Changing Shame and Guilt into Hope and Optimism

What I find so common among those who smoke, is the feelings of either shame and/or guilt. Shame that there is something wrong with me that I don't want to quit smoking knowing that I "should", and/or guilt because I want to and haven't been able to quit. I am certainly familiar with both of those emotions.

I had quit for 2 months the first time I was diagnosed with BC in 1987 when I was 32. I

Do the cravings (for nicotine) ever stop?

A. has been quit for 6 months yet she still gets cravings just as strong as the first day she quit. She asks,


"Will it ever get better or will it a battle forever?"
You need to stay vigilant and work on changing your self talk. When a craving comes up--if you keep saying--"this is just like day one" and questioning if it will ever get better--that thought process can lead you back. Instead

I just turned 50, had a physical and my doctor says I'm in great health. Why should I quit?

It is common to believe that you are one of the "lucky" ones who can smoke without it doing any physical damage, especially when hearing something like this from your doctor. Or believing that when your doctor listens to your chest and says, "Your lungs sound fine", thinking this means smoking has done no damage. This is called having an "optimistic bias".

The average life expectancy for men is

The #1 secret to quitting smoking

I'm asked all the time what is the one thing I would say to smokers who want to quit. The answer I want to say is to tell me more about the smoker and I will tell you what that smoker wants to hear but everybody is different. Every smoker is connected to their cigarettes in different ways and it will take different methods to become successful.

However, what every successful smoker has in common

Shame and guilt keep smokers smoking

Often what keeps smokers smoking is either shame or guilt or both. As a coach, I never want to add to either emotion with my clients. Shame is "there is something wrong with me (that's why I can't quit)". Guilt is "I'm doing something wrong (but I don't know how to stop)". I remember feeling both after my first cancer diagnosis---even smokers would bug me to quit--"VJ, why are you smoking, you've

Building Hope

A large woman walked into my presentation in Hawaii. Both legs were bandaged due to circulatory problems from her diabetes. A two + pack a day smoker, she admitted she had never gone an hour without a smoke break. Her doctor had given up on her ever quitting and allowed her to leave in the middle of her medical appointments to go grab a smoke. She stayed and listened to the entire hour plus

Time to think of nicotine addiction in a different way

Last night was graduation for the participants in my smoking cessation workshop. All had quit smoking for varying lengths of time from a couple of days to two months. For most, it had been three weeks but a common thread was, "Why is it still so hard? Why do I still have cravings? Why doesn't it seem to be getting any easier?"
Those comments are an example of still thinking of smoking as just a

Beware the Saboteur

Often a smokers best meaning friends and family are their worst enemy when trying to quit. Smokers need support and encouragement, but our supporters often are saboteurs instead. On Franks first day, his wife asked how he did that day. Frank, a two pack a day smoker, admitted that he smoked two cigarettes. Instead of congratulating him on not smoking of the other thirty eight, she focused on his

What works and what doesn't work?

I'm approached all the time to sell products that claim to help a smoker quit. One company claimed that cravings would vanish by smelling a cinnamon scented wand. In a very unscientific experiment, I gave them out to all of the participants in one of my workshops. One third said that the wands did remove the craving, one third said the wands did nothing and one third said smelling the wand caused

Turning the Fears of Quitting into Confidence of Becoming Smoke Free

Fear often holds a smoker back from even trying to quit. I remember being afraid of success, "If I quitting smoking, What will I do?" Smoking has become part of our identity, "Who am I, if I'm not a smoker?" Others have tried to quit so many times that there is a fear of another failure. The fear of gaining weight will stop some smokers, especially women, from ever trying to stop smoking. Other

Myths about Snus and smokeless tobacco

The new tactic of the tobacco companies is to promote smokeless tobacco and snus as a way to quit smoking but those forms of tobacco are dangerous too. Here are some myths taken from: http://oralcancernews.org/wp/Debunking the mythsMyth: Smokeless tobacco products are a safe alternative to tobacco smoking.Fact: Here is the bottom line–smokeless is not harmless. The list of serious illnesses

We Don't Want Our Kids to Smoke

Mary's father started her smoking at 16 because he thought it made her look sophisticated, now at 70, she finds it almost impossible to quit. We've come a long way baby, from an attitude like Mary's father yet even today when a teenager is caught with cigarettes, that parent breathes a sign of relief that it wasn't something stronger, "It's just cigarettes, a right of a passage instead of drugs"

Why Can Some Smokers Just Quit?

Some ex-smokers will say that one day they just decided to quit and they did, walked away from their cigarettes and never had another puff. It's like a light switch being turned on, going from not wanting to quit smoking to becoming a former smoker. For some smokers when that light switch turns on, they are more likely to stay quit than if they decide to delay quitting by making a plan, they do

The Key to Staying Quit Forever

In most of my workshops, everyone quits smoking but that figure is misleading because I think that nicotine addiction is over estimated as a problem to quitting but UNDER estimated as a problem when dealing with relapse. Many smokers come to my workshops saying I'm their "Last Resort", they have tried everything and nothing works. I know these individuals will be successful long term because they

Take Positive Steps Toward Quitting Smoking

Quitting is a process where we change our behavior one step at a time. Thsi often starts with a statement such as, "I'm not going to smoke in the house anymore." "I"m not going to smoke in my car." or after we quit, we tell ourselves, "I'm not going to smoke ever again."But our brains are funny sometimes and the unconscious sometimes doesn't hear the word "NOT" because those kind of statments

Stop Blaming Smokers

Many people want to point a finger at smokers, "Don't you know that it's bad for your health?" they ask.These self righteous individuals are making smoking a moral or ethical issue instead of what it is--a health issue, pure and simple. Smokers are not bad people because they smoke. 90% started as a teenager before they were legally able to buy cigarettes and before their brains were fully

What is the First Step Towards Quitting Smoking?

After building a desire to quit, many smokers get stuck in a love/hate relationship with their cigarettes. They want to quit but they also don't want to give them up just yet. But if you think of this a process and not a one time event, it will make it easier. So the first step is to start to break your connections to your cigarettes. Most smoker smoke unconsciously. The computer in our head

Changing the Way you Think about Cigarettes to Help You Stop Smoking

In a workshop during the time of 9-11, one woman had quit and her husband continued to smoke. She said, "Every time I see his pack of cigarettes, I just think that this is 20 little terrorists trying to kill me."It is important to change the way you think about smoking and cigarettes. Often smokers feel deprived when they quit or that they are losing a best friend. Instead of deprivation or loss,

Using Cigars to Quit Smoking Cigarettes

Jim quit smoking cigarettes almost two years ago but he has started smoking mini-cigars that are the shape of a cigarette. Many men switch to cigars thinking that this is a safer alternative to smoking cigarettes because "you don't inhale" with cigars. Research has shown that when a cigarette smoker switches to cigars, that they do inhale, it is an automatic response, plus cigars, depending on

Dreaming About Smoking Even After Quitting

Yesterday was my 18th anniversary of going smoke free. I gave my first stop smoking workshop one month later. Even after all this time, I still dream that I smoke. It usually happens before a new workshop is scheduled to start and I'm in a panic because I need to quit right now, so that I can facilitate the class. Upon waking, it takes a minute or two to realize it was just a dream and for that