like being in the park breathing in clean air, feeling healthy and feeling good, birds singing, the sun shining but nowhere did smoking even exist. To start off with the mind wants to include smoking because that's the item you want to miss out so you end up focusing on it but after a short while it becomes easy.
As well as meditating I kept telling myself in my head 'I can do this' over and over and over, every day, all day long, I struggled to police my thoughts at times but managed to keep it in mind, repeating positive phrases over and over,
I can do this
I am doing this
I will do this
I will give up
I will beat smoking
I'M IN CHARGE,NOT THE ADDICTION!!!!
etc etc etc, over and over and over, all day every day to the point where my thoughts could seem obsessive if someone could have heard them lol!
One of the most influential things I did was to turn smoking into something disgusting, you know these television infocommercials from the health board that show a cigarette dripping fat and cholesterol? like porridge dripping onto the floor, greyish whitey creamy goop, so every drag of every cigarette I took I imagined that in my mind, every drag I told myself over and over - this is disgusting, this is horrible, this is crap, this tastes foul, this is no good, my body doesn't want it, eugh eugh eugh eugh.... to the point I started to want to vomit sometimes. I turned smoking into something horrible that repulsed me, I broke that love for nicotine and it became a chore, a curse that no longer soothed the discord within my physical shell or tamed the mental madness of withdrawal for a few minutes till the nicotine levels started to drop again, the eternal loop of withdrawal and replenishment. It became something I no longer enjoyed or physically wanted to do, the relief I had sought through smoking, that few seconds before your first drag where you can relax and chill because smokeys coming became the very thing that made me anxious. All the good work I had done, the progress with my health and outlook in general was being undermined by this filthy vile chemical nicotine that had held me in it's clutches for too long now.
The whole mental pre-planning took between 3-4 months, there was no date set, no target that could be missed, I was focused solely on preparising for the day when I could give up. I was psyching myself up in a way that I had never ever done before, without knowing how I managed to tap into something greater than just lil old me. I made my home a smoke free zone, without realising, smoking had taken over my flat, the spare lighters 'just in case' the spare rolling papers in the drawer, the box of filters here... the ashtrays there, the empty pouches of baccy that held enough crumbs collectively for a couple of skinny roll ups just in case. It had taken over my home covertly, stealthily right under my eyes the enemy had cuckooed my living space, my personal territory, so I turned smoking into nothing.
I took everything I had and threw it all away bar one ashtray and one lighter, I put them in a cupboard out of sight so I wouldn't be reminded of them. Eventually it was to become a chore constantly having to go and get them when I wanted a smoke, I made the whole process of smoking laborious and unpleasant, everything about it was negative. It was no longer something cool the movie stars did, it was no longer a statement of rebellion, it was the idiocy of a naive youth who's time had come. I completely cleared it out of my space and owned it! this is my territory and I say who's coming in, smoking was being shown the door!
There was no 'new years resolution' either, although admirable the notion of New years resolutions is doomed to failure, the winter days are the shortest right around the start of january, this lack of available daylight lowers your mood and affects bodily function accordingly. It's far more effective to wait till spring has kicked in and the longer days give you more daylight, the lift in mood will give a better starting boost with the whole process.
April 1st 2012, April fool's day of all days, I ran out of tobacco and didn't feel like going to the shop, I felt no urge to replenish my tobacco supply, no immediate craving for nicotine, I finished my last roll up, threw the empty pouch away, put the ashtray and lighter away in the cupboard for one last time and decided that was the moment, I had done it. From this point on I was no longer trying to give up or planning to, I had actually done it! I had given up smoking. The challenge now was to see how long I could keep this going, they say it takes 21 days to break a habit, so that was my first target, make it to 21 days then make it to a month, then 2, then 3 next thing I knew it was 6 months and on.
I kept telling myself over and over n my head, all day every day...
I've done it, I've quit
I've only gone and bloody done it Rodney' lol...
I can make 2 months,
I can make 3 months.
The work wasn't over for a long shot yet but I had done it and now I just had to keep it rolling. I didn't have much of a withdrawal maybe the first 2-4 days I had pangs occasionally and wanted to reach for a smoke, more out of habit and routine I guess, 20 years of repetitive behaviour doesn't just get turned off overnight.
I really didn't experience as much of a withdrawal as I was expecting to, I had images of Ewan Mcgregor in Trainspotting trying to break away from heroin, grey, shivering, a life enslaved to a shitty chemical but the reality was that it was so easy it was unreal. I kept the positive thinking going telling myself over and over I was doing this,
I am doing this
I have actually quit
I have done it, that's it!!
you have actually quit!!
now keep it going
this is easy I can do this
I will make 3 months, 4 months etc etc
I want to see how long I can keep it going, this is easy,
it's now (2021) 9 years and I can honestly say it was easy. I imagined a monumental challenge that would almost consume my being in a god vs evil battle for my life. What I decided now would seal my fate, to grow old all diseased and cancerous or to sort my shit out and take responsibility for my own future. I don't want people having to look after me when I'm 80 because I couldn't be bothered to do anything now to make sure I was never in that situation.
So in brief
The most important thing to remember and tell yourself over and over..
I'M IN CHARGE NOT THE ADDICTION - believe it with all your heart, say it with every ounce of your being, mean it with every part of your soul!!!
Eat cleaner - you don't have to go vegan but get rid of all the chemicals, your body needs nutrients and vitamins so give it the right ones, stop making yourself sick and anxious because your body isn't working to optimum
Filter your water
Prepare yourself mentally over a period of time, don't set targets but just wait till you feel you don't need to smoke anymore - this took about 3-4 months for me but may take less for you.
Forget about ' New years resoltions' and wait till the longer days lift your mood
Make smoking something horrible, disgust yourself and your mind
Own your habit, make it something small that has very little space in your life
Exercise and improve your wellbeing so smoking becomes a detrimental action, picture a smoke free future, get more air in your lungs
Believe you can do it, tell yourself constantly over and over and over that you can do it
If you can't do it first time don't worry, just make sure you don't stop believing that one day you WILL be smoke free
And that is how I quit smoking after 20 years of ciggarettes and rolling tobacco with just my mind
Comments