ballochroy.com

There is a wealth of great information on the web related to “stop smoking” methods. For all those serious about quitting, this is great news. The hard part, how ever, is determining which program is right for you.

Quite honestly - there is no ONE program that works for everyone. Hypnosis is excellent for some. Medications such as Wellbuterin or Zyban work well for others. Nicotine patches, gums, inhalers can also be effective. Perhaps a combination of these methods can also work.

One theme that is universal for quitting smoking is that people need to change the way they think. In other words, no matter what program or method you use to quit smoking, you’ll have to work at changing your thoughts & behaviors as well to make it stick for the long term.

CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) is one method used to do this. It essentially works at replacing one’s existing pattern of thinking & reacting & replacing it with a more favorable schema of thoughts & behavior. I will draw from my past personal experience as a smoker to use as an example. After a meal, I could not wait to have a cigarette. In my mind, it was really the only way to end a meal. Lighting up that cigarette right after a meal felt absolutely heavenly at the time. When I quit smoking - I had to alter the way I thought about this. I had to work at finding a replacement set of thoughts/behaviors to replace my usual post meal ritual. For me, this was exercise & treating myself to some really good coffee. I would also remind myself how good I feel not smoking & how much I enjoyed my new lifestyle.

Of course, for you or others it may be something completely different. My point is that we need to work at changing our core thoughts/behaviors before real change can take place.

I will not slam any of the ways people select to quit smoking. But I do suggest that, whatever method you choose, you also work at changing your thoughts & behaviors about smoking so you will have a greater likelihood of success! There is a wealth of information out there to explore. It is great that you are now researching the web to find the perfect method for you to quit your smoking habit!

One last thing - please do not actually be discouraged about “relapsing.” Look at this as a “bump in the road.” Learn from it, & simply keep trying. With each attempt at quitting, you will begin to feel more in control & empowered!

For more information on this topic, go straight to http://zontom.bezoogle.com/pg/ & http://waystostopsmoking.blogspot.com

Tom Zondman has a M.A. in Clinical Counseling & is an ex-smoker.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.