It is usually advised to stop smoking abruptly, without reductions that drag on for too long. Even so, some preparation can be helpful if you have not stopped smoking as an immediate reaction, for example, to the diagnosis of an illness, or as a result of a crisis or an impulse.
If you feel you need a few days of preparation, it is important to set a date for the start of abstinence. As with timetables, routines and habits in general, deciding in advance that you are going to do something on a given day at a given time saves you the mental energy of having to persuade yourself to start this or that activity at some unspecified moment, because the decision has already been made beforehand.
Setting a date also helps to give the start of the process a sense of solemnity, to strengthen your commitment to the plan, and to leave less room for doubts or procrastination.
The preparatory phase should last no more than about 2 weeks. It is not advisable for it to last longer, because goals that keep being postponed or that are set for a future that is too far away can demotivate and frustrate you.
Likewise, if planning is accompanied by a reduction in cigarettes, it means that you will be trying to regulate consumption during that phase, that is, to smoke less than usual and restrict it to certain moments.
If there is an addiction, controlled or regulated smoking (“from time to time”, “only when you feel like it”, “when the occasion is worth it”, “only so many a day”) usually takes more effort than abstinence. When the substance is still present in life and inside the body, the effort to keep it under control will be much greater than if it is removed and detoxification is completed. In fact, trying to control a substance that is highly addictive is in itself a contradiction, i.e. a substance whose use by definition tends to lead the person to a loss of control.
In addition, there is a risk of returning to the previous pattern of use, given that if there is an intention to regulate consumption, there is often an internal debate about whether to smoke or not smoke, depending on whether the occasion is worth it, or not, or depending on how many cigarettes have already been smoked during the day. When abstinence begins, that internal debate gradually loses strength.
So, if you decide to reduce, this can last between 1 and 2 weeks and, depending on your level of consumption and the timeframe you have set yourself, you can reduce by 2 cigarettes a day, for example.
During those days we suggest creating a consumption log. Once you quit, QuitNow will keep track. The log is a calendar in which you note down every day the cigarettes you smoke. It is a way of bringing awareness to the progress you are making, and of having your first experiences of success, confirming graphically that you are gaining a certain control over tobacco. Likewise, in the log we suggest that you mark with asterisks all the cigarettes smoked depending on whether they are:
*dispensable**avoidable with difficulty***inevitable
You can even note the function each cigarette fulfils, e.g.: physical need, break, switching off, reward, socialising, etc.
For the cigarettes marked with * or ** we suggest that you write down an alternative that fulfils that function. E.g.: For switching off, music. As a reward, a treat for yourself. To socialise, call a non-smoker.
These are only examples; the functions and their alternatives will be more powerful if they are yours.
If you cannot keep the log with you, another option is to complete it at night, in a quiet moment.
In the first days and weeks of abstinence, it can increase motivation to keep filling in the log calendar, writing down each day a total of 0 cigarettes or using a green colour for that day. Success does not lie in never smoking again, but rather each day without tobacco is an experience of confirmation that can satisfy and reinforce you.
We add some strategies with which to prepare yourself mentally for change during that preparatory phase, and by means of which smoking is made less comfortable, something that feels out of place. In some way we seek to begin to isolate smoking from your day-to-day life and to problematise the act of smoking:
Strategies to make smoking “uncomfortable” during the preparatory phase
- Choose 2 circumstances or places where you used to smoke, but where you will no longer smoke (in the bedroom, in the car, in the living room, etc.).
- Change brand of tobacco.
- Smoke with the other hand.
- Smoke only the first half of the cigarette.
- Delay the first cigarette of the day by 10 minutes.
- Wait a few minutes before lighting a cigarette that you feel you are going to mark as
*or**. Think about whether you want to smoke it. - Start using some relaxation or distraction strategy (more information in the chapter “Quit Day”).
- Do an experiment: while smoking several cigarettes, focus, notice, and pay very close attention to all the aspects around smoking, such as: the smells, the sensations in the mouth and throat, the colour of your fingers, the flavours, or the physical appearance of the cigarette, the ash, the butt and the ashtray. If possible, write down your observations. Many smokers drink water after smoking, cough, clear their throat, or wash their hands. They also smoke outside their homes, to avoid the smell or to avoid harming their loved ones. Probably not many would light a cigarette in their homes and leave it smouldering like incense to perfume the room. It may be that when you observe the process, you come to the conclusion that, although it may also give you relief, smoking is not so pleasant and enjoyable, or that part of the act of smoking and its sensations and remnants may even be unpleasant. We do not expect anything; any conclusion is valid. If you conclude that, without caveats, you love the smoke, the taste, the look, the ashtray, the sensation in your mouth, on your tongue, in your throat, that is fine. We do not want to falsify the outcome of the experiment. You can repeat the experiment, if you find it useful to demystify the enjoyment associated with tobacco.
Family and social environment
Finally, regarding your family and social environment: If you tell your people about your intention to stop smoking long before the date, you will get social reinforcement before the achievement. That way, you will have received the gift ahead of time, and your goal may lose motivational charge.
One of the greatest rewards received when you stop smoking is that appreciative look from others, the congratulations, the warm reception the intention receives, the pride you reap in others. If that reward is received by announcing the plan, but before carrying it out, you will be receiving reinforcement without having started, and that can hold back the cause.
Therefore, we recommend that you do not announce your intention to all your contacts in advance, although it is also understandable that you may want to talk about it with those closest to you.
However, it is important to inform friends, colleagues, and family when the process starts, and it is advisable to ask smokers around you not to offer you tobacco. You are also likely to gain support. Normally, the more eyes see a situation, the more real it becomes, and the more firmly you commit to yourself.
If the process is shared, and there are other people around you who quit with you, it will be a process with more support—not because of others’ supervision or control, but because of shared strength, and because it is no longer only an individual path. Knowing that your intention is supported by a network will make it harder to drop out of the process, and will keep relapses at bay.
If the process is secret, or hidden, it will be harder to sustain, and it will be easier to return to use. The people around you, especially those who smoke, need your notices to get used to treating you as a non-smoker. It is also understandable that at the beginning of abstinence you decide to spend less time with people who smoke or in places where people smoke. You can keep in contact remotely and pick it up again later, or meet your acquaintances in smoke-free places.