Читать книгу Quit Smoking for Life - Suzanne Schlosberg - Страница 6
ОглавлениеLet’s get right to it — because just by reading this sentence you’ve already taken a step toward quitting smoking.
How does that make you feel? At least a little excited, we hope. But chances are, your excitement is mixed with fear. Surely you must be wondering, how can I cope with stress without cigarettes? How can I imagine a life without cigarettes? How can I give up something I still enjoy? What if I fail and disappoint myself and my family?
Yes, those questions are daunting, but they’re also normal. They’ve been asked — and answered — by the thousands of smokers we have helped to achieve a cigarette-free life. These nonsmokers have discovered, as you will, that you don’t need a cigarette to cope with life’s anxieties. That you can reimagine your life without a cigarette in your hand. That you really can give up something that gives you pleasure. As for failure, it’s a word that won’t be in your vocabulary, because every attempt you make is one step closer to permanent success.
The distance between smoker and nonsmoker may seem an uncharted and fearsome wilderness to you right now, but this book is your roadmap to the other side. You won’t find any lectures or judgment here. What you will find is guidance, support, and encouragement and a toolbox chock full of proven strategies that can transform any smoker into a nonsmoker.
Yes, any smoker. On these pages, you’ll meet a full range of former smokers, including half-pack-a-day folks who were mystified that they couldn’t quit and others who smoked two or even three packs a day for 40 years or more and were certain they could never quit. They are college students and retirees, nurses and artists and sales managers, single people and wives and husbands with busy families. Almost all of them tried to quit on their own and experienced crushing disappointment. Then they used the strategies we recommend and finally quit for life. They don’t claim quitting was easy, but they’ll tell you it was easier than they expected and that quitting changed them in ways that made them never want to go back.
Freedom From Cigarettes
The people who share their stories here are all reaping the rewards that probably motivated you to pick up this book in the first place. They no longer have to endure rude stares or being treated like outcasts. Their friends and families aren’t harping at them, “Why can’t you quit smoking?” But best of all, they’re breathing easier, living healthier, and treasuring the five, ten, even twenty years that have been added back to their lives. Since they’ve become nonsmokers, they’ve also realized they are capable of making other positive life changes that they once had only dreamed about.
Note that we said “nonsmokers,” not “ex-smokers.” What’s the difference? Ex-smokers may not smoke, but they still long to. They teeter on the edge of being a smoker again and identify more with smoking than feeling healthy. Nonsmokers don’t smoke, aren’t going to smoke, and aren’t interested in smoking. Nonsmokers watch someone light up and think: I can’t believe that used to be me.
What’s In This Book
For far too long, many smokers have subscribed to the mistaken idea that the white-knuckle approach is the only way to quit: Toss those cigarettes and proceed to pull your hair out from the roots. What needs to be tossed is that stereotype. Yes, quitting is hard, but it doesn’t have to be unbearable. That’s perhaps one surprise you’ll find in our common-sense approach to quitting. Among the other discoveries you’ll make:
• How tobacco companies secretly pack an astonishing amount of engineering into what looks like a simple product—all with the objective of keeping you addicted
• How cigarettes are actually causing you stress, not offering you relief from it
• Why your physical addiction to nicotine is only one aspect of your urge to smoke
• Why setting a quit date may be the most important decision you make — and how you can do it without breaking into a cold sweat
• How a no-risk strategy called a “mini-quit” can be the most manageable and confidence-boosting tactic to prepare you for your big day
• How your body will begin repairing itself within twenty minutes after your last cigarette
• Why nicotine patches, gum, and lozenges are quite safe, and why they may be among your most helpful allies in your effort to quit
• How your life can change in amazing ways that you may not be able to even imagine today
Why Listen to Us?
So who are we, and what do we know about quitting smoking? We’re the 200 highly trained smoking-cessation coaches, also known as “quit coaches,” at Alere Wellbeing, a Seattle-based company that for 25 years has been helping smokers in all 50 states quit smoking with our Quit For Life Program. Many of us used to smoke, so we know what you are facing because we’ve faced it ourselves. Every day we coach more than 1,000 smokers over the phone, guiding them, with compassion and straight talk, through the process of giving up cigarettes. Our program is backed by the American Cancer Society, and our methods follow the U.S. Clinical Practice Guideline for Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence, produced by a panel of national experts under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. If you read the Guideline,1 you will find more than 850 references to cited studies, many of them involving our methods.
In short, we know what we’re doing.
In our phone coaching and in this book, we don’t offer gimmicks. We don’t promise that you’ll magically not want to smoke. We are promising something much more real: a step-by-step, scientifically sound plan that has been used by two million tobacco users.
How to Use This Book
The book guides you through a logical progression that demystifies the quitting process and makes it achievable for even the most hard-core lifetime smoker. We suggest you read the chapters in order, but we also encourage you to go back and reread chapters for additional support or reinforcement. For example, if you get to Chapter 9, Controlling Your Environment, and you’re still afraid to throw that last pack away, then it may be time to go back and reread Chapter 2, Overcoming Your Fears About Quitting.
The book is divided into three parts:
PART I: Before You Quit
Relax! You won’t start off by quitting! As you read the first five chapters, you’ll simply start thinking about quitting. We’ll explain why giving up cigarettes can be so hard, assist you in overcoming your fears about quitting, and help you shift your thinking so that you consider smoking much more a chore than a pleasure. Then we’ll teach you the key preparation skills: analyzing your smoking patterns and practicing “mini-quits.” Finally, we’ll preview the five steps to a successful quit.
PART II: Quitting in Five Steps
In this section, we’ll show you how simple quitting really is. We didn’t say easy — you do have to work to become tobacco-free. But the process isn’t complicated. We’ll take you, at your own pace, through the strategies that research has identified as particularly helpful: setting your quit date, choosing a medication, overcoming urges to smoke, controlling your environment, and enlisting support from friends, family, and coxworkers.
PART III: You’ve Quit — Now What?
Quitting isn’t so much an event as a process. Yes, there will come a day when you smoke that last cigarette, and that is a momentous day to celebrate and remember. However, staying tobacco-free, like quitting itself, takes commitment and motivation. A single puff on a cigarette can derail all that you have worked so hard to achieve. In this part we’ll explore what triggers relapses, including stress and fear of weight gain, and we’ll present strategies to keep you a nonsmoker for life.
Booklet: Your Quitting Roadmap
Each chapter in the book includes one or more brief exercises to help you cement your commitment to quit and implement the quitting strategies we recommend. This booklet is a compilation of these exercises. We’re not the smoking police or the homework police — you can choose whether you want to complete the recommended lists and fill in the blanks. But most folks who’ve participated in our program find that these exercises help clarify their thoughts and offer a sense of accomplishment as they take steps toward becoming a nonsmoker.
Ready to take your next step? Let’s get started!
