Monday
Aug172009
Monday, August 17, 2009 at 4:47PM ...at least 50 of the 4,000 chemicals in tobacco smoke have been proven to cause cancer
...less than 20 per cent of Canadians (aged 15 and over) smoke
...smoking rates in Alberta are slightly higher than in the rest of Canada
...30 percent of smokers start before age 15
...smoking rates in Canada have been going down since 1965
...nicotine is an oily liquid
...in Canada, there are more ex-smokers than than there are smokers
...within 24 hours after quitting, your chance of having a heart attack decreases
...one year after your last cigarette, your risk of a heart attack is cut in half
Visit my blog for the intimate details of my personal battle to quit smoking. I invite you to leave me a message of support.
http://eileenschuh.blogspot.com
Reader Comments (2)
Congratulations on your quit! As a Hypnotherapist who helps many people quit smoking, let me share something that you might find helpful. It’s something that the industry doesn't want people to know that you may wish to share with your readers.
The “half life” of nicotine in the body is about 2 hours. This means that every 2 hours the amount of nicotine left in your system drops by 50%. Even after just 72 hours, the nicotine level in your body has dropped to negligible levels. So, if it’s not nicotine, then what keeps you thinking about and craving cigarettes?
In your case, you have linked the act of smoking to “reward” for accomplishing a goal or completing a difficult task. Because you have done this many many times over many years, your unconscious mind had linked “reward” to cigarettes. As a result, when you think you need a reward your unconscious mind thinks cigarettes, and hence you have a "craving". The common smoking cessation and patches won’t do anything for this type of mental pattern.
I offered the explanation that follows to a mental health nurse I helped to quit smoking a few months ago (who had spent time working in a drug rehab ward), and she confirmed that my facts were correct. What I said surprised her, but she admitted she had never thought about it before. She had just accepted the common belief that it was tough to quit smoking because of nicotine. (An example of “cultural hypnosis”!)
We’ve all heard the statement “Nicotine is as addictive as heroin”, but when we look at the facts, we see some important differences.
A heroin addict needs a fix every “X” hours (where “X” is a constant for each person that depends on their metabolism) regardless of what he/she is doing. As long as they are getting the drug on time, they don’t have a great desire to jam a needle in their arm. However, if they don’t get their drug on time, they experience VIOLENT withdrawal symptoms, and it makes no difference what they are doing.
Contrast this with smoking, and we find many people can go smoke free for varying lengths of time with no problems if the context is correct. I can’t tell you the number of people who have told me that when they have to go on a long flight, “they know they can’t smoke”, and it’s no big deal. They don’t experience any physical discomfort because they know they can smoke when they get to their destination. If it were really about the “nicotine” fix, why would people who are on the patch (and often getting more nicotine than they got from cigarettes) still want to smoke?
So what to do about it? First off, rewards are a good thing, so you want to set yourself a new ritual for a reward that is supportive and healthy. Likewise having a ritual for getting started on a new task and focusing would also be important for you.
The key is links it in is emotion! Repeat some act while in a positive emotional state, and soon you will build a new positive link to that action. Likewise if when you think about cigarettes, you can think about reasons you want them out of your life and FEEL that reason with strong and sincere emotion then over time you will break the link.
This is exactly what I do when I help someone stop smoking with hypnosis; only I accelerate the process and make it automatic. What keeps the cravings alive is when they come up, people still think about their butts in a positive way, and this makes the craving even stronger and perpetuates it.
If you have any questions, you can reach me through my web site.
Regards
Barry Moore, MNLP, C.H.
Toronto Stop Smoking Hypnotherapist
Thank you for that information, Barry. I agree that cigarette addiction is different than addiction to other drugs. It is, however, an addiction. Alcohol, too, leaves the system quickly and although some alcoholics remain drunk all or most of the time and experience physical withdrawal, others may go for a long time between binges.
Part of my quitting sucess arises from Champix--which removes the pleasure or sense of reward that one gets from nicotine. Thus, although I have cravings, I know cigarettes won't give me what I'm seeking. To maintain that barrier between me and nictotine, I only have to decide twice a day (when I take the pills), that I want to quit--not everytime I have a craving. So, yes, finding substitutes for the smoking habit, is imperative. However, quick, readily-available, little bursts of pleasure are extremely difficult to find!