Alright, Quit Day has arrived. We recommend more strategies and, at the same time, we’re sending you a hug and lots of encouragement:
- Remove from your surroundings everything that reminds you of tobacco: ashtrays, lighters, full or empty packs, photos where you’re smoking, matches, rolling machines, promotional products… from home, the car, or any other place. We also suggest washing your clothes, perhaps even using a new detergent with a different scent that helps you remember the change you’ve just started. You can even take the opportunity to go to the dentist and get a cleaning or oral checkup that gives you that feeling of cleanliness and serves as an anchor, a bodily reminder. A deep clean can act as a tobacco repellent for a few days, similar to how when you brush your teeth at night you avoid eating after that.
- Set goals day by day. For example: The goal is not to smoke today; we’ll see about tomorrow. The farther out in time you set the goal (never smoke again), the farther away the feeling of satisfaction and reward that comes with achieving the goal will be, and therefore motivation will be lower. In addition, short-term goals are much more realistic and easier to meet. It’s important to accumulate successes. That is, if you manage not to smoke today, you’ll have a slight feeling of success, since you’ve fulfilled the intention you set in the morning. We encourage you to accumulate QuitNow milestones that unlock as the days without smoking go by, since they will feed the experience of achievement which, in turn, will feed motivation, consolidate your commitment to yourself to stay firm and abstinent, and strengthen your self-esteem. If you set out to never smoke again in your life and there is a relapse after 2 months, the feeling will be one of failure. On the other hand, if you’ve been able to experience several feelings of success and different daily achievements, that process can be assessed positively, and therefore it will be easier to resume. If the process and the relapse are defined merely as a failure, it will take more mental effort to resume it.
- Create the résumé of positive feedback. In the previous point we talked about the importance of feelings of achievement. In emotional terms, situations experienced as achievements usually generate feelings of joy, and the need associated with joy is being able to share it with other people. Meet this need, and share your achievements and milestones both in the QuitNow community and outside it. Pay attention, and even write down in a notebook in résumé format (date and person), all the positive statements about you that come from the people in your environment or networks. It’s important to gather personal validation these first few days, and there is usually a tendency to remember negative feedback more than positive. We suggest that you write down, throughout the day, everything positive people say about you, whether it’s related to tobacco abstinence or has to do with any other aspect.
- Establish new habits from the first day, a small routine that anchors abstinence to your life and your day-to-day and reminds you of the validity of your commitment to yourself: a brief shower outside your usual time slot, a different drink always at the same time, a different route to work, or carrying a meaningful object with you that works as an anchor (it’s an association between an object and the purpose).
- If you’ve built associations between smoking and other activities, times of day, drinks, or meals, we recommend introducing different activities at those times. For example, after meals, brush your teeth immediately and, if possible, go out for a walk. Or switch coffee or beer for another drink. Or, if you used to smoke at the bus stop, take the subway, etc.
- Write a goodbye letter to tobacco, in which you address cigarettes directly, as if they were a person you’re breaking up with. Describe the moments you’ve lived, the good and the bad, and the reasons why you’re quitting. Thank them for their company, if you think it’s necessary. Let them know your reproaches, if you feel it’s appropriate. Accept the ambivalence; this is a letter without censorship and without correction. You can talk about the relationship you’ve established with tobacco, since it may have become a central element of your life, present in important moments. It may also be good to refer to your own experiences related to tobacco, make explicit the need for change and for breaking with the cigarette, and express grief and expectations for the future. You may feel anger, sadness, ambivalence, joy, or fear, for example, fear of going through an ordeal or of not being able (how am I going to be able to live without tobacco? What if I fail?, what can happen if I keep smoking?). It’s natural to feel different emotions, and it would also be natural if you don’t feel anything in particular. Finally, the goal is to say goodbye to tobacco. You can reread this letter in difficult moments. Or burn it. Reading the letter in front of important people, for example, family, friends, or group therapy peers, often strengthens commitment.
- Find distractions for your mind: watch a movie, go for a walk, listen to music, draw, go to places where smoking is prohibited, etc.
- Find distractions for your body: breathing, sports/exercise, a cold shower, etc. For your mouth: breadsticks, cinnamon sticks, carrot sticks, gum, toothpicks, water, etc. For your fingers: pencils, paper clips, stress balls, etc.
- Do activities that give you pleasure: try to live as hedonistically as possible. Your own body can be a source of pleasure: you can play with temperatures, textures, massages, or make more room for sexuality, and introduce tasty foods, etc. We recommend avoiding alcohol and caffeine. This suggestion has to do with the fact that when you quit smoking you may have the sensation that you lose something in the realm of pleasure, although later we will explain that smoking is not pleasurable, but rather it relieves withdrawal syndrome.
Many people have achieved it. You can too. Treat yourself to something.