It is usually recommended to stop smoking abruptly, without reductions that drag on for too long. Despite this, some preparation can be useful 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 a sudden 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 specific day at a specific time saves you the mental energy of having to persuade yourself to start this or that activity at some unspecified point, because the decision has already been made beforehand.
Setting a date also helps to give the start of the process a sense of occasion, to strengthen your commitment to the plan, and to leave less room for doubts or procrastination.
The date can be one that motivates you additionally, such as New Year, a birthday, the beginning of the month, or a Monday. Although some life changes are gradual and cannot be pinned down to a specific day, many people need special dates to celebrate and ritualise the transition from one stage of life to another. If you feel you can stop abruptly regardless of the date, great! If it works well for you to think of a date to gain more motivation, that is perfect too! Just bear in mind that the date cannot be the only motivation. You need concrete, personal reasons because, as you will know, motivation from, for example, New Year does not usually last many weeks.
The prior phase should last at most about 2 weeks. It is not advisable for it to last longer, because goals that are postponed or set for a future that is too far away can demotivate and frustrate you.
Likewise, if the prior planning is accompanied by a reduction in cigarettes, it means that you will be trying to regulate consumption during that phase, i.e., 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 I 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 your life and inside your body, the effort to keep it under control will be much greater than if it is removed and detoxification is completed. Smoking less is something that, in the vast majority of cases, works only for a short time, and then people usually return to their usual pattern. The most common trend is to smoke more, not less.
Even if you manage to smoke less, that constitutes ongoing low-intensity poisoning. As an example, there are natural waters contaminated with low amounts of arsenic. Someone who bathes in them one day will probably not suffer a consequence; someone who bathes a little, but continuously, for example, three times a week for just three minutes, will probably become ill.
In fact, trying to control a substance that is highly addictive is a contradiction in itself—i.e., one whose use, by definition, tends to lead the person to loss of control.
Addictions are not controlled. Addictions are a health problem that consists precisely of the loss of control by the person who suffers from it over the substance they consume.
In module 2 we will provide you with a list of myths associated with smoking. One of them is the idea that smoking gives pleasure. In reality, smoking removes the unpleasant sensations of being abstinent, of having gone some time without the drug dose. This myth is reinforced when a person tries to smoke less, because with fewer cigarettes available, they are valued more, which fosters the false idea that tobacco is something valuable. Also, by smoking less, the abstinence periods are longer and the unpleasant sensations caused by not smoking may become more present and reinforce even further the fable that smoking is pleasurable. The trap continues: the less you smoke, the more the risks associated with smoking are minimised and, consequently, the less you try to quit for good, so the more exposed the person remains to the risks of tobacco.
If your goal is to smoke less, we would ask: why do you want to keep smoking, even if it is less?
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 the cigarettes already smoked throughout the day. It is a struggle. When abstinence begins, that internal debate gradually loses strength:
When a smoker sets out to smoke less or only on special occasions, they often constantly experience a feeling of sacrifice and renunciation, because they have to count the cigarettes they smoke and cut down the cigarettes they would normally smoke. If a smoker quits completely, they may feel that renunciation at the beginning of the process, but then they will stop feeling it.
Thus, 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, you can reduce by 2 cigarettes a day, for example.
During those days we suggest you draw up a consumption log. Once you quit, QuitNow will keep track. The log is a calendar in which you write down every day the cigarettes you smoke. It is a way to bring awareness to the progress you are making, and to have your first experiences of success, confirming visually that you are gaining a certain amount of control over tobacco. Likewise, in the log we suggest that you mark with asterisks all cigarettes smoked according to whether they are:
*dispensable**avoidable with difficulty***unavoidable
You can even note the function each cigarette serves, e.g.: physical need, break, switching off, reward, socialising, etc.
For the cigarettes marked with * or ** we suggest you write down an alternative that fulfils that function. E.g.: For switching off, music. As a reward, a self-gift. For socialising, calling a non-smoker.
They are only examples; the functions and their alternatives will be more powerful if they are yours.
If you cannot carry the log with you, another option is to fill it in at night, in a calm moment.
In the first days and weeks of abstinence, motivation may increase if you keep filling in the log calendar, noting each day the number of 0 cigarettes or using a green colour for that day. Success does not lie in never smoking again, but rather in the fact that each day without tobacco is a confirming experience that can satisfy and strengthen you.
We add some strategies to help you prepare mentally for change during that prior phase, and through which smoking is made less comfortable, something that feels out of place. In a way, we aim to begin isolating smoking from your day-to-day life and to make the act of smoking a problem:
Strategies to “make smoking uncomfortable” during the prior phase
- Choose 2 circumstances or places where you used to smoke, but where you will not smoke again (in the bedroom, in the car, in the living room, at work, etc.).
- Change tobacco brand after each packet.
- Smoke with the other hand.
- Smoke only the first half of the cigarette.
- Keep the packet far away from you each time you finish smoking.
- Refuse cigarettes that others offer you.
- Leave the cigarette in the ashtray after each drag.
- Avoid taking very deep drags.
- Take five deep breaths before lighting each cigarette.
- Delay the first cigarette of the day by 10 minutes. Every two days, delay it by another 10 minutes.
- Wait a few minutes before lighting a cigarette until you feel that you are going to mark it as
*or**. Think about whether you want to smoke it. - Start with a relaxation or distraction strategy (more information in the chapter “Quit Day”).
- Do an experiment: while smoking several cigarettes, focus, notice and pay close attention to all aspects around smoking, such as, for example, the smells, the sensations in the mouth and throat, the colour of your fingers, the tastes, or the physical appearance of the cigarette, the ash, the butt and the ashtray. If appropriate, write down your observations. Many smokers drink water after smoking, cough, clear their throats, 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 as if it were incense to perfume the room. It may be that when you observe the process, you come to the conclusion that, although it may also bring you relief, smoking is not so pleasant and enjoyable, or that part of the act of smoking and its sensations and residues may even be unpleasant. We do not expect anything; any conclusion is valid. If you conclude that, without nuance, 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 result of the experiment. You can repeat the experiment if you find it useful for debunking the enjoyment associated with tobacco.
- Start to visualise yourself without smoking. Imagine it.
Family and social environment
Finally, regarding your family and social environment: If you tell your people about your intention to quit smoking long before the date, you will obtain social reinforcement before the achievement. That way, you will have received the gift ahead of time, and you may lose motivation for your goal.
One of the biggest rewards you receive when you quit smoking is other people’s appreciation—the congratulations, the positive reception the change gets, the pride others feel. If you receive that reward by announcing the plan, but before carrying it out, you will be receiving reinforcement without having started, and that can slow the cause.
Therefore, we recommend that you do not anticipate your goal to all your contacts, 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 members when the process starts, when you quit smoking, and it is advisable to ask smokers in your circle not to offer you tobacco. You are also likely to gain support. Usually, the more eyes see a situation, the more real it becomes, and the more firmness it gives to your commitment to yourself.
If the process is shared, and there are other people in your environment who quit with you, it will be a process with more support—not because of other people’s surveillance or control, but because of shared strength, and because it is no longer only an individual path. Knowing that the project is sustained by a network will make it harder to drop out of the process and will keep relapses at bay.
Just as starting smoking, quitting smoking can be socially contagious in your environment.
If the process is secret or hidden, it will be harder to sustain, and it will be easier to return to consumption. 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 touch via remote means and resume it later, or meet your acquaintances in smoke-free places.
All recent studies show us that the prevention and treatment of smoking are much more effective if the environment is involved—family, community, the social network and, above all, peers. And they are much more effective than campaigns designed to generate fear, or the idea that if smokers have information about the harmful effects of tobacco, they will quit smoking or never start. According to scientific evidence, it is more useful to work with motivation (what does the person smoke for?), the causes (why?), and their social and family environment, than to bombard them with information.
If you have ever felt that you have hidden from your family members or acquaintances to smoke, or that you have lied about your tobacco use: Hiding or denying problems is a natural reaction. Before recognising and sharing a difficulty, we tend to deny it or, in any case, to resolve it without outside help, by our own means. Accepting a problem—especially if it may be serious—has implications: it means that you will have to make changes in your life, which may be uncomfortable, that there is a difficulty you cannot solve without help, and you may feel incompetent or ashamed in front of your loved ones. That is why addictions are sometimes hidden or denied. That does not make you a liar. You were protecting yourself, and perhaps others, from what it means to accept a health problem like this.