A Practical Guide to Becoming a Nonsmoker

by Burke, Joseph

• ISBN13: 9781462030330
• ISBN10: 1462030335
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-08-09
• Publisher: Textstream

Summary

About the BookThis book is a guide on how to quit smoking and more than that. First of all a guide is meant to illuminate a path to follow. It is not a treatise or dissertation, but a simple guide. Follow the path and it will lead you where you want to go. It teaches you to understand how and why you smoke and what holds you in this habit. New insights are presented and a new method, The Reasoned Approach, is developed. The seven-step method is set off as a compact separate section for the reader to come back and go over whenever they need guidance, understanding or encouragement. Statements as to what you should know with conviction are written in each step to allow the reader to see what the lesson is intended to accomplish. It, of course, is not necessary that the reader agree with every single point. These, after all, are only meant to be guidelines. Anyone can and millions do give up smoking on their own and more power to them. The steps are meant to show an easy way to follow.As a parent, coach, and grandparent I have observed that simple instruction with personal encouragement allows the student to focus, understand, and know with certainty they have command of the lesson. A Practical Guide to Becoming a Non-Smoker was written in this vein.No matter how long you have been smoking or how many times you have tried to quit, it is still possible to become a non-smoker.But if quitting is not working, then you must seek out new ways to kick the habit. This resource guide helps you develop a plan to stop smoking once and for all. The knowledge and insights in this book will help you form the best attitude, and the encouragement offered will hopefully convince you that you want to get started. The seven-step method will teach you a path to follow. The final section presents a novel idea that you can develop tools to be used to help you quit smoking. Of course if you can do this there are probably many other endeavors that you can develop tools for. That is an added bonus.Written by a former smoker who has helped others become non-smokers. This guidebook enables you to overcome the obstacles standing in your way to a smoke-free lifestyle. Find new ways to beat a bad habit that is hurting yourself and your loved ones withA Practical Guide for Becoming a Non-Smoker.

Excerpts

You are a smoker now. You are about to make a decision as to whether you will be a smoker forever, or will you as many others before decide that you will walk away from your smoking habit. Before you make that decision it might be a good idea to sit down and think what it is that makes you smoke. You are addicted to a habit. You can't make it through the day without a cigarette. You probably can't last more than an hour without one. You identify yourself as a smoker; others do too. What is it that has you so tightly in it's grip that you can not break free? You will find that it is absolutely nothing that you did not put there. Let's look at some of the common triggers that automatically make people reach for a cigarette. Perhaps you find that when you are stressed you think a cigarette would help you get your bearings. But let's be a little more analytical. Recall how this happens. When you are stressed and you start to get tired, you look for a place to sit down. You go into a mechanical mode. You reach inside your pocket or purse, get out a pack of cigarettes, take one out, tap it down, put it to you lips, get a match or lighter, strike it, put the flame to the tip of the cigarette, inhale to draw the fire into the cigarette, take the smoke into your mouth and lungs, exhale, and feel the little impact in your chest and the spike in blood pressure. It feels so comforting. It is so familiar. You feel the stress melting away. But we could ask the question how does this work.To find the answer think about what drives you to become ensnared in this habit. Nicotine! You are addicted to nicotine. That's what you might have been told, and many before you have also been told. Thank goodness the chemists have isolated the compound that we can blame for all these problems. However, I personally think nicotine is a minor part of your addiction. Addiction is what you have let it become. Let's look back analytically over the scenario. You have read about hypnosis. (It was covered in an earlier section.) You know the conscious mind can wear itself down making decisions when the situation gets overloaded. It might have been one of those days when things were happening just too fast. You became a little tired and weary. Your subconscious mind had been trained to suggest that this might clear up with a cigarette. You accepted the suggestion and found in the little familiar routine of getting and smoking a cigarette that the conscious mind was given a rest as you deliberately did not receive inputs requiring a lot of thought. But let's be honest. You almost deliberately set this scenario up as you started to get tired by constantly reminding yourself that "I need a cigarette". To get into a hypnotic trance the subject is made to relax and the conscious mind is presented with a monotonous repetition of very simple inputs. There are no spikes in the incoming information. The subject feels comfortable knowing there will be no inputs that will require immediate attention. It will be harmless repetition that their mind can fixate on. The conscious mind relaxes and the subconscious mind is brought into play. With your little habitual routine, like the one outlined above, you have started a kind of hypnotic trance. It is a little routine that you've repeated over and over through the days and the years. The conscious mind can start to relax and the subconscious mind can be opened up to suggestions. Now you see that you have stacked the deck. You have been saying for a long time, "if only I had a cigarette" At least half of the problem and the solution was your own deliberate doing. You made this thing work. Nicotine produced a little spike in blood pressure, and the taste and the feeling of a slight impact in the chest were familiar. However, it was the resting of the conscious mind, and the familiarity of the routine that allowed you to relax and relieve the stress.