Quitting Smoking

Poll

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Author:
Jonty Smith

The anti-smoking lobby often make a crucial mistake in their campaigning.: they lose sight of their target audience - children - and go after established smokers instead. Let me tell you right now that attempting to turn the screw on a smoker is the most counter-productive attitude you can adopt. As a former smoker, I can fully empathise with the average smoker’s feeling towards their habit, and I can assure you that an aggressive, scare mongering, lecturing tone is entirely redundant. The smoker needs to be understood, to be accepted and to be humanised.

I’ve always found it very curious that individuals, who have never smoked in their life, see themselves fit to take smokers to task on the habit. It’s exactly the same problem we face when it comes to tackling obesity in the population, namely that we are better off empathising and understanding where the obesity problem stems from, rather than just telling an individual to get off their butt and exercise. The smoker has spent years developing a habit that extends far beyond a physical addiction - it is a powerful emotional and psychological addiction too. Yet despite this fact, the anti-smoking lobby only seem to focus from the non-smoker’s viewpoint (e.g. “They have no willpower”, “Don’t you know what it’s doing to your health?”, “It’s not cool”)

Understand this - smokers started the habit for a reason. Some smokers wanted to look cool, to look edgy, to develop an attitude. Other smokers simply wanted to experiment. Others may just have had a fearless and carefree attitude towards life. Over time, the smoker glamorises the habit, and these strong neurological bonds will remain in place for years to come. When I smoked, I associated many wonderful times in my life with smoking: socialising on foreign holiday trips, sharing cigarettes with ex-girlfriends, smoking before and after important examinations etc. Smoking goes some way to claiming itself a role as part of the individual’s identity.

To this extent, the non-smoker has to understand that the tobacco habit is a strong emotional attachment. If you tell a smoker to give up the cigarettes for their health, then the smoker will ignore you. The smoker knows the scientific facts…they are not as stupid as the anti-smoking lobby would like to believe. But to the smoker, it is like you are asking them to give up their right arm; smoking is as much a part of the smoker‘s life as any physical limb would be. The only way a smoker can comfortably stop the habit is if they re-wire their mindset to look at cigarettes in a different manner. Every smoker has deeply-rooted reasons as to why they continue smoking, and it is these reasons which must come to the surface and be addressed.

I truly believe that we are on the cusp of seeing a massive downturn in the global smoking habit. The public smoking bans being established throughout the west have gone some way to removing the last real reason to smoke - the social factor. Even smokers are now conceding that cigarettes are no longer a sociable habit, and many feel sheepish and guilty even lighting up among a crowd. The persecution of smokers is as unjust as it is counter-productive, and we’re doing smokers no favours at all by presenting them as second-rate human beings.

In order to successfully help the smoker quit, we must make them feel relaxed. We must make them feel like we are listening and sympathetic to the emotional connection they hold with the habit. We should not, under any circumstances, be telling them what they should do or how they should feel. We must be open and seek to understand. Buy the smoker a couple of packets of cigarettes and invite them to light up without judgement. Then see if you can get the smoker to elucidate exactly why they must smoke. Once the smoker has been utterly candid and the true reasons are out there on the table, then they can be debunked one by one as you help wipe away the glamour of smoking. Remember, we had no need for smoking before we started, so we should have no need for it now.

Jonty Smith is a former smoker based in the U.K.

After 10 years of smoking two packs a day, Jonty finally managed to quit in 2006. His story of how he managed to beat the habit is available for free reading at http://www.how-i-stopped-smoking.com

A Quick Note From The Publisher... If you like the article above, you may be interested in the following article which is also related to Smoking... Quit Smoking Help and Tips: Open Your Eyes to Ill-effects of Smoking! Nobody need to be told the ill-effects of the smoking. Even then, smokers find it very hard to give up smoking permanently. Nicotine, an integral part of cigarette, is an addictive substance. As you try to give up smoking, your way of life changes. The natural tendency of your body would be to oppose this change as by now, it has become hungry for nicotine. But, smoking has unlimited side effects which cant be ignored. So, here are some tips to give up smoking in a planned and a more comfortable way. But before you undertake this journey, the first question which strikes your mind is Why? why should you give up a thing which your body enjoys? Smoking's ill-effects: . High risk of lung cancer . High risk of Heart diseases. . Bad breath and stained teeth. . Making people around you also suffer( passive smoking) . Serious breathing problems. . Charm on the face vanishes. Wrinkles develop soon. . Risk of stomach ulcers and acid reflux. . Lower athletic ability . Money and time loss. . Last but not the least, setting up wrong examples for your children. Next question which immediately strikes our mind, How? how to give up smoking? ---->To know how to quit smoking, visit http://www.weightloss-health.com/quit_smoking_ways.htm Random Tip: Remember, you will not die if you stop smoking. You might feel hungrier in the beginning which can lead to a minor weight gain but trust me, it is all worth giving up smoking for minor weight gain. You may have problems concentrating and you will be uncomfortable in the beginning. But, this is all a part of a game and with time, you will start leading a healthier and a normal life. Many ex-smokers did not succeed at first, but they kept trying. So...