Quit smoking this summer: this is how you really succeed

Your first cigarette is like your first kiss: you never forget it. I was fourteen and standing with a friend behind the electricity house by the tracks. She had stolen a cigarette from her father. Pall Mall. With two rounded backs we were there lighting the thing. She with the lighter in her hand, I cupping my hands around it to block the wind.

It was terribly dirty. We both had to cough and then became very dizzy. So much for the initiation. And yet the ritual of having ‘a secret’ intrigued us and we went more often. Stealing cigarettes from her father would become too noticeable, so the first pack was bought. The first, after which many followed.

From my fourteenth to my twenty-sixth, I was addicted to those sticks. I don't necessarily look back on that with a dirty face now, but I do feel: that's not me anymore. And once you saw the light, you want to help others. Do you want to quit smoking? These insights have helped me further, and perhaps they will help you too.

You are not the addiction
You are so much more. A person who makes choices that feel good at that moment. And you are reading this article now, so you are already at a point to make different choices. Take a moment here and now to absorb this. Read this sentence carefully and be proud of yourself. You are taking the time for this for a reason. The process has already begun.

The addiction makes you at this moment a little hamster in a spinning wheel, you know?  
This sentence from anti-smoking guru Allen Carr stuck in my head back then: ‘Smoking is only fun because the cigarette temporarily relieves the addict from the nagging feeling that something is missing. For twenty minutes, the world is right again. After that, the nagging starts again.’ And all that running in that wheel makes you tired. But know: you can just step out of the wheel. Walk a completely different path.

As a smoker, you don't necessarily choose to smoke...
...you smoke because you are addicted to nicotine. And that's okay, it doesn't make you ‘weak’. As long as we live, challenges will keep coming our way. Growth moments. Choices to learn from. And regarding smoking, I now know that a switch can be made in your brain. As a smoker, I saw the cigarette as support and comfort during stress, sadness, setbacks, boredom, and loneliness. I associated smoking with the fun moments in life: socializing with friends, moments after a dinner, during a happy moment on a trip... But now I realize: I still have all those things. Quitting smoking hasn't made those moments less enjoyable. On the contrary: you feel freer.

I also asked myself the question: does this still suit you?
There are very few serious smokers over thirty, maybe none, who do not feel guilty about the damage they inflict on themselves. I think I found myself in exactly that stage at the beginning of 2019. I suddenly became damn aware of my mortality. Suddenly thought about the future, about my lungs, about potential children. So ask yourself: are you still that smoker? Or is the idea of needing to distance yourself just exciting? Does this make you happy? And if you know the answer, don't you want to act accordingly?
 
You are worth choosing for yourself
Many people do not live towards the outcome of quitting, but seek somewhere along the way the confirmation that they are not worth it. What you then see reflected in the outcome of not quitting. You can always see from the outcomes in your life what our true intention has been. Even if you dream of a different reality (not touching cigarettes anymore), if you don't really act on it, you won't improve the outcome. You have to find it worth it for yourself. And you are worth it!

GO FOR IT!