Developing A Plan To Quit Smoking
What resources can help me develop a plan to quit smoking?
There's plenty of counselling information you can get by either calling the 800 number or even online. Several quit smoking support programs would be very helpful to you because you need something everyday, especially in the first couple of weeks. So hang tough at the beginning. It gets easier once you get past that two week and four week mark to stay with the program, and then remind yourself by giving yourself rewards, built in rewards, "If I make it to 24 hours, if I make it to one week, if I make it to one month, how much money have I saved, how much better am I feeling? This is the benefits I'm getting from staying committed to this plan."
What is the self-help method to quitting smoking?
A self-help means; "I'm not going to involve anyone else, even a health professional, to try and do this. I'm just going to read a brochure or make up my mind, throw the cigarettes in the trash, but not really go through a program".
How successful are self-help methods to quit smoking?
Most people who have tried to quit smoking have tried on their own, two, three, five, eight times before they actually try to get help. Self-help quits have the lowest success rate - about two to five percent, a year later, are still not smoking.
How can a group cessation program help me to quit smoking?
After someone has tried on their own to quit, it's really a good idea to get support and be with other people who are doing it right along side you. You get insights from them, you can watch things that don't go right in someone else's life and go "Oh, I want to avoid that". So I encourage people and I actually treat smokers in small groups, because I think they are very effective in how they hold each other accountable. There's usually an instructor whose worked with lots of people or has specific training in smoking cessation, and who can help you figure out what it is that your triggers that you haven't recognized and how to get over barriers.
Where can I find a smoking cessation group?
Look in the yellow pages and see if you can find a smoking cessation group. Look on the internet, call your local hospital, or ask your doctor if they know of any well-designed and effective treatment programs that use that accountability in a group to help you achieve your goal.
How can counseling or therapy help me stop smoking?
When you meet with someone who then takes an inventory of questions on you and your smoking behavior, they can tailor their recommendations to your needs, as opposed to eight or twelve people in a group who all come together where it needs to be more generic, and more general. If you have tried other methods, you might want to say, "I'd like to just work with someone who can help me figure out what my triggers are for smoking, where my roadblocks are, where are the barriers that keep tripping me up?" Make sure it's someone who has a significant length of experience in this field and has adequate training.
What are the benefits of quitting smoking cold turkey?
When someone is successful just stopping cigarettes, their body goes through a very rapid detoxification because you are smoking one day, you're not smoking the next. After the first two to four days, the nicotine levels have dropped to levels where their are nearly undetectable and your body goes quickly through that nicotine withdrawal symptom phase.
What are the dangers of quitting smoking cold turkey?
When someone makes a decision to quit smoking, put the cigarettes down, and don't smoke again. Their brain within 24 or 72 hours starts having significant nicotine withdrawal symptoms. One of the major reasons why people relapse back to smoking is they start feeling miserable. So, without medication, which means, quitting on your own cold turkey, means that you aren't really getting any help to handle all the changes going on in your brain chemistry trying to learn to live life without nicotine. One of the other problems with going cold turkey is that you have a tendency to focus on that event as supposed to having a whole program of taking your medications, following up with your doctor. You don't have a process usually that's going to carry you through, especially that first week. The problem is that quitting cold turkey has the lowest quitting rate of all the methods to quit smoking. So I would encourage you to talk to someone who can give you individual council about what's really best for you.
