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ОглавлениеOvercoming Your Fears About Quitting
• Fear: Withdrawal will make me miserable
• Fear: I’m going to disappoint my family and friends
• Fear: Without cigarettes, I’ll fall apart under stress
• Fear: I don’t have the willpower to give up cigarettes
• Fear: I’m too addicted to quit
• Fear: The cravings will never go away
• Fear: The stress of quitting is going to trigger an illness
• Fear: I’ll feel lost without my “best friend”
• Fear: I’m going to sacrifice my social life
Fear: Withdrawal will make me miserable
Christine Burke smoked in bed first thing in the morning and planned her workdays, as a church custodian, around smoke breaks. Almost every night, she’d wake up around 2 a.m. to smoke. If ever her lighter didn’t work, she’d panic. So when Burke contemplated quitting, after her epiphany at the Atlanta airport, she was consumed by fear of suffering from withdrawal. “People were always telling me, ‘You won’t believe how bad it is,’ ” says Burke, 50, a smoker since age 12. “It was like hearing horror stories about someone’s 37-hour labor.”
If you haven’t yet committed to quit, or your confidence is shaky, fear may be what’s holding you back. Fear of pain or discomfort, of failing and disappointing your family, of gaining weight, of alienating friends who smoke — there’s no shortage of worries that can surface when you think about giving up cigarettes. Maybe you’re wondering: How will I cope with stress? How will I survive my morning commute? Who will I be if I don’t smoke?
These worries are normal, and we take them seriously. It’s nerve-racking to give up a behavior that has been integral to your life probably since before you could drive. In this chapter, we tackle your fears one by one, helping you separate anxiety from reality. (For starters, no, cigarettes are not your best friend!) By examining your fears and putting them in perspective, you will find that you can be more receptive to the strategies in this book.
As for Burke, her fear of withdrawal proved largely unfounded. She did ride a wave of emotions at first. She cried easily and snapped at her daughter. But to Burke’s surprise, her mood swings and intense cravings stopped after a few days. She wore the nicotine patch to ease withdrawal, sucked on hard candy to keep her mouth busy, and practiced deep breathing to cope with stress. “You think you can’t make it another minute and that nothing will work,” says Burke, “but something always does, and the cravings go away. My fear of suffering was far greater than my actual suffering.”
Fear: I’m going to fail
Have you tried to quit smoking five times and failed with each attempt? Terrific. Have you failed ten times? Even better! We’re not kidding. A history of failure can actually work to your advantage. It means two things: You have tenacity, and you’re that much closer to success.
Though some smokers have quit on the first try, such success is a bit like bowling consecutive strikes your first time at the lanes. It usually takes multiple attempts before a smoker quits for life. That’s because giving up cigarettes often requires trial and error. You need to work out the right quitting “recipe” for you — the ideal mix of distractions, substitutions, medications, and stress-relief strategies. Quitting smoking, like any worthwhile endeavor, takes practice. From every failed attempt, you gain insight and skills that will help you next time.
So, rather than view past failures as an omen, consider them an asset, a series of rehearsals leading up to the “big quit.” Also, reconsider your definition of failure. Even if you made it one day without a cigarette — heck, even if you made it four hours — that’s not failure; that’s progress. You did something right, so figure out what it was. Maybe you drank tea instead of coffee with your breakfast, successfully postponing your urge for a cigarette. Maybe you checked your social media account on your work break rather than headed outside with the smokers.
What if you think you’ve already tried and failed with every quitting strategy and medication? Believe us, you haven’t. There’s no limit to the quitting recipes you can try, as you will see in Part II: Quitting in Five Steps. You can set a quit date earlier or later than you did before. You can ask different friends for support. You can chew on cinnamon sticks instead of toothpicks. You can go to the movies on Fridays instead of the bar. You can switch medications or combine them. (Just check with your healthcare provider first.) In Chapter 5, Preparing to Quit, we help you analyze your previous attempts so you can identify what worked and what didn’t and develop a more promising plan.
If you’re feeling vulnerable from previous quit attempts, be kind to yourself. Failing is nobody’s favorite pastime, to be sure, but your only shot at success is by trying. And if you succeed, your world will change in countless wonderful ways. If you don’t, you’ll have gained wisdom to draw on for your next try. “You’ll know you had the courage to try something that so many people don’t,” Burke says. “Hold on to that.” Though Burke’s first quit lasted only three days, the experience prepared her for the next go-around. The second time, she wasn’t blindsided by the power of the cravings, so she felt more confident she could outlast them.
“The best way to overcome a fear is to push through it — to make up your mind that you are stronger than a pack of cigarettes or a fear,” says Burke. “Finding out how strong you really are is intoxicating. Truly, not much feels better than making it through a day without a cigarette.”
As long as you are trying to quit, you have not failed.
Fear: I’m going to disappoint my family and friends
One year Jack Johnston, a Seattle artist, tried to quit smoking as a birthday gift to his partner; another time, he offered his quit as a Christmas present. On both occasions, and many others, he was overcome by fear of letting down his partner. “I was thinking, I want to be the person he thinks I am, or he will like me better if I stop smoking, which suggests I wasn’t likable as is,” says Johnston, who smoked for 31 years.
Each time Johnston went back to smoking, he and his partner didn’t discuss the disappointment they both clearly felt. It hung there for a while, but Johnston saw that his fears were overblown. “Letting someone down isn’t the worst thing in the world,” says Johnston, who failed more times than he can count before quitting for good at age 50.
In their disappointment, your loved ones also will be reminded that you are human and, as such, fail at times. You weren’t trying to hurt them. You were trying to do just the opposite: break one of the most powerful addictions around. Disappointing people is part of life, of being a parent, a boss, a friend. We’ve all let down loved ones, as they have let us down at times, and we’ve all survived.
Rather than hide a failure (which won’t work!) or slink away in shame, take the opportunity to reach out for support. Ask your family and friends for their help and their patience. Acknowledge that you’ve disappointed them, but don’t dwell on the disappointment. Explain what you’re going through, and emphasize how strong your addiction is. Use the strategies in Chapter 10, Enlisting Support from Family, Friends, and Coworkers, to take advantage of the help they can offer.
Fear: Without cigarettes, I’ll fall apart under stress
Here’s a fact many smokers are reluctant to believe: Smoking creates stress rather than relieves it.
If that’s true, why do you feel instant relief when you light up? Why is smoking your first thought when you fight with your spouse or open a bill you can’t pay? Because when you smoke, nicotine makes a lightning-quick trip to your brain, triggering a flood of dopamine. (We explain this process in Chapter 1, Why Quitting Can Be So Hard.) While it may feel like the cigarette is soothing your emotional distress, it’s actually just easing the symptoms of withdrawal from the nicotine of your last cigarette. Shortly after each cigarette, your nicotine level starts plummeting, and you start to feel edgy — with or without life’s stresses. In short, smoking triggers mood swings that you otherwise wouldn’t experience. That’s not exactly the definition of “stress relief”!
What’s more, nicotine raises your heart rate and blood pressure, placing physical stress on your body. Plus, smoking breaks make you less productive at work, and the cost of cigarettes — $200 or more a month for a pack-a-day habit — can create financial strains.
Meanwhile, maintaining a smoking habit creates constant small anxieties. Will I run out of cigarettes? Where will I be able to smoke? Do my clothes smell like smoke? For one day, jot down every worrisome thought you have related to smoking. You might be surprised at how much stress smoking generates in your life.
There are, however, other things you do while smoking that offer genuine stress relief. For example, when you inhale cigarette smoke, you’re taking a deep breath, itself an effective remedy for stress. Also, when you light up, you’re often stealing a few minutes to collect your thoughts and escape your worries. Taking time for yourself is a wonderful way to relieve anxiety. Everything about smoking that’s truly calming can be had without inhaling 70 toxins.
Smokers tend to give credit to cigarettes for easing stress, but that’s like giving credit to your pen for a clever paragraph you wrote. In truth, if you’re feeling less anxious, it’s because you created a solution. “I came to realize that smoking never solved a problem,” says Faye Reese of Little Rock, Arkansas, who used smoking as a shelter from a difficult marriage. “The only thing it did was make me feel like a failure because I gave in to something I didn’t want to. I learned that the way I could feel positive was to not smoke a cigarette.” Reese, 55, now relieves stress by running.
If you can’t fathom managing stress without cigarettes, perhaps it’s because you didn’t have the opportunity, growing up, to find other ways of dealing with pressures and disappointments. “It dawned on me that smoking at the young age of 12 had stunted my growth in the area of coping mechanisms,” says Burke. In the first weeks after she quit for good, Burke says, “I coped with stress like a frustrated toddler: yelling, crying, and pouting. Gradually I learned adult coping strategies: prayer, a fast-paced walk, and a good cry.” In Chapter 11, Coping With Stress, we help you find your own healthy ways of handling anxiety.
In the meantime, recognize that nonsmokers are out there dealing with their own fair share of stress. But instead of reaching for cigarettes, they reach for the telephone, the car keys, the gym pass. They go for a walk, take a shower, listen to music, chop a salad, mow the lawn. These strategies may not deliver relief within ten seconds. In that respect, cigarettes don’t play fair. But the stress-relief techniques that don’t poison your body are more lasting and satisfying than those that do.
Fear: I don’t have the willpower to give up cigarettes
Relying on willpower to quit smoking is both unrealistic and unnecessary for most smokers. We suggest you put more stock in the power of planning, medication, and support from family and friends. Relying on willpower means taking a white-knuckle approach, and this usually results in failure. Being committed to not smoking is about using a variety of strategies to beat your addiction. When you plan your quit, following the approach laid out in Chapter 5, Preparing to Quit, your grit becomes secondary.
Fear: I’m too addicted to quit
Every day, we speak to folks who insist they are the “most addicted smoker ever.” We frequently coach three-pack-a-day smokers and folks who have smoked for more than 50 years. One of our coaches used to smoke six — yes, six! — packs a day and managed to quit. Several of our participants smoked for longer than 60 years and managed to quit. Trust us: Plenty of nonsmokers once smoked as much as you do or for as many decades. Nobody is too addicted to quit.
Fear: The cravings will never go away
“People kept telling me, ‘Once a smoker, always a smoker—you’ll never get rid of those cravings,’ ” says Brandy Adams, 36, who began smoking daily in eighth grade and topped out at 30 to 40 cigarettes a day. “So I’d think, Why even try to quit?” But by her early thirties, Adams, who has asthma, felt she had no choice. Her breathing was so labored that a walk around the block in her town, Bremerton, Washington, felt like a steep uphill climb.
The first two months after she quit, Adams, who did not use medication, thought about cigarettes every day and frequently broke out in cold sweats. “I felt like someone had grabbed onto my heart and started squeezing it, like there was a monster inside of me trying to pull me back.” But after a while she noticed her thoughts about cigarettes were dissipating. “I’d see people smoking in cars or walking down the streets, and I’d say, ‘I can’t believe I ever did that. That’s the most ridiculous-looking thing I’ve ever seen.’ At that point I knew I had it beaten.”
Thoughts about smoking and true cravings are not the same thing. You may hear longtime former smokers say they still “crave” a cigarette now and again, but they’re quick to qualify that they’re not talking about the overwhelming urges they felt those first few weeks. Months or years after quitting they might occasionally think, Gee, it would be nice to have a cigarette right now — I might enjoy that. But they don’t feel like their chest is about to burst. They’re able to move on to the next thought quickly and without discomfort.
Once you quit, your cravings to smoke will gradually fade. Think of it like a difficult breakup: At first you’re obsessed with your ex and can think of little else. Every song you hear, show you watch, even the clothes you wear remind you of what you’ve lost. But a month or two later, you begin to realize you’re standing on your own two feet. Eventually, you think, Why did I waste all those years with that fool? What the heck was I thinking?
Fear: I’ll gain weight
Yes, many smokers gain weight after they quit. That’s because smoking suppresses appetite and boosts metabolism a bit, and because, upon quitting, many folks turn to food to occupy their mouths and keep stress in check. But the typical weight gain averages just five to ten pounds. Only thirteen percent of smokers gain more than twenty pounds when they quit, and sixteen percent actually lose weight, according to a published review of 62 studies.4 These “losers” feel so tremendous after conquering their cigarette addiction that they make additional healthy changes, like taking up exercise and cutting back on junk food.
Faye Reese, who smoked to cope with an unhappy marriage, gained ten pounds in the first two months after giving up cigarettes. “I remember standing in line at JC Penney to buy a pair of pants, feeling kind of down about it, and I said to a woman in line, ‘I just quit smoking, and I’m finding I need to go up a size.’ The woman said, ‘Congratulations on quitting smoking!’ That helped put things in perspective.”
Reese wanted to channel all her energy into conquering her smoking addiction before taking on the challenge of losing weight. So, she made changes in stages. “I knew the weight gain was only temporary, but the effects of smoking would not be. My mother and brother died of cancer. My dad died of a heart attack. My brothers had heart attacks. I felt like a ticking time bomb.”
Six months into her new life as a nonsmoker, Reese took up walking, which accelerated to jogging and marathon running. She began tracking her eating habits with an online weight-loss tool, reducing her portions, and snacking on carrots, fruit, and almonds rather than chips and crackers. She lost fat and gained muscle. “I have some pretty nice-looking calves, and I’m proud of that,” says Reese. “I’m not as concerned about the number on the scale as I am about living a healthy lifestyle.”
Fear: The stress of quitting is going to trigger an illness
We’ve heard the stories: “My uncle got lung cancer three months after he quit.” Or, “My mom quit smoking and seven years later she died of a heart attack. I don’t want that to happen to me if I quit.”
Simply put, quitting smoking does not cause illness. Smoking does. Many conditions begin long before they are diagnosed. Any smoking-related disease you may develop after you quit almost certainly would have struck sooner and/or would have been more serious had you not stopped smoking. The longer you put off quitting, the more likely you are to suffer smoking-related health problems such as heart disease and cancer. Research shows that if you quit by age 30, you’ve lost virtually nothing, whereas waiting until age 60 to quit, does cost you years of life. But even smokers who quit at 60 get back four years they’d otherwise have sacrificed. The bottom line: Quitting smoking adds years and quality of life, and continuing to smoke takes years away and decreases the quality of those years. Smoking is a gamble with the odds stacked against your health. The safe bet is to quit sooner rather than later.
Fear: I’ll feel lost without my “best friend”
At 26, Lisa Koenigsburg-Roshon was working in the music industry and enjoying the New York City single life. Any time, day or night, she could call a friend and say, “I’m having a hard day. Let’s walk down to the Village and go window-shopping.” Then her dad was diagnosed with a fatal blood disease. Koenigsburg-Roshon, who’d already lost her mother, also a smoker, to a massive heart attack, suddenly found herself as her father’s full-time caregiver — in Phoenix, Arizona. “I was by myself in a town I couldn’t stand and where I knew nobody, I didn’t drive, and my dad was terminal,” says Koenigsburg-Roshon. “Cigarettes were my comfort, my friend.”
Do you feel a similar fondness for your cigarettes? Do you ever think: A cigarette doesn’t judge me. It doesn’t talk back. It’s always there for me.
If so, let’s consider the flip side of this rationale. Picture your ideal friend. Would you allow this friend to spend your money, damage your body, make you a social outcast, eat up your valuable time, control you all day long, make your house and car smell, or cause strife in your family? We hope not! No doubt you are in a relationship with cigarettes, but it’s an abusive one.
After her father died, it took Koenigsburg-Roshon more than a decade to come to this conclusion. She was 38 when her daughter, then in kindergarten, said, “Mommy, are you going to die from smoking?” Reminded of her mother’s smoking-related death, Koenigsburg-Roshon decided she did not want to repeat history. When she quit, her mantra became, “Cigarettes aren’t my friend; they are my enemy.” When she’d exit a store and see smokers huddled together, she’d say to herself: You killed my mom and my godmother, and one of my best friends, and you were going to kill me. You are so not my friend.
By the time she quit, Koenigsburg-Roshon was so angry at her cigarettes that she didn’t grieve their loss. But others do feel sad, and a bit lonely, when they leave behind what has been a lifelong companion. If you do think of your cigarettes as a friend, consider writing a “Dear John” letter to them when you quit. For example: “You’re spending all my money, and you’re trying to kill me. I need to let you go.”
Fear: I’m going to sacrifice my social life
At 20, Andrew Van Ness worried that if he quit smoking, his college friends wouldn’t want to hang out with him as much. “I felt like things wouldn’t be the same, like I would be an outsider,” he says. Eventually, alarmed by a smoking-related lung infection, he decided that friendships could be repaired later but he might not have the same opportunity with his lungs. “I decided to let the cards fall where they may and focus on quitting. I figured: If you’re friends with someone, they’re still going to make time for you whether you’re smoking or not.”
After he quit, Van Ness discovered the difference between acquaintances and friends. “Quitting smoking helped me find out which friends were committed to being by my side,” he says, “and it weeded out the people who were just hanging out with me because it was convenient for them.”
Your friends will want you to succeed at quitting, because that’s what friends do.
Fear: I’ll lose my identity
A manufacturing engineer with a rebellious streak, Sheila Woods always enjoyed bonding with other smokers. “Everyone else may look at us as if we’re idiots who don’t know we’re killing ourselves,” says Woods, 50, who lives in Rockford, Michigan, “but we look at each other with a deeper knowledge of who we are: addicts. We know that whether we’re a bank president or a custodian, we are all in the same boat.” Woods would even get a small thrill from the dirty looks nonsmokers would throw her way. “I was within my legal rights to smoke. Because of the way society treats smokers, I had to defend myself over and over, and when you do that you tend to become a bit defensive. Smoking was so much of who I was.”
At age 49, tired of feeling ruled by cigarettes, Woods decided she wanted out of the club. Yet for a long time after she quit, she wanted to tell smokers she was still one of them. “I wasn’t ready to let go of that yet,” recalls Woods, who smoked for 33 years. “I wanted to say, ‘Hey, don’t worry about it. A year ago, I’d have been right there with you.’ ”
Eventually, she did lose the instinct to bond with smokers. Now, she says, her identity as a smoker is gone. “I don’t miss the smoking or the bonding at all. I am who I always was, only now I don’t annoy people.”
Being a smoker may have once felt like a way to identify yourself as someone who marches to a different beat and who is unrestrained by social pressures to be “good” all the time. But as you consider your identity, challenge yourself to prioritize other aspects of the person you are, keeping in mind that everyone deserves to be healthy. In addition to being a smoker, aren’t you also a loyal friend, a hard worker, a loving aunt, a doting grandparent, a dog lover, a banjo picker, a car enthusiast, or an expert bridge player? Look at the bigger picture. Yes, you happen to smoke, but that doesn’t mean your self-definition needs to include cigarettes. Maybe you took up smoking because back then it was the cool thing to do. But now you’re cool in other ways. Your cigarettes don’t define you.
Leaping Into the Void
Whether you’re afraid of failing or suffering, of losing your social life or your identity, you have something in common with your fellow smokers who are about to quit: a fear of the unknown. Deep down, what may scare you most is feeling that without cigarettes, you won’t be able to function, to feel normal, to feel like yourself. Fair enough! Quitting smoking can be scary. But keep in mind that at one point in life you were a nonsmoker. You can be one again. As humans we have an amazing ability to adapt. It’s only a matter of time before you learn how to settle into, and appreciate, your life as a nonsmoker. You won’t just function, you will thrive. You will feel better than normal. You will be a stronger, healthier, happier version of yourself, and you will be awed by your own power.
QUIT TIP
“Motivation to quit and readiness to quit are important, but not as important as believing that you can quit and following through with a plan.”
— Michael Martin, Quit Coach
