:: Quit Cigarette Smoking :: 

THERE IS HOPE

But you can learn to replace cigarettes with other things that give you positive feelings. You can learn to relax and clear your mind in far more productive ways, than smoking. Finding replacements for your addictions is easily done with a little bit of effort.

HOW YOUR ADDICTION WORKS

Here are five ways to learn what you are addicted to and then to combat your addiction
 
*For two days, every time you smoke, write down the feelings you had before smoking each cigarette. Were you tired? Bored? Hungry? Fidgety?
**Write down the positive feeling that came from smoking each cigarette. Did it help you relax? Did you feel less bored? Did it help you wake up? Did it help you fall asleep?
***Study your list. You'll probably notice a pattern.
****Next, find things to distract you when you start feeling like having a smoke.
*****Also, find replacements for the positive feelings that you get from smoking. If you smoke to relax, figure out how to relax without a cigarette. If you smoke to clear your mind, figure out how to clear your mind without a cigarette.

THE EFFECTS OF NICOTINE

Nicotine affects almost every system in the body. When you take a puff, your heart beats faster, your pulse quickens, your veins constrict, your blood pressure increases. Your adrenal glands pump out adrenaline that increases your heart rate, relaxes many of your smooth muscles, and raises your metabolic rate. Even the electrical activity in your brain changes.
These are powerful biological effects. Indeed, nicotine is a very powerful drug. In fact, it is one of the most toxic of all drugs, comparable to cyanide. Take enough nicotine and it can kill you. But the amount of nicotine in a single cigarette is only 8 to 9 milligrams on average.

The amount of nicotine that smokers inhale from each cigarette is even smaller. Most popular brands of cigarettes deliver less than 1.5 milligrams per cigarette. This amount may be somewhat higher or lower for each smoker, depending on how deeply you puff and how many puffs you take from each cigarette.

But nicotine is so potent that even this small dose causes significant changes in the functioning of numerous organs and systems in your body. When people first take up smoking, these physiological changes seem extremely unpleasant. Beginning smokers usually experience nausea, dizziness, headache, stomach upset, coughing and other uncomfortable symptoms. But people who continue to smoke soon develop a tolerance to these symptoms, until they become unnoticeable.

Tolerance is a term used to describe an important feature of addiction. Tolerance has developed when, after the repeated administration of a drug (in this case, nicotine) produces a decreased effect. As well, tolerance has developed when increasingly larger doses must be administered to obtain the effects observed with the original dose.

What does this mean for the smoker? The small dose of nicotine delivered by several puffs on a cigarette may make people feel ill the first few times they try smoking. But after they've been smoking for a week or so (repeated "self-administration" of nicotine), several puffs and even an entire cigarette no longer have that effect. Now they'll feel ill only if they smoke several cigarettes one after another (a larger dose).

Psychologically, tolerance to the unpleasant effects of nicotine allows the smoker to focus on nicotine's pleasurable physiological effects. Many smokers don't realize that nicotine's effects on the heart, the nervous system, and the endrocine system are significant contributors to the relaxation, alertness, stress relief, and other good feelings they experience.

This combination of physiological and psychological effects provides so many positive reinforcements that smoking quickly becomes an established habit.

As the term tolerance implies, a smoker actually becomes accustomed to having a certain level of nicotine in his or her body. In fact, research studies have shown that (without realizing it) smokers regulate the number of cigarettes they smoke in order to maintain their own personally preferred level of nicotine. For example, smokers who are given a very high nicotine cigarette will puff less often than usual, so they don't take in more nicotine than their preferred amount. Likewise, with a low nicotine cigarette, the smoker will take more puffs than usual, in order to get that preferred amount of nicotine.

When no cigarettes are smoked for a while (when someone is trying to quit), the smoker doesn't get any nicotine. And it is the lack of nicotine that produces unpleasant physiological symptoms in the body. Medically, these symptoms are called "withdrawal effects."

To relieve these withdrawal effects, many smokers must continue to take in their usual amount of nicotine. This is a sign of "physical dependence" on nicotine. Doctors define physical dependence as a change in the body's functioning that is produced by repeated administration of a drug, such that continued doses of the drug are needed to prevent withdrawal symptoms.

But that's not all. Smokers also become accustomed to the psychological effects of smoking. After the smoking habit is established, the smoker needs to smoke in to feel "normal." In other words, the effects produced by nicotine, and the behaviors associated with smoking, become necessary to maintain the person's optimal state of well-being. This condition is referred to as "psychological dependence."

At the extreme, many smokers who run out of cigarettes or are unable to smoke, become totally preoccupied by thoughts of having a cigarette. This behavior is often referred to as "compulsive drug use."

DEVELOP YOUR QUITTING PLAN

There are two basic questions you have to answer in developing your personal plan for quitting smoking:

1. What method of quitting is best for you?

Cold turkey. You set a quit date and when that day comes, you stop smoking entirely.

Nicotine fading. A process of changing the type of cigarettes you smoke to gradually reduce your nicotine intake before you quit altogether.

2. Do you want to use medications to boost your effort?

Many smokers quit successfully without assistance from nicotine replacement products or drug treatment. This is a popular approach.

Nicotine replacement. Current choices among nicotine patches, nicotine sprays, nicotine nasal sprays, and nicotine inhalers are widely available in the market.

Medication available from your doctor can also help in quitting smoking.

Some people have found that hypnosis and acupuncture also helps.

IMPORTANT QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF

Think about the following questions before you try to stop smoking. You may want to talk about your answers with your health care provider and family. Try to answer these questions as honestly as possible.

1. Why do you want to quit?
2. When you tried to quit in the past, what helped and what didn't?
3. What will be the most difficult situations for you after you quit? How will you plan to handle them?
4. Who can help you through the tough times? Your family? Friends? Health care provider?
5. What pleasures do you get from smoking? What ways can you still get pleasure if you quit?

 

IMPORTANT QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR FAMILY

Here are some questions to ask your health care provider and your family.

1. How can you help me to be successful at quitting?
2. What medication do you think would be best for me and how should I take it?
3. What should I do if I need more help?
4. What is smoking withdrawal like? How can I get information on withdrawal?

Quitting takes hard work, focus and a lot of effort, but you can quit smoking.

PREPARE FOR YOUR QUIT DAY.

During the day, you have a lot of triggers that push you to smoke. And these triggers are responsible for most of your really strong urges to smoke. Ask yourself: "What's the cigarette that is toughest for me to go without?" Chances are, your answer will be something like:

• The cigarette with the first cup of coffee in the morning.

• The cigarette right after a long movie.

• The relaxing cigarette after dinner.

• The cigarette at morning break, after not having one since you came to work.

• The cigarette with a drink you need to unwind when you get home in the evening.

Each of these descriptions centers on a trigger - the first cup of coffee, getting out of the movie, relaxing after dinner, morning break, and a drink in the evening. These triggers that you and your brain have come to associate with smoking - when they happen, you have to smoke. As a matter of fact, this association is so strong that you actually crave a cigarette as these triggers come up.

But there is a way to eliminate these tough "trigger" situations. If you can get rid of the cues for smoking before you quit, situations in which you've "just got to have a cigarette" will lose some of their power. And you can do it before you quit.

So let's start destroying these triggers. The first step is to identify your strongest triggers, the situations in which you always smoke. For example:

• Do you always smoke after dinner? With your morning coffee?

• Do you always light a cigarette when the phone rings? When your children go off to school or get back home?

• Do you always smoke while driving in rush-hour traffic? While driving from errand to errand?

These "always" situations are your strongest external triggers for smoking. First you'll have to eliminate these. Once you feel you feel less need to smoke at the very times you thought you could "never get through without a cigarette," then you'll feel less need in other, less strongly cued situations. Start eliminating these "always" triggers a week or two before your Quit Day.

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