Please feel free to
continue to smoke until you finish reading this site.
Welcome to “Stop Smoking - A New Approach”.
You are now in front of a site that without a shadow of a doubt will change your
life! Indeed, if you use this site exactly as instructed, you cannot fail to
achieve your goal of becoming a non
smoker! How can I make such a powerful claim? Do yourself a favour and
find out by reading this site from top to bottom!
Now without further ado, let’s get straight down to business.
There is only one reason you are still a smoker and it is this:
You are constantly in the grip of a psychological process called denial.
Until you gain an awareness of this denial
process you will find it
difficult, if not impossible, to stop smoking. This site will teach you how to
recognize and deal with your denial and will equip you with all the knowledge
and skills that you will need to become a non smoker. On completion of the site
and its tasks, you will feel much more in control and will be in a position of
such power that you will actively welcome the stop smoking challenge.
1 YOU AS A SMOKER
Permanently stale breath, morning phlegm cough, nicotine stained teeth, shorter
life expectancy, stained fingers, constant financial drain, various health
problems, poor role model for your kids, dirty ashtrays, bland tasting food,
smelly clothes and more and more frequently in today’s health conscious climate,
a lack of social acceptance.
2 YOU AS A NON SMOKER
Fresher breath, cleaner lungs, whiter teeth, likely to live longer, no stains on
your fingers, more money, better all round health, good role model for your
kids, tastier food, fresher home, fresher clothes and a greater level of social
acceptability.
These two very different images serve to highlight the fact that if you are
prepared to tolerate all these negative aspects of smoking, i.e., the health
risks, the cost, the stale odors etc., then you really must be getting something
very powerful indeed in return. Furthermore, if you consider that you
continually pay for your need to smoke, not just with money, but also with part
of your life expectancy, and with some of your potential for good health, then
it is easy to see that you are not just smoking for pleasure, or because you
like the taste, or because it gives you something to do with your hands. The
truth of the matter is this - you are prepared to pay such a huge price to
continue smoking because you are addicted to the chemical nicotine.
Even if you don’t think that you are addicted to nicotine, please bear with me
until you get to the section on addiction. You might find that it is your denial
that doesn’t allow you to see that you are addicted. Denial is an integral part
of the addiction condition and without understanding how your own denial process
works, you will find it very difficult to overcome your desire to smoke. This
site is centrally focused around this process, and will teach you everything you
need to know about denial, in order that you can be ready to deal with it when
it attacks.
Who exactly is this
site for?
This site is designed for everyone who seriously wants to stop smoking.
It doesn’t matter if you are a five a day teenager, or a one hundred a day
pensioner, male or female, or if this is your first or fiftieth attempt at
stopping - if you really want to stop smoking then this is the site for you.
Here’s why:
The addiction perspective:
Because this site tackles smoking from an addiction perspective, it recognizes
that you will repeatedly face both psychological and physical withdrawal
difficulties.
You will learn as you progress through each section how to deal effectively with
such difficulties and will find that stopping smoking will not be as difficult
as you might previously have thought or experienced.
The information that follows will allow you to stop smoking with only a small
and completely manageable level of discomfort, and will focus in the main on the
absolute core of your addiction - your denial mechanism.
Later on you will be looking at this denial process in some depth, but in the
mean time here is some basic information on how your denial works:
There is a little piece of your unconscious mind (the bit of your mind that
thinks without you being aware of it) that will constantly try to trick you into
smoking. It will do this by either,
(A) Making
you feel that nicotine withdrawal is unbearable and that stopping smoking is not
worth the discomfort and effort. or by,
(B) Creating
what seems to your conscious mind (the bit that you think with and are aware of)
like really good reasons for starting smoking again.
It achieves this by passing these invented ‘reasons’ to your conscious mind in
the form of a thought or an idea. For example, having made the decision to stop
smoking, you might find yourself a few hours later thinking “Actually, now that
I come to think of it, this isn’t really a good time to stop - I think I’ll stop
next week instead when I’m not under so much pressure”.
With the help of this site you will soon learn that these ‘reasons’ created by
your unconscious mind are always nonsense.
On closer examination they will be exposed as a mechanism that allows you to
resume smoking, by giving you a guilt reducing excuse that you can use to
justify your change of heart. More importantly, these reasons give you the
excuse you need to smoke, and smoking will, of course, relieve your unpleasant
feelings of withdrawal. This is exactly what denial is all about - it is your
unconscious mind finding any excuse at all, no matter how ridiculous, that will
allow you to justify smoking, and thereby relieve your feelings of discomfort.
Your denial will be able to create excuse after excuse, and will convince you
that these excuses are all completely plausible. Reasons, perhaps, like:
“If it hadn’t been for that boss of mine embarrassing me in front of my work
mates....”, or, “If only I hadn’t been caught speeding....”, or, “if my
boyfriend hadn’t split up with me....”, or, “It’s my birthday next month,
perhaps I’ll wait until then to stop....”, or any one of a thousand other
rationalizations or justifications, every single one of which, if believed, will
ensure your failure.
The real reason you continue to smoke (not the one created by your unconscious)
is simply this:
YOU DO NOT LIKE THE
FEELINGS OF WITHDRAWAL
This site can, and will,
create in you an awareness which will allow you to override this destructive
unconscious ‘voice’ and will give you the tools you need to look honestly at the
pain of withdrawal. It will help you to see that most of your discomfort is in
fact an illusion, created deliberately by your unconscious. Once you have
learned how to tackle the discomfort of withdrawal and discovered how to
recognize and defeat that ever present destructive unconscious ‘voice’, you will
then move on to tackling associated difficulties such as unwanted weight gain.
You will then learn how to set up effective support structures to help ensure
your long term success.
In the final sections, you will find an easy to follow ‘battle plan’,
summarizing all of the support strategies discussed in the site.
In some sections of the site there will be exercises to help you to understand
the addiction process and how you are affected by it, and also how to deal
simply and effectively with each potential relapse situation as it arises.
What this site isn’t:
This site is not going to try to scare you into stopping smoking by telling you
that if you don’t stop you will die younger, or that you are much more likely to
get cancer or some other smoking related disease. Lets face it - you already
know all that scary health stuff and you are still a smoker! Scare tactics
simply don’t work!
Another thing this site won’t be asking you to do is to reduce your smoking over
a period of time with a view to eventually stopping altogether. This tactic is
common, but usually ineffective.
Reducing nicotine intake slowly still keeps your body supplied with at least
some nicotine, right up to the point where you stop smoking altogether and your
withdrawal symptoms begin. This process is ineffective when you consider that at
the end of your cutting down period you are still going to be plunged headlong
into the difficulty of dealing with withdrawal. Why bother? You can start
dealing with being a non smoker as soon as you finish this site, without having
to torture yourself for weeks beforehand! Your newly acquired skills and
knowledge really will give you the edge that you need to stop smoking without
too much difficulty and will allow you to start your new life as a non smoker
immediately. Although the cutting down method may work for a few people,
experience has shown that the most effective method of stopping smoking is to
simply stop, then deal with any issues that may arise.
The method of stopping smoking discussed in this site is undoubtedly effective.
It is also realistic. It doesn’t promise you a totally pain free ride. It does
though, teach you how to effectively manage the discomfort of withdrawal. You
have, I’m sure, heard talk of the ‘easy’ way to stop smoking - wishful thinking
I’m afraid! If stopping smoking was easy then surely just about everyone who
smokes would have already stopped! The method discussed in this site works,
because it recognizes the fact that you are addicted to nicotine and therefore
your solution must lie in Dealing with the physical and psychological problems
that nicotine addiction presents.
This addiction / denial centered approach really does work and, it is absolutely
guaranteed to work for you, providing that you take all the lessons to heart and
follow all instructions to the letter. If you are prepared to do this then you
will gain something that you really want - you will become a non smoker!
Of course, like just about everything in life that is worth having, it does not
come for free - you are going to have to pay a price!
That price is as follows:
You must agree to participate fully in all the
exercises.
You must agree to pay the price of feeling at least some discomfort, some of the
time.
You must agree to use the knowledge and skills in this site to overcome any
withdrawal discomfort that you might feel.
You must agree to follow
all instructions. Even if you can’t always see the point!
Now, if you can agree to all of these simple terms then, as I mentioned earlier,
I am prepared to offer you this guarantee:
I absolutely guarantee
that you will become a non smoker.
If you don’t become a non-smoker it will simply be because you did not follow
the instructions in this site to the letter. It is of the utmost importance that
you understand this “following instructions
to the letter” concept, otherwise you will be giving your denial mechanism
a foothold. If you do give it a foothold, you can be damned sure that sooner or
later it will have you smoking again! So once again – if you want to stop
smoking be sure to follow the instructions.
The following section will help you to understand nicotine addiction and will go
some way towards explaining why you continue to smoke, even though deep down you
don’t really want to!