
The premise of most smoking cessation products and programs is that withdrawal from nicotine is a horrible experience to be avoided at all costs. Therefore, they offer you something to block out the experience of the discomfort of the inevitable withdrawal so that you can be relieved from the discomfort of wanting to smoke or vape. Interesting…
They are offering you relief, just lie the hit or puff of nicotine offers. No wonder that is appealing! This reinforces the idea that discomfort is bad, and relief is good. That feeds into a relief junkie's mind, and after all, a nicotine addict is a relief junkie. They don't know how not to seek the relief from smoking or vaping and are looking for a way out. But what if that premise is a lie?
Let’s look closely: Is discomfort really bad? When the body is releasing the nicotine from its system, isn’t that an inevitable experience? Do you know anyone that needed to be hospitalized or who, God forbid! died from having desires to smoke? Isn’t withdrawal from nicotine a temporary experience? And yet, the urge to smoke or vape, i.e the yearning for nicotine lingers almost like muscle memory because the need for nicotine is primarily a psychological dependency, not just a physical one.
So, what is it, therefore, that the addict needs to run from that most products and programs are offering? It’s not the physical dependency that one needs to be protected from. Nor is the psychological yearning for nicotine. Aren’t these programs merely offering a quick fix to block out facing the dependency that addict developed? But life doesn’t work that way.
Getting free from nicotine is like breaking up from a bad relationship. The addict can’t keep on going with it, but they feel like they can’t live without it. What to do?
What if they learned to see the need for this bad relationship with nicotine as a positive experience that informs themselves about how they turn to it on every level? What if they learned to allow the need for nicotine as a positive experience, not a negative one? What if they learned how not to fear their desires to smoke or vape? What if they had a fool-proof tool for making positive choices even when the desire for nicotine is strong? What if they didn’t have to brace themselves every time they wanted nicotine for fear they would give into it? In other words, what if they learned that the way out is by going through?
My clients are no longer wishing they could smoke or vape. They are no longer wanting to smoke or vape. Yes, depending on the amount of time they have been off nicotine, they get urges from time to time. But the difference is they are grounded when desires come and go with their heads on straight, fortified with a tool that lasts a lifetime. And they didn’t need drugs, or voodoo to get rid of their desires.
So, if you have already tried all those quick fixes that didn’t amount to a hill of beans, and if you want to try something where you won’t need to trade your dependency from one substance to another, call or book an appointment with me: Chooseasmokefreelife.com
Or 512-758-1910.
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