After countless attempts at Stop smoking I have been living "smoke-free" for more than ten years now. So my last used trick was effective. Maybe my personal experience will help you quit smoking as well?
If you want to quit smoking, you have to start first
Yes, I smoked for many years. Don’t skimp. It had to be at least 20 cigarettes a day. The result of a classic smoking career: Started as a teenager, because it was so common in the clique, got very used to it over time and later simply got addicted to nicotine.
Like so many smokers, I have become an expert on quitting smoking in all that time. After all, I have tried countless variants and tips to get rid of tobacco and become a non-smoker. A selection? Please:
- Slowly reducing the number of cigarettes,
- Quitting for good from one day to the next (several times),
- tell all your friends not to offer you cigarettes anymore,
- Chew nicotine gum,
- put saved money into a glass bowl (at least it worked for a few months),
- Drink a glass of water every time you feel like having a cigarette.
However, none of these approaches was crowned with lasting success. Sooner or later came the relapse, either caused by a major stressful situation or – always almost inevitable – triggered by the approach of a woman who rolled her own cigarettes with relish. I don’t know why I find this sexy either.
But in the end it worked. Using a classic self-trick (I’ve noted before that I like these a lot, in the article "how you keep up every 30-day challenge").
Stop smoking in 15 minutes? How to do it?
Stop trying to do too much
At first I realized that it is simply not possible for me to stop smoking completely. Become a non-smoker, this task is definitely too big!
Haven’t you already failed many times?? Give it up! And thus enable you to make the decisive progress! Sounds confusing? Don’t worry, here comes the solution
A short smoke break is all it takes
Since "quitting smoking for all time" obviously didn’t work, I decided to take a smoke break instead. The decisive difference: A break is for a manageable period of time and not "forever".
Specifically, I have resolved not to smoke a cigarette for the next 15 minutes. No more, no less – just 15 minutes.
Do you think you can do that?? 15 minutes of not smoking? Come on. 15 minutes? Go, or?
Great. If you try it, you will see for yourself that it is not a problem to go without a cigarette for 15 minutes. That’s all you have to do.
So check off the urge to smoke for the next quarter of an hour and occupy yourself with something else.
Smoking can wait longer than you think
I have found that the desire for a cigarette often does not survive the 15 minutes. Because it is not a permanent condition, but will disappear if you assure him that he is welcome to call again in 15 minutes. Then, when you’re busy with other things, the thought of smoking often doesn’t come back until much later.
The important thing is that you can do it again and again. The next time you get a craving for a cigarette again, you don’t have to do anything more than "not smoke" for 15 minutes again. You already know that you can do this.
One small step at a time
Important: Don’t take on more than that. Realize that after the 15 minutes, you’re welcome to reconsider reaching for a cigarette again. You can then of course smoke again if you feel like it. Only at this moment, now, with the immediate desire for a cigarette, do you put it off for 15 minutes.
It will probably often take much longer than 15 minutes for you to even think about it again, too.
And what do you do when you feel the urge to smoke again later?? Just put it off again. Just a quarter of an hour.
That is all you have to do. Do it every single time you actually want to reach for a cigarette!
Just wait a quarter of an hour.
It’s worth a try
In the end, the "postponed" time can add up quite nicely. For me it has been more than 10 years, during which I have done nothing but "not smoking a cigarette for the next 15 minutes".
The pleasant in the course of the time: Up to the next desire for a cigarette it lasts meanwhile very long. And when I look at the ever-lengthening chain of "15-minute phases without smoking," the motivation is very high to simply add another quarter of an hour of procrastination in the back instead of breaking the chain and starting from scratch again.
Become a non-smoker, that is, stop smoking, forever and ever? That seems too difficult. But to simply extend my current smoking break by another 15 minutes – that always works. Try it yourself!