It is often recommended to quit smoking cold turkey, without cutbacks that drag on too long. Despite that, some preparation can be helpful if you haven’t quit as an immediate reaction—for example, to the diagnosis of an illness, or as the result of a crisis or a sudden impulse.
If you feel you need a few days to prepare, it is important to set a date for the start of abstinence. As with schedules, routines, and habits in general, deciding in advance that you are going to do something on a certain day at a certain time saves you the mental energy of having to convince yourself to start this or that activity at some unfixed moment, since the decision has already been made beforehand.
Setting a date also helps give the start of the process a sense of solemnity, strengthen your commitment to the plan, and leave less room for doubts or procrastination.
The date can be one that additionally motivates you, such as New Year’s, a birthday, the beginning of the month, or a Monday. Although some life changes are gradual and can’t be pinpointed to a specific day, many people need special dates to celebrate and ritualize the transition from one life stage to another. If you feel you can quit cold turkey and regardless of the date, great! If it helps you to think of a date to gain more motivation, that’s perfect too! Just keep in mind that the date cannot be the only motivation. You need concrete, personal reasons because, as you know, the motivation of, for example, New Year’s, doesn’t usually last many weeks.
The prior phase should last no more than about 2 weeks. It is not advisable for it to last longer, because goals that keep getting postponed or that are 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 you will be trying to regulate use during that phase—that is, smoke less than usual and restrict it to certain moments.
If there is an addiction, controlled or regulated smoking (“once in a while,” “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 life and inside the body, the effort to keep it under control will be much greater than if it is eliminated and detoxification is completed. Smoking less is something that, in the vast majority of cases, works only for a short time; then people usually return to their usual pattern. The most common tendency is to smoke more, not less.
Even if you manage to smoke less, that constitutes a continuous, 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 infrequently but continuously, for example, three times a week for just three minutes, would probably become ill.
In fact, trying to control a substance that is highly addictive is a contradiction in itself—that is, a substance whose use by definition tends to lead the person to a loss of control.
Addictions are not controlled. Addictions are a health problem that consists precisely of the loss of control of the person who suffers from it over the substance they use.
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 the person tries to smoke less because, with fewer cigarettes available, they are valued more, which fosters the false idea that tobacco is something valuable. In addition, by smoking less, the periods of abstinence are longer and the unpleasant sensations caused by not smoking may become more present and further reinforce the fable that smoking is enjoyable. The trap continues: the less you smoke, the more the risks associated with smoking are minimized and, consequently, the less you try to quit definitively—so the person ends up more exposed 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’s less?
If there is an intention to regulate use, there is often an internal debate between smoking or not smoking, depending on whether the occasion “deserves it” or not, or depending on how many cigarettes have already been 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 usually live constantly with a feeling of sacrifice and renunciation, because they have to count the cigarettes they smoke and cut back on the cigarettes they would normally smoke. If a smoker quits entirely, they may feel the renunciation at the beginning of the process, but then they will stop feeling it.
So, if you decide to cut back, this can last between 1 and 2 weeks, and depending on your level of use and the time frame you have set, 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 where 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 graphically that you are gaining a certain control over tobacco. Also, in the log we suggest that you mark with asterisks all cigarettes smoked according to whether they are:
*dispensable**avoidable with difficulty***inevitable
You can even note the function each cigarette serves, e.g.: physical need, break, disconnecting, reward, socializing, etc.
For cigarettes marked with * or **, we suggest that you write down an alternative that fulfills that function. E.g.: For disconnecting, music. As a reward, a self-gift. To socialize, call a non-smoker.
These are only examples; the functions and their alternatives will be more powerful if they are yours.
If you can’t keep the log with you, another option is to fill it out at night, in a calm moment.
In the first days and weeks of abstinence, motivation may increase if you continue filling in the tracking calendar, writing down each day the number of 0 cigarettes or using a green color for that day. Success does not lie in never smoking again, but rather each day without tobacco is a confirming experience that can satisfy and reinforce you.
We add some strategies to mentally prepare for change during that prior phase, through which smoking becomes less comfortable, something that feels out of place. In a way, we aim to start isolating smoking from your day-to-day life and to problematize the act of smoking:
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.).
- Switch cigarette brands after each pack.
- Smoke with the other hand.
- Smoke only the first half of the cigarette.
- Keep the pack far from you every time you finish smoking.
- Refuse cigarettes others offer you.
- Leave the cigarette in the ashtray after each puff.
- Avoid taking very deep puffs.
- Take five deep breaths before lighting each cigarette.
- Delay the first cigarette of the day by 10 minutes. Every two days, delay it 10 minutes more.
- Wait a few minutes before lighting a cigarette until you feel it is one you would mark as
*or**. Think about whether you want to smoke it. - Start with some 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 color of your fingers, the flavors, 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 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 house and let it smolder 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 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 don’t expect anything; any conclusion is valid. If you conclude that, without qualifications, you love the smoke, the taste, the look, the ashtray, the sensation in your mouth, on your tongue, in your throat, that’s fine. We don’t want to distort the outcome of the experiment. You can repeat the experiment if it is useful to you to demystify the enjoyment associated with tobacco.
- Begin to visualize yourself not smoking. Imagine it.
Family and social environment
Finally, regarding the family and social environment: If you tell your people about your intention to quit 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 you may lose motivation for your purpose.
One of the greatest rewards received when quitting smoking is others’ appreciation, congratulations, the warm reception the change receives, the pride it inspires in others. If you receive that reward by announcing the plan 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 might want to talk about it with those closest to you.
However, it is important to inform friends, coworkers, and family when the process begins—when you quit smoking—and it is advisable to ask the smokers in your circle not to offer you tobacco. You will likely also gather support. Usually, the more eyes that 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 around you who quit with you, it will be a process with more support—not because of others’ 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 leave the process and will keep relapses farther away.
Just as starting to smoke, 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 use. The people around you, especially those who smoke, need your notifications 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 through online means and resume later, or meet your acquaintances in smoke-free places.
All recent studies show us that prevention and treatment of smoking are much more effective if the environment is involved—the family, the 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 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 hid from family members or acquaintances to smoke, or that you lied about your tobacco use: Hiding or denying problems is a natural reaction. Before recognizing and sharing a difficulty, we tend to deny it or, in any case, to solve it without outside help, by our own means. Accepting a problem—especially if it could be serious—has implications: it means you will have to make changes in your life that may be uncomfortable, that there is a difficulty you cannot solve without help, and perhaps 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.