How to Quit Smoking WITHOUT Quitting Smoking... and much more than that!

[Asante]

The title sounds like a joke.

"How to Quit Smoking WITHOUT Quitting Smoking... and much more than that!"

Yeah right!

It cannot be that easy.

Yes it can.

NEUROPLASTICITY - the brain constantly adjusting its structure to what you factually are doing and aren't doing.

When you smoke, when you feel addicted to smoking, the pathways of reenforcement are highly established.

What can be done?

First: Make a list of your 5 or 10 reasons why you WANT TO NOT BE SMOKING. Those reasons must be positive. You shouldnt say: "I don't want to get lung cancer" thats negative. Turn it around. "When I have quit smoking my general health will improve for years on end." "when I have quit I have $30 a week more to spend on the good things in life."

See? Make positive commercial slogans. Make propaganda. Stuff you really believe in.

and now:

KEEP SMOKING!

Smoke no more and no less than always

BUT!

Every single time you light up and extinguish a cigarette, you re-state with conviction your positive reasons for not smoking. If you wanna really get at it, instead recite one of those reasons, the first that comes to mind, whjenever you take a drag.

And you just keep smoking.

What this does, is the following:

You have inside of you a brain system of psychological addiction. It is a system of empowerment and disempowerment that you keep reenforcing every time you affirm "I could never quit." or whatever gloomy thing you say to yourself. It is a balance and you keep adding weight to the I'M ADDICTED side.

By affirming positively, while still smoking, by affirming positively and MEANING IT, you are putting weight on the scale of personal empowerment.

You smoke for weeks or months that way, but sooner or later something magical happens: While you still smoke, the balance shifts towards EMPOWERMENT.

Suddenly you don't see why you want to continue smoking.

That is unthinkable now because your balance is towards smoking more. If by positive affirmation you shift that balance, and you WILL shift that balance that way you will suddenly look at that cigarette and go "why do I even bother".

The worst thing about quitting psychologically addictive drugs is the CRAVING. CRAVING coimes with WANTING to quit. If you stop wanting it, if you switch every venue of you wanting to smoke off, if you stop wanting it you stop doing it. Automatically, not by forcing yourself.

WILLPOWER IS CHISELING WHAT YOU WANT INTO YOUR BRAIN SO THAT IT STICKS.

This can be done in complete comfort, even while continuing the unwanted behavior.

Willpower is NOT depriving yourself from what you want indefinitely, its the power to CHANGE YOUR MIND AT WILL so that you don't want it anymore.

This is what Allen Carr does in his book, he is an opinionated gentleman who persistently, repeatedly, drives off any reason of why to smoke anymore.

You can do this better because YOU know what you REALLY want.

Quitting smoking isnt that bad if you are done with it before you quit.

The trick is being done with it.

You do this in this way: by positively affirming your good reasons so much, that your YES to quitting by itself overcomes its NO. Neuroplasticity. The thing you do most of a duality, or do best, that is the thing that you will gravitate towards.

You can move the center of gravity of your addiction towards not using mentally, EVEN WHILE YOU USE, and once that has occurred, further use will seem pointless to you and you'll quit physically too.

You don't have to stop using physically and then scramble to build a quitting mindset. You can start weeks or months before you physically quit with firing torpedo after torpedo into the battleships of your psychological addiction, in all comfort.

Is it not hypocritical to disavow the drug while you use it? YES! And thats GOOD! Your dissonance between intent and actions will be highlighted and too, will push towards a resolution - and since you're getting constant good reasons why your will is more important than your actions, your brain will deconstruct the actions.

Brainhacking. Reprogramming your brain by positive suggestive repetition. If commercial breaks can do it to your detriment, why can't you do it for your best interest?

You can even make some of your slogans funny or otherwse engage positive emotion, thats even better. You can connect it to recollection, like how you gagged and almost puked as a kid when dad smoked in the car on a long trip.

Heartfelt positive suggestion to your betterment combined with repetition, works.

It just does, even if you continue the vice while mentally building the virtue.

NOW YOU KNOW THAT YOU CAN *MAKE* YOURSELF HAVE A QUITTING MOMENT, AND HOW TO DO IT.


Suddenly..

You realize that this little spring Sakura blossom of info put in your mind is the key to controlling so much more aspects of your life, than quitting smoking alone...






Written by Asante, who has quit ALL drugs in his life in this way while in a 1 year Covid lockdown. If I can under those conditions, you can overcome yours. No fate.

 

[JessFR]

When I decided to quit smoking. All I did was slowly cut down.

First I took my 20-25 cigarette a day habit, and cut it down to more like 10-13 a day. That was pretty easy since that's still quite a lot of cigarettes a day. Basically I stopped having a cigarette just because it felt like a good time for a smoke and started waiting until I actually felt the need for a smoke.

Once I got down to 10-13 a day, I stayed at that a couple months.

Then, once I had about a pack or so left, I sorted it out so that I would have about 12 cigarettes for 2 days, then another 10 for 2 days, then 9 for 2 days, 8 for 2 days, and so on. Until I got down to about 3 for 2 days.

And that's where I stopped. After the second day of 3 a day, I just stopped smoking. No nicotine replacement therapy, I just quit. The first day was the hardest. It wasn't too hard but it was definitely the hardest. The second was easier, still difficult, but easier. After that I noticed that it felt like every day was 50% easier than the day before.

It's now been almost a year since I had a cigarette. The only time I think about them is when someone else mentions them. I still miss them sometimes, and occasionally when something makes me think about how much I loved smoking I might feel a craving. But something I realized early on is to just wait 20-30 minutes. By then cravings have usually gone away.

This way probably won't be ideal for everybody. But it worked great for me :D.

 

[Asante]

Nicotine replacement is not needed, on the contrary it keeps the addiction going. You dont need a product to quit smoking, you need less of a product, being cigarettes!

If you've hushed up the craving with strong motivation whats left of nicotine withdrawal is a mild cold. Its the still wanting to smoke that drives you off the wall. Nicotine doesnt do that, your programming that you need it does that. You don't.

 

[Spideronthewall]

When I decided to quit smoking. All I did was slowly cut down.

First I took my 20-25 cigarette a day habit, and cut it down to more like 10-13 a day. That was pretty easy since that's still quite a lot of cigarettes a day. Basically I stopped having a cigarette just because it felt like a good time for a smoke and started waiting until I actually felt the need for a smoke.

I am doing a similar thing with vaping except I am vaping the same amount but cutting the nicotine dosage down by .5 every few weeks. I am on 1.5mg of nic now which is peanuts... Almost, nothing. I'll go right down to 0mg then vape that for a few weeks before finally quitting. IF I gotta vape 0 for months to break the physical addiction then thats fine. I'll handle the psychological when I can but OPs post seems like solid advice.

 

[RDP89]

I quit with patches as nicotine replacement therapy. One week of 14 mg patches, then a week of those cut in half so 7 mg patches. It was actually really easy once I made the decision. That was after 7 years of smoking. People make way too big of a deal of how hard it is. If you really want to quit it isn’t very hard.

 

[Spideronthewall]

I quit with patches as nicotine replacement therapy. One week of 14 mg patches, then a week of those cut in half so 7 mg patches. It was actually really easy once I made the decision. That was after 7 years of smoking. People make way too big of a deal of how hard it is. If you really want to quit it isn’t very hard.

It is hard to quit cold turkey. Its super easy to quit if you do it right like you did though.