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The Infinite Guide To Quitting Smoking: How You Can Quit Today

By on October 16, 2012

Undoubtedly quitting smoking can be ranked as one of the hardest things a person could do in their lives. Smoking cigarettes is an addiction not unlike alcohol or drug addiction.

In order for you to have your best chance to quit smoking for good, it is best for you to know what to expect and what your options are.

Quitting Basics and Why It’s So Hard

If you are considering quitting, or have dedicated that you are going to quit, go ahead and congratulate yourself. You have taken the first step to not only lengthening your life, but boosting your quality of life as well.

Quitting smoking is a hard addiction to break. There is no easy way to quit and it is going to test you to your limits at times. The reason quitting is so difficult is because of the main ingredient in cigarettes: nicotine.

If you are a smoker you know what nicotine is. You have likely joked about needing your ‘nicotine fix’ or stated that you are feigning for your nicotine. What you may not know is exactly what nicotine is.

Nicotine is a drug. It is naturally occurring in tobacco and is what makes cigarettes so enjoyable to smoke as well as addictive. Nicotine has addictive properties that are similar to those found in other drugs such as cocaine. You can become both emotionally and physically addicted to nicotine, which makes withdrawal and quitting such an arduous task.

In order for you to quit you will have to face both the emotional and physical withdrawals of nicotine. It is the only way you will be able to quit for good and stay away from cigarettes.

How Nicotine Gets You Addicted

When you take a drag on your cigarette the nicotine enters your lungs fully. Once it is in your lungs it is immediately absorbed into your blood, where it is carried throughout your entire body and it quickly reaches the brain.

If you were to stop right now nicotine would still be found in your system up to 5 days later. There is not a part of your body that it does not enter, and it can be found in hair samples, fingernails, mucous membranes, breast milk, and even surface skin cells.

When you smoke a cigarette the nicotine interacts with your brain sending off good-feeling hormones, telling your brain that you are enjoying the cigarette and setting you up for addiction. While your brain is sending off these feel-good hormones, you physically feel better. Stress is reduced, blood pressure can lower, and you generally feel better about things. Some smokers have described the feeling they got from their first cigarette as euphoria and utter happiness.

Since you receive such a happy vibe from smoking a cigarette, it makes you want to smoke again. You will quickly build up a tolerance to nicotine as the amount in your blood increases. This causes you to need more and more nicotine in order to feel those effects, which causes you to smoke more and more.

After a period of time you will reach your threshold and you will no longer feel that euphoria from smoking a cigarette. By this time smoking has become a full-blown addiction and you are now only smoking to maintain the nicotine levels in your body and keep from having withdrawal symptoms.

After you have reached your threshold, you can only go for so long without feeling the need for a smoke. As your nicotine levels start to fall in your body, you start to go through withdrawals, that you may not even notice, but make you crave another cigarette. You are now addicted.

How Withdrawal Keeps You From Quitting

Maybe this is your first time trying to quit or maybe you’ve tried twenty times before. No matter your situation, you are going to be exposed to withdrawals when trying to quit. When smokers try to quit they go through both emotional and physical withdrawal, which makes it that much harder to quit.

Many people start smoking again for the sole reason that they can no longer stand the withdrawals.

In order for you to successfully quit, you need to know what you are going to face both emotionally and physically. Withdrawal symptoms will first start to appear within a few hours after having your last cigarette and will reach their height between 2-3 days after having your last smoke. You should know that these symptoms can last for only a few days or up to a few weeks, depending on how long you were a smoker and how many you smoked a day. Keep in mind that generally after the initial 2-3 day peak that the symptoms will start to wean as each day goes by.

Symptoms to expect include:

  • Anxiety
  • Increased appetite
  • Weight gain
  • Mood swings
  • Irritability, anger, and frustration
  • Problems sleeping
  • Depression
  • Decreased heart rate
  • Tiredness
  • Constipation
  • Tightness in chest
  • Sore throat and/or cough
  • Headaches
  • Restlessness
  • Problems concentrating
  • Dizziness or feeling lightheaded

As you can see, these withdrawals not only affect you physically, but mentally. The havoc that withdrawal will cause on your body can make you feel like picking up another cigarette, but you have to keep the final goal in mind at all times.

Why It Is Important To Quit

The biggest reason why people quit smoking is for their health. Statistics show that eventually over half of people that smoke will succumb and die from a smoking-related cause such as illness or disease. Some important reasons to quit include:

  • Cancer
  • Smoking has been linked to be a risk factor and even cause of certain types of cancers. The possibility of getting cancer is the biggest risk you are taking when you smoke. Some types of cancer smoking has been linked to include:
  • Lung
  • Larynx
  • Pharynx (throat)
  • Mouth
  • Nose
  • Colon
  • Pancreatic
  • Ovarian
  • Bladder
  • Kidney
  • Cervical
  • Stomach
  • Rectal
  • Sinus
  • Esophageal
  • Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Cardiovascular and Blood Vessel Diseases

When you smoke you increase your chances of dying from a heart attack by two. Smoking increases your chances for a plethora of cardiovascular and other diseases and conditions such as:

  • Narrowing of blood vessels (peripheral vascular disease)
  • Blood clots
  • Stroke
  • Heart attack
  • Aneurysms
  • Erectile Dysfunction

You Stink! and Your Social Life

If you are a smoker you may be pushing people away. Non-smokers typically do not like to be around cigarette smoke, so if you are an avid smoker, they may not want to be around you. You may find yourself searching out peers and friends that do smoke, since you can enjoy activities while smoking together and you may feel a bond through smoking. If you have a group of friends that are all smokers, it can make it incredibly harder to quit.

Another reason people list for quitting smoking is the smell. When you are a smoker the chemicals and smell from the cigarettes leech into everything you own, including your own body. You may not notice the smell, but it is guaranteed that those around you definitely notice.

Lungs

Majority of people know that smoking can cause lung cancer, but it can also cause other lung diseases and disorders as well. These include:

  • COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease)
  • Chronic bronchitis
  • Emphysema
  • Pneumonia

Any of these lung diseases can cause death or disability in those that are afflicted. These illnesses can also cause for you to have limited activity levels because they make it more difficult to breathe while trying to participate in activities or do basic things during your daily life.

Other Issues

Women who are pregnant should never smoke. Smoking while pregnant has been linked to an increased risk for blood clots in the mother, higher likelihood for miscarriage, and higher risk for baby to be born preterm or at a low birth weight.

Smoking can also cause other problems such as premature aging of the skin, yellowing of the skin and teeth, gum disease, and cataracts of the eyes.

Why You Should Quit Smoking Today

Statistics over the years have proven that non-smokers live a longer and healthier life than smokers. On average a female smoker loses approximately 14 years of life due to smoking, while a male smoker lose approximately 13 years on their life.

Whether you have been smoking for a few weeks or twenty years, quitting today can have huge advantages to your overall health and lengthen your lifespan. Statistics show that anyone that stops smoking before they are 50 years old can cut their probability of dying within the next 15 years in half.

If you quit today you will have immediate health benefits such as decreased risk for lung disease, certain types of cancer, stroke, and heart attack. You will also automatically increase your lifespan the minute you choose for your most recent cigarette to be your last.

It is hard to convince some people to quit because of the long-term benefits. Putting the immediate benefits in their face helps them to see how quitting smoking can help them right now instead of ten years down the road.

Instantaneous benefits:

  • Yellowing of fingernails and fingers will go away.
  • Taste buds start to heal and food will taste better.
  • Sense of smell will heal and return to normal.
  • No long have bad smelling hair and clothes.
  • Breath will smell better immediately.
  • Teeth that were stained from cigarette smoke will become whiter.
  • Regular daily activities will get easier and no longer leave you out of breath.

Short-term benefits include:

  • 20 minutes after smoking your heart rate and blood pressure start to decrease.
  • 8 hours after quitting oxygen levels return to normal.
  • 12 hours after quitting the carbon monoxide level in your body returns to normal, causing your risk of heart attack to significantly drop.
  • 48 hours later most, if not all, of the nicotine will have left your body and you will feel withdrawal symptoms starting to fade.
  • 72 hours after quitting your bronchial tubes will no longer be inflamed, allowing for more energy due to more oxygen in the blood.

These benefits alone should be enough to convince you to quit right now. The long-term benefits are also mind-blowing and allow you to see just how badly smoking could have ravaged your body.

Long-term benefits to quitting smoking:

  • 2 weeks after quitting the blood circulation starts to improve and will keep getting better for the next few weeks.
  • 1 month after quitting your shortness of breath as well as coughing will decrease. Risk of infection in the lungs has been decreased and the lungs are healing and working on completely cleaning themselves out.
  • 3-9 months after quitting your lung capacity has improved enough for breathing issues to start to go away.
  • 1 year later your risk of having a heart attack has been cut in half.
  • 5 years after quitting your risk of having a stroke is lowered to the point of being the same as a non-smoker. Also your risk of getting certain types of cancers such as those of the bladder, throat, esophagus, and mouth are lowered by half.
  • 10 years after quitting your risk of developing lung cancer is the same of a non-smoker. The risk of having cancer of the larynx and pancreas is also decreased.
  • 15 years after quitting your risk of having a heart attack and coronary heart disease is now the same of a non-smoker.

While it is true that it is best to quit while you are younger, quitting at any age will still be able to give you health benefits and increase the years on your life. If you quit smoking today you will see immediate benefits and be able to enjoy long-term benefits as well as lowering your risk for diabetes.

Other Factors To Consider

While your health is vital and the most important reason to quit, there are other things you should take into consideration and that may help persuade you to quit your nasty habit for good.

Show Me The Money

Smoking cigarettes is a very expensive addiction. Most people do not realize exactly how much they are spending a month or year on cigarettes. No matter how many cigarettes you smoke a day, the costs still add up and chances are there are other things you would rather spend the money on.

Figuring out how much money you spend per year on cigarettes is easy. All you need to do is figure out how much you smoke a day, how much that costs, and multiply that by 365 (the number of days in a year).

If you smoke half a pack a day, or 10 cigarettes, and an entire pack cost you $4.00, then you are smoking $2.00 a day. That is equal to $730 a year, or almost $61 a month. For most people they could pay their car insurance for that amount per month, or enjoy a nice date night with their spouse once a month.

$730 a year is a very reserved cost for cigarettes since most avid smokers smoke a pack a day or more, and generally in most places cigarettes cost well over $4.00 a pack, especially for name brands.

Just the costs of the cigarettes themselves is not the only place you will be dumping your money as a smoker. People who smoke are more likely to have health issues, so there is the increased cost for doctor’s visits or any costs related to treatment for any illnesses or diseases caused by smoking.

People who smoke also have higher insurance premiums and have to pay more for health insurance as life insurance.

The Health of Those Around You

You might not realize that your cigarette smoking is not only harming you, but anyone you smoke around or come in contact with. When you smoke the chemicals from the cigarette attach to your clothing, hair, and body, so even if you are not smoking at that moment, these chemicals could still be affecting those around you.

Some facts about secondhand smoke and secondhand chemicals:

  • Children that live in a home with smokers (even if the adults smoke outside) are more likely to have health conditions such as bronchitis, asthma, colds, ear infections, nausea, dizziness, and headaches.
  • A baby in a home where there are smokers is more likely to die from SIDS, or sudden infant death syndrome.
  • A woman who is pregnant is more likely to have a baby with asthma if exposed to secondhand smoke.
  • Secondhand smoke can cause lung cancer as well as heart disease in those that are otherwise healthy and non-smokers.

Secondhand smoke can come from being exposed to any cigarette smoke that is in the air that has either been exhaled by the smoker, or that has come directly off of a burning cigarette. Secondhand chemicals can be exposed to anyone that touches you such as from a hug or handshake, or can even be airborne and inhaled.

Your Social and Work Life

In today’s society smoking is not as acceptable as it was 30 years ago. Not only are complete strangers looking down on you for your choice to smoke, they are most likely genuinely disgusted if they see you smoking in public.

Maybe you do not care what strangers think, but you should care what your family and friends think. Not only are you harming yourself through smoking, but you could be harming others you care about unintentionally through secondhand smoke. More than likely your friends will not want you smoking in their homes or cars when you are with them. If you do feel the need for a cigarette, maybe you have to walk away from your group of friends in order to smoke. If you have to distance yourself physically to smoke, over time you may end up distancing yourself emotionally as well. Statistics show that people who smoke are more likely to be isolated and have fewer friends than those that do not smoke. They have also shown that people who smoke are less likely to do things in their lives that they enjoy since they are more isolated and have less friends.

Other things to think about:

  • Some employers and businesses will not hire people who smoke since insurance rates are higher and they are more likely to call out sick.
  • Finding a partner can be harder since only about 20% of adults are smokers and many non-smokers do not want a partner that smokes.
  • Finding a place to rent can be harder since some landlords will not rent to smokers.

Options to Help You Quit Now

Since smoking cigarettes is both a mental and physical addiction, the two go hand-in-hand and you will need a treatment plan that will cover both aspects of your addiction. Majority of people have finally been able to quit by combining different methods that can cover both the mental and physical aspects of their addiction.

There is no single right way to quit smoking, and you must do what feels right for you and your current condition. Studies have shown that those that have a support system of any kind in place are more likely to have success in quitting and only around 5% of smokers are able to quit on their first attempt on their own without any type of help or assistance at all.

There are numerous options available to help you quit smoking. These include:

Cold Turkey

Statistically, this is not the best method to completely quit, though there have been plenty of people succeed with quitting outright.

Prescription Medications

You can see a medical professional or your regular doctor to talk about whether or not a smoking cessation medication would be right for you. These medications help to decrease the effects of withdrawal symptoms and reduce nicotine cravings. They have been effective in helping many people quit.

Nicotine Replacement Therapy

NRT has been effective in helping many quit smoking. NRT helps by replacing the cigarettes you smoke with another form of nicotine that usually comes in the form of a patch or chewing gum. These can generally be purchased over-the-counter. They work by giving you a steady dose of nicotine in small amounts so that your cravings are not as strong and your withdrawal symptoms lesser.

Nicotine Replacement Therapy is one of the most popular methods with a high success rate to quit smoking. NRT is useful because it allows you to focus more on breaking behavioral patterns that cause cravings as well as emotional withdrawals and the psychological addiction since you are being helped with the physical addiction with the NRT. With NRT you can be less distracted by the physical withdrawal to learn new coping mechanisms and break damaging behaviors.

Electronic Cigarettes

E-cigarettes are most helpful for combatting the psychological addiction to cigarettes. These give the illusion of smoking a real cigarette, while getting none of the harmful chemicals since you are puffing on water vapor. E-cigarettes are perfectly safe, but how well they work is hit and miss.

While e-cigarettes do help with behavioral addictions by still allowing you to puff and hold a cigarette, they do nothing for helping combat physical withdrawals. It is recommended to combine e-cigarettes with other types of therapies or treatments such as nicotine replacement therapy in order to be successful.

In some cases e-cigarettes may be able to kill two birds with one stone by helping with some emotional withdrawal symptoms as well. Oftentimes people may find that if they are feeling agitated that puffing on an e-cigarette helps to calm them since it is an action that is associated with a happy feeling, even if they are not getting nicotine.

Acupuncture

Acupuncture should be combined with other forms of treatment to allow you to successfully quit smoking. Acupuncture works by inserting tiny needles into certain pressure points on the body, which in turn releases endorphins into your body that allow you to relax and boost your mood. It is most helpful for dealing with withdrawal symptoms.

Hypnosis

Hypnosis has long been around as an option to help smokers quit. Hypnosis works by getting you completely relaxed to the point where you are more open to suggestion. The hypnotist works to boost your dedication to quit smoking and make you feel more negatively about smoking and cigarettes. Many people have had success quitting through hypnosis.

Making a Quit Smoking Plan

No matter the method you choose to help you quit, it is important to make a plan to stop smoking. You already know that when you quit you are going to encounter many negative withdrawal symptoms that are going to make you feel horrible and like you want to smoke again. To combat these feelings you should have a plan in place.

Step 1: Become Accountable

The biggest mistake most people make is not having a support system. You need to tell everyone you know that you plan to quit smoking, and ask that they support you. If you feel accountable to others besides yourself, you are less likely to backslide.

With a support system in place you will also have people you know you can turn to if you are struggling with quitting or need someone to vent your frustrations on instead of turning to a cigarette.

If you do not have friends or family to confide in or make your support group, you should seek out quit smoking therapy groups, phone lines, or online communities. These can help tremendously when you do not have anyone in your personal life to lean on for support.

Step 2: Relieving Uncomfortable Feelings

When you start having your emotional and mental withdrawal symptoms all of your normal aggravations will be escalated tenfold. Things that normally only got under your skin a little can send you into a full-on rage.

You can prepare ahead of time and make a plan to deal with these feelings before they are able to get out of control. Go ahead and plan out what you are going to do when you start to have these feelings or relentless cravings.

In order to deal with wild emotions, you need to know techniques that you can use in the moment to help you cool off and keep a level head.

Techniques you can try:

  • Take a brisk walk to cool down, re-evaluate, and remember that it is the withdrawal making you have mood swings.
  • Take deep breaths. Breathe in deeply, then exhale for as long as you need to start feeling the strong emotions disappear.
  • Chew some gum. Not only will this help with the feeling of needing to have something in your mouth, chewing on gum hard can help calm your nerves.

Step 3: Banish Smoking Paraphernalia and Friends

Clean out your entire house and anywhere else you may have a stash such as at work or in your car. Throw out all lighters, ashtrays, and any extra boxes of cigarettes. Empty out any receptacles where you have thrown your cigarette butts. The saying is true, ‘out of sight, out of mind’. The less you have to see or encounter smoking or cigarettes, the easier it will be to beat your addiction.

While you should not necessarily ‘banish’ your smoking friends, you should politely let them know you are trying to quit and ask if they would mind not smoking around you, or letting you know when they want to light up so you can go someplace else. It wouldn’t hurt to go ahead and ask them if they would like to join you in quitting as well.

Step 4: Stock Up to Relieve Your Withdrawal Symptoms

There are a lot of things you can buy and use to help you get relief from your withdrawal symptoms.

People who have quit smoking often say one of the hardest parts was that they were so used to having something in their mouth and sucking when inhaling the smoke. You can help ease the pain of not having that by purchasing items such as:

  • Hard candy
  • Gum
  • Straws
  • Toothpicks
  • Carrot sticks
  • Coffee Stirrers

Anything that you can suck on, bite on, or otherwise put in your mouth will help with the oral fixation withdrawal.

You will encounter many physical withdrawals as well that can be eased with over-the-counter medications. For headaches and body pains you should buy ibuprofen or acetaminophen products. Some people experience stomach upset and nausea, so you should purchase medications or tablets such as Tums to help with that.

Step 5: Find Replacement Activities

The best way to slide back into smoking is to be bored. If you have nothing to do you are more likely to buy a pack of cigarettes and light up. If you know you have a fairly lax schedule and not much planned, plan on picking up a new hobby.

A few things you can do to keep your mind occupied are:

  • Join a gym. Exercise is a great stimulant, is good for you, and can make you feel amazing about yourself, especially since endorphins are released during exercise that can help with the withdrawals from not having them from nicotine.
  • Get out in the world. Go biking, join a book club, or sit down and have a cup of coffee at a place where you might meet new people.
  • Find and attend a class or group for people who want to stop smoking or that have already stopped. You can get motivation and support from others while you are occupying your time.
  • Drink a lot of water. Carry a water bottle with you at all times. If you feel a craving sneaking up, drink some water. Water helps to flush out the chemicals and nicotine, reducing cravings and making withdrawal symptoms lessen.
  • Take up a hands-on hobby such as building model cars, sewing, or scrapbooking.

Studies have also shown that munching on fruits and raw vegetables not only satisfy your oral fixation, but actually make cigarettes taste bad. So not only are you eating healthy, but you are combating your addiction at the same time.

Step 6: Recognize Your Triggers

There are certain environments and situations that make you want to have a smoke, even if you do not realize it. Most people associate certain actions and times of the day with having a smoke, too. Some of the most common times people smoke include after a meal, when they wake up in the morning, and when drinking alcohol.

If you enjoy having a cigarette with your coffee in the morning, you should find something else to substitute the smoking. Keep your mind active by reading a magazine while you drink your coffee, or satisfy your need to have something in your hand by writing out your schedule for the day or doodling.

With all of your trigger times you can find a healthy substitute for smoking. This is often one of the hardest aspects about quitting for some people.

Try to only drink at establishments that do not allow smoking inside or give up alcohol as well. Instead of lighting up after a meal you can try snacking on nuts or fruit, or using another distraction such as going for a jog.

You may not even realize it, but commonly the things around you in your home can be a major trigger, especially if you smoked in your home. The smell of cigarettes can linger in a home months after it is no longer smoked in. After you trash all of your smoking paraphernalia, you should then clean the entire house from top to bottom. Anything that can be thrown in the washing machine needs to be washed. You should also scrub your walls, appliances, and have your carpets and furniture thoroughly cleaned.

Use scented candles and air fresheners to get rid of the cigarette smell, since it could have you craving and feigning for another one in no time.

Step 7: Decide

In order to quit you need to set a quit date. It is often important to plan a date ahead of time on which you will quit. This is not so you can finish up all of the cigarettes you have left, but so that you can go ahead and get your support system setup, distraction activities planned, and have your treatment lined up.

You need to determine which treatment you will be doing, this can help you decide on a quit date. For example, if you choose to use nicotine replacement therapy patches combined with e-cigarettes, you would need to choose a quit date that would give you time to get the NTR patches and the e-cigarettes in your possession.

Once you have your quit date you know when you will need to put into practice everything you have learned here.

Step 8: Stay Positive

Now that you have made the decision to quit, have your plan in place, and know what you are going to do, you have to remember to keep your head in the game.

Try not to let yourself get discouraged even when the cravings and withdrawal symptoms sometimes seem overbearing and like they are too much to take. Make positive assertions to yourself daily. Some people find that leaving positive notes around their house, car, and workplace help them to stay confident and on the right track.

Some things to remind yourself of:

  • You are worthy.
  • You deserve to have a healthy, happy, long life.
  • You will no longer harm your friends and family with your cigarette smoke.
  • You are going to be able to save more money.
  • You are healthier without the cigarettes.
  • You have lowered your risk for serious diseases.
  • You are making everyone around you proud.
  • You no longer smell like an ashtray.
  • You are more attractive without cigarettes.
  • You have the willpower to do this.

Other Tips and Techniques To Help You Quit

Visualize Yourself Succeeding

Take some time to relax and visualize yourself quitting. Think in detail about how your life is going to be different as a non-smoker. Imagine how satisfying it is going to be to turn down a cigarette that is offered to you. Think about how you are going to feel when you can do activities that no longer make you feel out of breath. Imagine how good food tastes or is going to taste now that your taste buds can heal and no longer be blocked from tasting fully by the chemicals in cigarettes.

Journal

One option that may be helpful to some is to keep a journal. You can start keeping the journal before you quit. If nothing else, you should write about how you felt that day, which withdrawal symptoms you had, how you dealt with them, and how it made you feel afterwards.

Over time you will begin to see a marked difference in your overall health and mood. When you are having a craving for a cigarette you can look back on your journal entries and see that as a smoker maybe you were not able to walk across the parking lot without being winded, or that you overcame some horrible withdrawals.

When you see the strides you have made over time you will be motivated to keep moving forward and keep progressing.

Give Yourself Rewards

It is imperative that you recognize all the hard work you are doing or have done to quit smoking. You should reward yourself for a job well done.

Take the money you would have normally spent on a pack (or more) of cigarettes each day and put it away somewhere. You will slowly see the amount start to rise and you should use it to treat yourself to something. If instead of a pack of cigarettes a day you want a salad for lunch from your favorite restaurant, treat yourself to that.

Or you could set certain milestones at which you will used money you have saved to treat yourself to something really nice. You can celebrate milestones such as being a non-smoker for a month, having someone tell you you smell nice, or having saved a ceratin amount of money. All of these will make you feel immensely better about yourself, your achievements, and your decision to quit smoking for good.

Use the money for whatever you want that is going to make you feel good. It will help remind you not only of the money you are saving that you can use to do things you really enjoy, but of the progress you have made and the happier person you have become.

Say No To Rationalizations

Your mind will try to play tricks on you and convince you to pick up a cigarette. Your brain will try to rationalize that one cigarette is not going to hurt anything and that it will make you feel better. Try to remember that this is the cravings and withdrawal talking.

When you know ahead of time that your brain is going to try to rationalize why you need a cigarette, you can shut it down before you give in. When this happens, start to think about the reasons you quit, how far you have come, and just say no.

Remind Yourself Of Why You Quit

Sometimes when a person has been quit from smoking for a long period of time, they may begin to forget all of the reasons they quit in the first place. If you don’t remind yourself from time to time of all the reasons, it could make it easier to relapse.

Things to remember:

  • You are helping your health, your family and friends, and your finances.
  • There is no such thing as having ‘only one’. One will always turn into two, then more.
  • Smoking was hurting your body and relationships.
  • Smoking is a deadly addiction that thousands of people die from every year.

Recovering From Relapse or Slips

No one is perfect, and majority of people who try to quit are not successful on their first try. You may slip up by having one or two cigarettes, or you may go back into smoking, which is a complete relapse.

Know that you are not a failure if you slip or relapse and you can still quit. Go over your previous plan and figure out what went wrong. You may need a new plan and treatment options. You may need to completely revamp your plan the second (or more) time around.

Start from the beginning and go through everything again. It may seem like a lot of work, but you and your health are worth it. Learn from your mistakes, put your best foot forward, and tackle quitting again. It can be done.