To stop smoking, smokers need strong motivation to drive them to kick the nicotine habit. Indeed, there can be strong personal reasons, pressure buy 510 vape pens ny from peers and family members or due to social stigma attached with smoking to give up the habit. The following list tries to address the psychological and emotional side of benefits smokers can derive when they take the arduous journey of quitting smoking.
1. Smoking is no more ‘cool’
Cigarette smoking no more considered cool compared to 70s and 80s when everyone smoked. The smoking habit considered unhealthy. Cigarette companies generated the ‘cool’ image due to cleverly designed commercials. For someone intelligent, the appeal of coolness is diminishing given the health hazard the smoking habit carries. There are mandatory ghastly looking images on cigarette packs in some countries not only horrifying, but also a revelation.
2. Stop buying packs of cigarette saves you lot of money
For a moment, imagine how many cigarettes a smoker smokes in a year on an average 20 cigarettes a day. Cool 7000 cigarettes a year! Astounding, right? No! Try the numbers if one smoked for the last 10 years. That totals to 70,000 cigarettes. Now, that is worrying. We have not considered special occasions, weekends; jaunts to nightclubs where one tend to smoke more than usual, sometimes two times the average. This puts the numbers even higher.
Just do the math and see how much cigarette one has burnt in her life. Interestingly, the amount of money one spends just to satisfy addiction is staggering. It is fraction of a dollar, no doubt, for each cigarette. However, how much money one spends on buying cough medicine, breath fresheners, throat fresheners, teeth whiteners, and visiting dentists just because one wanted to be normal?
3. Increased Confidence levels once one stop smoking.
You look like a rock star to others who are trying to quit smoking. Apparently, almost every other smoker wishes to stop smoking one day. However, how many honestly stop smoking and never become a smoker again in their lives? You will be surprised to find out how people expression can change when one mention that she quit smoking. It is shocking for most of smokers and pleasant surprise for many of her not smoking friends. Just imagine how tall she can walk!
4. Worry no more about how bad your breath smell in front of clients or customers
The cigarette smoke smells nasty. Smoking creates bad odor in your mouth and few feet around you. The smell lingers longer if you smoke in an air-conditioned room. You make every other not smoking person to suffer because of your habit. Does it sound selfish? Perhaps, yes. Stop smoking and never worry about the stink again.
5. Save astounding amounts of time
Can you imagine how much time one save by stop smoking? If you are a busy person and a smoker, you can gain lot by stop smoking. It is a simple arithmetic.
One may argue that he or she is smoking the cigarette while working. The smoker while smoking unknowingly idle away productive minutes. How much time you end up wasting just for smoking every year? You be the judge.
6. No embarrassing stares at you
Nowadays, many public places are out of bounds for smoking. However, when smokers lit a cigarette in places with children, senior citizens, pregnant women, and sick persons, for example, invite cold stare from others. It is embarrassing for both the guilty smoker and others. You can walk guilt free when you quit.
7. Feel healthier and fresh day after day
We know there are nearly 2000 types of chemicals produced while smoking and some are hazardous and carcinogen! Smoking can cause irreparable damage to mouth, gums, teeth, and lungs. We are wise enough to stay away from death inviting sticks.
8. Help your society to become smoke free and earn good karma
Leading by example, you can help others to quit smoking. You can motivate others who are trying to quit smoking. You will earn good karma by doing this.
9. Make your family members happy and healthy
Do you know how happy your friends, family members and others feel for you when you stop smoking? It is certainly a feel good factor for you. You help them to eliminate passive effects of smoking. The whole environment becomes healthy. You will love it.
10. Develop cleaner and healthier living environment
Imagine the cigarette butts, empty boxes that thrown around on the street by un-mindful smokers. By quitting smoking, you are helping to keep the clean environment and smoke free. Our world beset with global pollution. By quitting, you can contribute positively to the global cause.
People think that to quit smoking, all they need to do is to replace the nicotine provided by the cigarette. There are a number of products on the market, many over the counter, that give an ample supply of replacement nicotine. However, they aren’t very effective. The reason people continue to smoke is due to the Psychological Smoking Mechanism, not a need for nicotine.
In this article, we will look at some research on the effectiveness of nicotine patches and gum.
The Nicotine Model of Smoking
Back in the 1990’s, nicotine got labeled as a highly addictive substance. It was blamed for the reason people find it hard to quit smoking. Yet, cigarette smoking does not fit the definition of a chemical addiction.
In the nicotine model, craving nicotine is what keeps a person smoking. It followed that if nicotine could be provided from a source other than cigarettes, the smoker would not crave cigarettes. Thus, the person would quit smoking cigarettes by replacing the source of nicotine with a nicotine patch or nicotine gum. Then, the new source of nicotine could be gradually reduced over time until the smoker’s “addiction” to nicotine was removed.
This would be a nice, simple solution if nicotine was the real driving force to smoke cigarettes. However, if there is some other reason people smoke, such as the Psychological Smoking Mechanism, supplying nicotine will not be an effective substitute. Let’s look at some research on the effectiveness of nicotine patches and gum.
The Research
Two products that follow the chemical addiction model of cigarette smoking are nicotine patches and nicotine gum. They are superb products and do just what they say; they give a very ample supply of nicotine. Since the smoker is getting generous amounts of nicotine, which they are supposedly craving, the patches should be incredibly effective and remove the desire for a cigarette. But how effective are they?
Some research shows, (Davidson, M., Epstein, M., Burt, R., Schaefer, C., Whitworth, G. & McDonald, A. (1998)), only 19% of people on nicotine patches had stopped smoking at six weeks and it was reduced to 9.2% at six months. Looking at it another way, at 6 weeks, 81% of the people using nicotine patches were still smoking and at 6 months, about 91% were still smoking. Yes, 10% of those that had stopped were back at it again.
The results for the gum was about the same. Even though the gum was providing the smoker with plenty of nicotine, at 6 weeks, 84% of the people were still smoking and at 6 months, 92% were smoking.
The research showed that the 8% – 9% of the people who had quit smoking using the nicotine patches and gum were highly motivated to quit smoking! In other words, they were removing their Psychological Smoking Mechanism.
A Real Life Example
A radio host was interviewing me about the Psychological Smoking Mechanism and in the course of the interview he told me that he was an ex-smoker. He said he had used nicotine gum to quit and it had taken him two years until he was finally off of cigarettes. TWO YEARS!
Think about that for a moment. The nicotine gum was providing a large supply of nicotine just as it is designed to do. Yet, this man was smoking AND chewing the nicotine gum. In other words, the gum, loaded with nicotine was not substituting for the cigarette as it theoretical should have done.
Since the man wanted to quit, he finally stopped after two years. But it wasn’t the gum, it was him changing his Psychological Smoking Mechanism without even realizing consciously what he was doing. Just like the 8% – 9% of the people in the research study mentioned above.
Nicotine is Not the Motivator to Smoke
The amount of nicotine a smoker gets in one cigarette is very small. Compare the cigarette to your body mass; it’s tiny and so is the amount of nicotine it contains.
However, these very effective nicotine dispensing products, nicotine patches and gum are loaded with nicotine. That’s what they are designed to do; put adequate nicotine into the smokers system to, theoretically at least, replace the need to smoke a cigarette. However, most smokers have adverse reactions to these products because they are getting more nicotine than they ever did smoking. What does all this extra nicotine do?
According to the American Lung Association, side effects with the nicotine patch are:
- Headache
- Dizziness
- Upset stomach
- Weakness
- Blurred vision
- Vivid dreams
- Mild itching and burning on the skin
- Diarrhea
Yes, nicotine does have an effect on the smokers body. However, with all the things that smoking does to the smoker, it doesn’t produce the effects mentioned by the American Lung Association. This is another clue that nicotine is not the motivator to smoke.
Conclusion
If you go by the nicotine model to quit smoking, you are going to be disappointed. The only way to quit smoking is to remove the Psychological Smoking Mechanism by using proven, psychological techniques. When the mechanism is gone, so is smoking.
© Copyright 2010, R. Michael Stone
R. Michael Stone, M.S. – Counselor
33 years experience with subconscious communication and subconscious programming techniques.
Creator of The Unlearn Smoking Success System™ – The program that gives you the powerful psychological tools necessary to disassemble the Psychological Smoking Mechanism. This easy 28 day program helps you become, not an ex-smoker, but a Non-smoker. Find out how this program can help YOU permanently remove cigarettes from your life.
