I want to republish one of my Favorite BLOGS by one of my Favorite Advocates! I hope this helps those of us who are waivering!!!
Your DECISION to stop smoking starts with your mindset and usually goes something like this. The first few attempts usually turn out to be dismal failures because you weren't actually serious when you quit! We saved the ashtrays, packs of ciggs (just in case) and even told ourselves we would only smoke if things got really bad, too stressful, or if we lost our job etc... WHY would we do that? Personally I believe it's because we had smoked for such a long time and we really WANTED to quit, but not FOREVER...that was way too much to realize at the time....So we left the "back doors" open in our subconscious mind to starting again.....But ONLY if something TERRIBLE happened...even though the TERRIBLE thing did or didn't happen, our mind kept drifting back to the old subconscious 'brainwashing' of "I'll never REALLY be happy without smoking", or "I love smoking" ", or blah,blah,blah....... Then, after awhile, when we become serious enough to quit, we come to the realization that we are CHOOSING to quit smoking (not just a "want to")...... we DECIDE we are choosing to quit smoking FOREVER, and the task becomes much easier. This time we realize that smoking will NOT BE AN OPTION, for any reason at all, no matter what . So on a conscious and a subconscious level, there is no internal arguement...we have CHOSEN to be free and will honor that decision to remain free to staying quit every day.....The quit process does take time, but the better your DECISION to quit is at the outset, the better quit you will have and all of the "back doors", where the old brainwashing is located, or REASONS/EXCUSES to smoke will be closed. So if you are a newbie or a long time quitter, ask yourself about the "what if reasons" to start back smoking are before they can happen and CLOSE those BACK DOORS.
