What makes people give up smoking?

I wanted to give smoking for a long time, but it wasn't enough to get me to actually give up.

Our minds know our weaknesses very well, so they will always find a way to justify it and stop us from giving up.

However, I started getting pains in my chest and that made me feel bad about smoking. It very quickly killed the enjoyment of smoking and allowed me to think about it in a different way.

It gradually dawned on me that the tobacco companies weren't interested in my health, all they want is smokers to be addicted and smoke more.

So it was an eye opener that I could no longer justify smoking and I gave up. I've now been a non-smoker for 6 years and can't even comprehend how I used to smoke.

As a person who plays sport and keeps fit, I find that it's a pleasurable to be puffed out, when I was a smoker it was horrid.

A person can only give for themselves, they can't do it for someone else. It takes a switch in thought and what worked for me, may not work for others.

HTH,
Myarka

What will it take to get him to choose to give up?

That's the problem straight away, he has to choose to give up. As Myarka said, what does it for one person will be different for another. No matter what method someone uses to give up, whether it's willpower, NRTs, EFT, Acupuncture, Hypnotherapy etc, unless they've decided to pack it in for theirself, it's unlikely they will remain quit.

People rarely decide to quit because of money, even if they say that's the reason it's usually secondary.

A lot of people do decide to quit smoking when they have children, especially when they know the points you highlighted in your original post.

For many it's the health aspect but again the warnings and adverts on tv rarely prompt this, it's often situations like Myarka where they start to actually notice the effects of smoking.

A popular reason now is the image of smoking and the fact that people who once socialised in circles where 50-100% of people smoked, they now find themselves in a minority, sometimes even the only one standing outside in the pouring rain. I've successfully treated lots of smokers and this reason is becoming more and more common nowadays.

Another, which is often linked to my previous paragraph, is that a lot of people are realising how ridiculous the habit really is and how it's an area of their life they don't have control of. Being out of control of an area of life is a situation many people are uncomfortable with.

When smokers hear the benfits of quitting and how the body repairs itself from the ravages of smoking, this sometimes prompts them to give up. I think this information should be on cigarette packets etc as these positives are far more effective than always pushing the negatives.

Nagging a smoker often puts them on the defensive. It would be interesting to see if he mentions anything about it if you were to not mention it for a while. He's then inviting your comments to which you can then voice your concerns. If at any point in time he does start contemplating quitting then tell him the benefits of being quit (long list ranging from 20 mins to 15 years - you can download it at ash.org) as well as suggesting ways in which he can quit (forget patches and other NRTs, scientific research shows they're a pretty major Fail for most people).

Thanks for your thoughts, I really needed to hear advice from the perspective of a smoker. It's given me a few things to think about.

I try not to say too much to him, he knows enough for himself, he doesn't need me to 'nag' him about it. Even if it weren't for the baby, I'd want him to give up simply because I love him and it scares me what he's doing to his body. Having said that, most of us abuse our bodies in other ways - with me it would be sugar - but the damage seems less 'obvious' than smoking.

It doesn't help that he works in quite a high-stress environment - he's a chef, so I can totally understand him needing 'something' to unwind with... It's just what could that 'something' be that wouldn't cause harm?

Thanks again,

Tiger.

Well I was a lifelong smoker, Tigerlily, and though I tried many times to give up I always succumbed again. What did it for me, eight years ago, was being diagnosed with a lung disease. It was easy after that! I hope it won't come to that with your husband but addicts (of any description) are great at telling themselves that it'll never happen to them. Now, like Myarka, I cannot imagine why I smoked for so long, nor what I saw in it. I see people smoking and feel profoundly sorry for them. Did I look that stupid? Did I smell that bad? And did I really spend all that money on putting bad stuff in my body? Hindsight is a wonderful thing....I wish I could tell you something more positive but, as you well know, the effort has got to come from your husband. However, if he does decide to go for it, he should know that it's by no means impossible to give up, though it may seem so to begin with.

One thing though - as a chef, doesn't smoking impair his sense of taste?

Also this 'shuma' that your husband used to use, surely this is dipping tobacco. Here's the wikipedia link:
I remember this being featured on That's Life way back when it was being given away to schoolkids to try to get them hooked. There was a major campaign against it as it was proven to cause cancer of the mouth and jaw. Major not good news.

As to why people get addicted.....it has to be genetic I guess. And look how many different kinds of addictions there are.....

Previous to giving up smoking I had changed my diet. Firstly to whole foods because I started looking at what various products contained / how they were made / reared etc ( when I had a very allergic niece coming to stay) and then that lead to me changing to being vegetarian fairly soon after.

However, I still smoked and so, when it was going to be the first National No Smoking day (some 25plus years ago), a group of us at the hospital decided to give up. I remember I had a packet with about four or five in and an unopened packet. I smoked the contents of the first packet on the Saturday morning before - then told everyone that I had given up.

Two things made it work for me - one was that I had that unopened packet so I knew if I HAD to have a cigarette then it was there and the other was I didn't want to have to say I hadn't managed it! (watches all the amateur psychologists crawl out the HP pages - lol)

I threw the unopened packet away four years later.

I do agree though - it can only be done if the person chooses to do so for themselves. I used to do some Health Ed for part of my job which was to do with unblocking arteries under radiological control. What I used to tell the patients was that I was giving them the facts so they could make an informed choice with the correct knowledge about the implications of smoking. It worked for quite a few but they were at the point that, had they continued to smoke after we had unblocked their artery (below groin), then the chances were pretty high they would lose a part of their foot or leg. If they were diabetic then they pushed the odds up even further.

(Just googled and the first no smoking day was 1984)

Good luck!

One thing though - as a chef, doesn't smoking impair his sense of taste?

Well having tasted his cooking, it seems to be okay, but what IS noticable is that he has a poor sense of smell - so you'd think his taste would suffer as well. I seem to be able to pick up on smells which he cannot detect at all - even what I consider to be strong smells.

Judging from the Wikipedia link, it does seem to be the same substance, except he used it in a Rizla. It's funny that you mentioned school children, because it was his uncle that gave him his first one when he was only 6 years old... a terrible thing to do, because he soon became hooked as a child.

Celia, I like that fact that pride was partly the reason you managed to stay off!

It's really interesting hearing your thoughts. I guess there's not much I can do, just have a bit of faith that he'll choose to do it when he's ready before too much damage is done.

A few years ago I went to that Body Worlds exhibition with a friend of mine who has smoked for a long time and tried to give up several times. There was a pair of blackened smoker's lungs on show - not a pretty sight - and all my friend could say was that after seeing that she really needed a cigarette, lol!

Isn't it amazing how years ago virtually everyone used to smoke?

I'm so lucky that I don't seem to have that addictive gene.

When a disciple told the guru, Osho, that he couldn't stop smoking, apparantly Osho replied: "then smoke consciously". I'm not entirely sure how you would do that, but I imagine it goes something like this: Light up a cigarette and inhale deeply. Visualise the smoke being drawn into your lungs, turning them black. Visualise sticky black tar being deposited in the tiny air sacs, rendering them useless, so you become short of breath, and cough up muck every morning of your life. Visualise putting your mouth around a car exhaust pipe and inhaling - car exhaust contains many of the same poisons as fag smoke - mainly carbon monoxide. Visualise the carbon monoxide entering your blood stream and combining with your haemeoglobin to form carboxyhaemoglobin, thus reducing the oxygen carrying capacity of your blood. Visualise the nicotine constricting your blood vessels, so that your oxygen-reduced, thickened, sticky blood cannot reach your tiny peripheral vessels. Visualise your toes slowly turning black and gangrenous for want of a blood supply. Imagine the pain as the blood supply is cut off. Visualise yourself with no legs below the knee because they have been amputated due to gangrene....do I need to go on? Are you still smoking...?

BTW Tiger, I don't agree that it's o.k. to smoke around adults - remember poor Roy Castle who was a non-smoker who died of lung cancer due, he believed, to spending a lot of his life working in smoky night clubs.

Just as an aside Tigerlily (as I have nothing to offer that actually helps with the question - soz :o)..
Like your man, I also often hand my tobacco packet back to exchange it for a picture of something less repugnant… I find the pictures very patronising frankly.

I do wonder that if it’s so acceptable, then why aren’t there pictures of gruesome and bloody car accidents or photos of violence victims complete with macabre open wounds - printed on the labels of bottles and cans of alcohol? 🙁


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That's a really good question re. choosing to give up!

In my experience of working with addicts (of all kinds - from shopaholics and chocaholics to heroin and crack users), there is always, always, always an internal conflict present in addiction - "one part of me wants to do this.. another part of me goes "no way!.." and does the opposite". In helping someone to get motivated to change it is important to keep both sides in mind, as the addiction wouldn't be there unless there was some benefit to it (and from my point of view as a psychotherapist, the benefit is often profound and usually unconscious) - in encouraging someone to change it is important to find alternatives to replace the gain from addiction with something meaningful that would serve the same purpose in a more constructive way - if we don't pay attention to the purpose of addictive behaviour then the individual will typically relapse or will be moving from one type of addiction to another - e.g. heroin addiction to alcohol addiction, sex addiction to cocaine addiction, nicotine addiction to food addiction, etc.

In drug & alcohol treatment services in the UK they tend to use Motivational Interviewing to help addicts make up their mind whether they want to stop or cut down on using substances - a nice readable summary of MI which can be used for self help is in a book [url]Changing for Good[/url] by Prochaska et al. It guides you through the stages of the Cycle of Change model, and gives you ideas of what strategies are helpful at each stage (e.g. it would be very different trying to help someone in Pre-contemplation stage - i.e. in denial, compared to someone in Action stage, i.e. when the individual is already commited to change and is actively taking steps towards it).

Masha

Your partner will only quit when he's ready but it won't hurt to give him a nudge every so often.;) Maybe he's like I was and doesn't believe he's capable of quitting.

I have always been a healthy and active person and interested in things like yoga, keep fit, walking, cycling etc. I love being outdoors, love fresh air but whatever I did I used to do it and then "stop for a smoke". I absolutely cringe now just thinking about it.:dft001:

I decided to quit over 5 years ago and am SO glad I did now. I am so much more relaxed since I quit, healthier, wealthier and more confident.

There were people on my Massage course who used to nip out for a smoke part way through the class and come back reeking of it. I just don't think anyone who smokes and is involved in anything in the health field is really up to the job. You can actually smell the nicotine coming out of a person's skin when they are working on you (that's apart from on their clothes and hair) and it really is unpleasant.