Experiences with quit smoking/addictives with Awareness

[stardust]

Greetings,

i am a smoker (cigarettes) for about 15 years, smoking about 20 cigarettes a day. Since the last 12 months, i´m seriously trying to quit it.

(i´ve to say i am not a native english speaker, so please be patient with my writing).

My thought on this thread is more than just "how did you stop" or "i´m telling you what i´ve (success/less/full tried). I wanted to start a discussion later, generally on addcitions maybe, or just smoking, whereever the discussion will go. First of all i want to tell you my experiences.


i´ve tried it with:
- Nicotin-gums, plasters - couldnt stand it longer than three days for several reasons. - for me useless.
- quitted from 20 too 0 at morning - stand it for 3 weeks - but with lots of struggle and pychsical sympthoms (even got fever and diarrhoe - like every time i do not smoke for more than a week - a got cleansing-sign)

- i ve tried it with meditation and awareness: I didnt stop completly from 20 too zero. But i´ve tried to meditate every time i had a grip to my cigarette-package, for a short moment, i aware the fresh air in my lungs, the engery breathing in and out, the clean and cleaning air, the element air. Mostly it worked great, i stucked the cigarette back into the pack. Sometimes it didnt work so well, and i smoked it, BUT in the following days i reduced from 20 to about not more than 5 cigarettes.

The problem was, when i just smoked 5, i was glad, and became less aware...so the cigarette-consume getted higher, i more than less lost the awareness again.



What would you say on that? "Try again so long till the awareness grows stronger, became totaly an automatism?


My second thought on it is, that smoking (like drinking too much coffee what i do too - and i get very bad sympthoms after it, short breath, stomeaching, nervouse as hell and so on), drinking a lot of alcohol ...well all addictions, are the cause of an destructive Model/Pattern (i dont know the right english word for it, in german its "Muster"), like behaviour.

Most people ive watched and studied have very similair behaviours like me, and i am addictive highly to some things like drinking coffee, smoking a lot, or not like me but like some friends, abuse alcohol or other drugs.

IF they dont drink coffee or smoke for a while, they feel so much better! BUT its like they need the pain (like me with the coffee) or the bad feelings. I dont know exactly why.

Its like i am drinking 5 or 6 coffes for a week, my stomache feels like completley burned, than i stop it for a couple of days and it gets well again...than i try 1 coffee nothing happens, i drink 2 and it starts to hurt again....and i drink a third one, because it hurts anyway.


I guess this behaviour is a breakable one, and my oppinion is, that i train on awareness it will break someday, because theres no place anymore for this hurting and negative behaviour, smoking, coffeedrinking, other addictions, i think they will stop or reduce to an healty-amount. (1 coffee, sometimes a cigarette, for the friends who drinking often more alcohol and so on)


I think, like people always saying "you just have to WANT it really" is the wrong way. WANTING to stop, causes a lot of stress. I think to KNOW that its bad, and be open to change the behaviour is the right way and the start to get healthy, if we act with awereness.

My Summery:
The way of awareness or living with awareness, breaks destructive behaviours, doesnt let you do "bad" things to your body and mind. Its the Masterykey for a healty and happy life. Thats not new for sure. I just wanted to hear and discuss with you about it, even other meanins in stop addictive behaviours, destructive behaviours, and awareness, mediation, and so on.

So long, happy about every replay

stardust

[Lily]

It is a difficult addiction to break, and one way I've seen work is cold turkey.
Get them out of your house, out of your system, get rid of all ash trays and try not to get into situations where the desire comes up.
Identify the situations you want to smoke - after dinner? sex? when you are stressed at work? Out with friends? After you've had alcohol?
My mother stopped 30 years ago, one night while washing the dishes she made the decision.
She never touched them again but says she still dreams ocasionally at night that she has a fag after dinner

a friend stopped, I think she's going over a year now, and everytime she sees cigs she makes herself say "it's disgusting" over and over.... I hear the hardest part is after about 3-6 months, not slipping back into it saying "I'll only have one after dinner... 5 a day..." and you're back to 20.

[stardust]

On my theory, as long as your desire the cigarette, there are some important "destructive behavoirs" to break before quit smoking (or better - try it).

As long there is a desire, you´ll always feel the "non smoking time" as a punishment - and as long you feel so, can´t be a cure...well it CAN but, you´ll never be very statisfied with your life, something you miss than maybe till death.

ive now found a name that came very close at amazon "self-defeating thinking patterns".

And i think smokers or people who tend to addictions (most of them) are caught in their "self-defeating thinking patterns" mostly BEFORE they´re getting addcited to something.

Another theory i find very interessting is the hormone-theory, which says that fast addictive poeple dont pruduce enough happiness hormones. But i dont think thats given by birth - its the lifestyle, the "self-defeating thinking patterns" again. If you´re generally more pessimistic its natural. One leads to an other.

I had a generally anxiety disorder, at this time i´ve learned a lot about those, thinking patterns, hormones (i never took antidepressants or hormones - i wanted to regain a normal level by my own), and awerness.

And someday i found out it really good works with stop smoking too.

My girlfriend p.E. smokes sometimes - a week not one cigarette, than a day two, a week a package a day, than 2 months not any, she doesnt need it, she doesnt desire it. her father does the same over 50 years. They can quit and start whenever they WANT. They´re also very aware of their bodies. She stops at two or three glas wine, because it dont taste as good as the glasses before, or they dont watch tv over 5 hours, because they´ve enough after 2 hours.

they´re most of times aware of their bodies and minds. They listen to it and no body wants 20 cigaretts a day, or 10 pints of beer or 6 hours watching tv, 5 coffees, and so on.


The Example you gave with your mother - i dont believe it was a over night decission - i think its a process, she was ready for it, broke the circles, maybe more than "just" stop smoking happend in the months before or after, that would be very interessting.

i know a couple of people who changed their lifestlye before or after quitting dramaticly. p.E. like me started doing sports after years without, or changed their food, or found a spiritual way for themselves.

For me it fits well, if you do more sport, you´ll be more aware, if you change your food some thing, spirtual ways may change the first two things and reverse. Once the progress is started, a lot happens, not everytime fast, but it will. And one of the very logical results are that if you start doing good things for your body and soul, the destructive things find lesser and lesser place in it.

So i felt more and more that smoking doesnt fit anymore, its completly out of place.


I dont want to say "cold turkey" doesnt work, i want not to say nicotin-gums and so on, or allen carrs books (and many others) doesnt work - they just aren´t the way for my person, and that awareness, meditation, watching and understanding and finaly turning his "self-defeating thinking patterns" into positives, is a very good way, not only for just stop smoking, but rather many problems in life.



PS: ah lily you from switzerland, so the german word for " "self-defeating thinking patterns" is Verhaltensmuster, maybe you will know a better one

[illion]

I quit smoking seven years ago, and I didn't think it was very difficult at all. I wondered why I hadn't stopped before. This was probably because I was so lucky that I found a "right time" to do it. I believe that too many failing attempts will make it harder.

I had reduced my intake of nicotin a few years back, because nobody at my workplace smoked, and I didn't want to go out in my breaks alone, I felt so different. I probably had five to ten cigarettes monday to friday and ten to twenty on saturday and sunday, depending on what I was doing.

I learned that my smoking was very situational. I had a cigarette when somebody called me, when sitting in the sofa watching tv, while drinking coffee with friends and family, after meals, mostly after eight pm, at parties and so on. I avoided these situations in the beginning, sometimes I went to bed early because I longed so much for a cigarette, and when I woke up the next morning the longing was gone. I hardly watched tv anymore at all, and I started gardening instead. I couldn't sit down in the sofa, so I made myself busy with other things instead. I avoided parties in the beginning.

The strangest thing as that I had kept my last packet of cigarettes, because I quit in the middle of one and there were ten cigarettes left. I kept it in a visible place, and I felt stronger for each time I passed it without having one. I drank a lot of coffee even though I associated coffee with cigarettes, instead of smoking I had three extra cups, it felt as if I needed to fill my body with poison. I used to walk behind smokers outdoors whenever I could, just to have a smell of the smoke, then I was satisfied. Sometimes I went home to smokers just to smell while they were smoking in the same room as me.

I also had dreams for years after I quit, I dreamt that I had taken a cigarette, and I got so mad at myself for being so weak and bad. I woke up in sweat and promised myself that I would never take one cigarette again in my lifetime. I also noticed that years after I quit, there could be special occasions like the yuletidemeal and so on that made me think of cigarettes, but I was not anywhere near wanting to have one. I just noticed it like a curiosity. I never missed it because my life as a non-smoker is so much better than the one I had as a smoker.

I think the three first weeks without the cigarette was the worst, after that there never was a big challenge.