e-Article - Health Risk Denial-Enabling Nicotine Notions and the Attitudes Needed to Increase Motivation to Stop Smoking
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Truth for Healthy Living - Building the confidence needed to prevent and stop smoking, relieve unhealthy stress and overcome overweight |
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Smokers' No-Fault But False Nicotine Addiction Notions Plus the Accurate Attitudes that Increase Motivation to Stop Smoking for Good Along with and more than physical dependence on nicotine what basically causes people to smoke (dip, chew or patch) are a few not-their-fault untrue ideas they have and don't realize they do when those "nicotine notions" are thought and hurt them by blocking strong enough and persistent motivation, willpower. The portion of the human brain that helps make better decisions and avoids needless risks isn't sufficiently formed until we're in our mid 20's. It is another part of the brain and the thinking (nicotine notions or attitudes) associated with it that start and keep people puffing on cigarettes (also dipping, chewing, patching) and make them relapse. That part is more "primitive" (far less directed by experience) and sometimes causes adults to act more like teenagers. That is the essential reason practically no one begins (takes the very first puff, dip, chew or patch) after the age of 25. You are at the correct Web site when
This author, a clinical social worker, respectfully submits that based on his specialized clinical work with more than 17,000 adult smokers it is NOT
So what does make someone start, continue, and return to smoking besides physical dependence? It is the no-fault (deserving zero blame or criticism) thinking of people who smoke. What makes them start smoking, continue smoking and then relapse back to smoking after stopping are their ideas, attitudes, thoughts or notions that are entirely unknown when they automatically ring-out. They are nicotine notions or what I sometimes call "butt-attitudes" or "butt-atts." If you smoke, please, please get off your butt-atts! What is the solution? We need to uncover and effectively counter those hidden attitudes. Until we adequately (don't worry, it doesn't need to be complete) get rid of those damnable, hurtful "butt-atts," there is little hope for a solution that's safe.
It is reasonable to wonder, "If these 'nicotine notions' cause smoking, why don't more people smoke? Probably most folks have those attitudes; yet about 75-percent of adult Americans aren't smoking." There are four good answers:
What are the common but rarely recognized thoughts, attitudes or beliefs that hurtfully influence (decrease motivation to not start, to stop, and to remain abstinent without unhealthy substitutions) present and future smokers? Nicotine Notion or Butt-attitude # 1: "Smoking only hurts me." If you have lived with a smoker, probably you've heard her or him say or imply something like, "My smoking only hurts me." Perhaps the person saying it was you. I heard it from many of the thousands of smokers I treated over 40 years. Also while growing up I heard that "smoking only hurts me" attitude more than once. I recall riding in the car with my dad when I was about 10 years old. He was, I now suspect, attempting to defend his smoking. He identified a drunk driver and said that it wasn't like he was drinking alcohol and driving. Doing that would injure other people. My dad told me, "Son, my smoking only hurts me and not anyone else." I still remember thinking something like, "Daddy, but what about you? Don't you think you're important? You are very important to me!" The 'smoking only hurts me' notion is an untruth people rarely know they tell themselves. It is like the other smoking and relapse-causing thoughts: Present, past and future smokers think them and would swear they don't. There is zero truth to this 'smoking only hurts me' nicotine notion! You see, my dad needed to take an early retirement because of his poor health. He died not long after that ... I'm convinced because of his smoking. His smoking did hurt him, but others suffered too. I suffered and still do. His grandsons who barely got to know him were hurt not having him involved in their lives.
The answer and replacement for the unknown when thought and blocking the required motivation "only hurts me" butt-attitude: Even if you don't think you have this and other butt-notions, it is so important to regularly remind yourself that "only hurting" yourself doesn't make sense as a reason/excuse to suck smoke. You deserve better than being hurt. Tell yourself,
Butt-attitude # 2: "Smoking in moderation or just some like before is possible." Growing up, some people and for sure big tobacco told us to "Do ALL things in moderation." "Eat, drink, maybe even smoke ... but in moderation." Later, smokers tell themselves, usually without realizing it, something like, "I should be able to smoke just some (in moderation) but not too much." If you research the word "moderate" you will find it's another way people say "middle amounts" or something closer to average. In other words, to most of us moderation equals middle or closer to average. When folks told us to do whatever "in moderation," we more likely took that to mean we should do it in middle (whatever the heck that might be) or average amounts. Can you think of many times in your life when you were encouraged to do something and do it only so-so ... do it close to the middle? Isn't it true that with most of what you do you at least attempt to do better than so-so ... to do your best? Consider this: Maybe the only people who can successfully suck smoke "in moderation" are those who are comfortable with so-so or average performance. Besides, if you are talking to a young child you care about and he or she says, "Can I please play in the highway, just some? I like to play in the road." Do you tell her or him to go ahead? Of course you don't. Any time spent "goofing off" in the middle of a busy highway is too much! The "smoking street" is very busy and dangerous. Nicotine is the exceedingly toxic insecticide also used to kill animals. Even if there aren't other reasons and there are that's a legitimate one to avoid the patches, gum, lozenges, cigarettes, and other ways to deliver nicotine. Any poison, no matter the source, is too much. The belief needed to replace this unknown when thought and hurtful "in moderation" attitude is contained in the following truthful suggestions:
Nicotine Notion # 3: "What's liked matters." It was important that someone liked (enjoyed, believed it helped, etc.) smoking. No way that is true! The part of the human personality that controls liking to smoke was formed early in our lives. Simply call it the "teenager." Understand this, please. None of us can afford to have a young part of us controlling
I have heard numerous people say in so many words, "But doctor, I like to smoke. Sometimes I love to do it. And I always miss it when I'm not smoking." I hope I did it in a kindly way, but I usually asked, "Can we change the subject now and talk about something that actually matters? It didn't matter if you liked to smoke, loved it or missed it. Smoking hates your guts and has no way of doing otherwise. Nothing that liked you would make you dirty and smell awful, make you look old before your time, and place at great risk your health and the security of people or animals you care for." The following truthful suggestions contain the belief necessary to replace the "what's liked matters" false notion that kills:
Butt-attitude # 4: "Stress or some uncomfortable emotion makes me smoke." Although many folks honestly think so and the drug industry encourages believing it, stress does NOT make people smoke (dip, chew) or do more of it. If stress did, they wouldn't smoke almost as much when they are the opposite of worried, bothered or upset ... for example, out socializing with friends. What really happened is that they unintentionally trained (conditioned) themselves to puff away more when psychological stress occurs. Uncomfortable emotions are only fuels for behaviors such as sucking on cigarettes – never causes. There is more:
The hypnosis-like effect from subconscious suggesting (this helps), distraction and deep slow breathing give the calming effect ... not the smoke. The belief needed to answer and replace the hidden when it hurts "stress makes me ..." false nicotine notion is contained in the following truthful suggestions:
Butt-attitude # 5: "But I'll get fat after I stop." Good news: The free stop-smoking (Simple-7) program gives a straightforward way to avoid adding excess body fat. It is something you've never seen or heard before ... at least not originating from another source. When unable to get their drug, heroin addicts can substitute with candy. Nicotine users do something similar. They stop smoking, feel deprived, have cravings and overeat, gain weight, understandably get discouraged, mistakenly blame their metabolisms and return to smoking. They keep the unhealthy fat or much of it. Later, when they cut back or try to quit again, they put on additional unwanted pounds. Unsuccessful efforts to stop or reduce smoking, or successfully staying quit, promotes becoming overweight or heavier than before. It is the accumulation of excess pounds that does the damage. Even if the average amount of weight gained after stopping is less than 8 pounds, smokers stop several times before success. One in five ex-smokers has occasional nicotine craving for several years. People don't expect to have prolonged cravings. Consequently, they confuse craving with hunger for food. Also in ‘stressful' situations where they smoked nicotine for its illusion of a calming effect, people compensate by eating "comfort" foods or drinking alcohol. Feeling deprived, they "reward" themselves by eating or drinking. The belief needed to answer and replace the unknown when thought and blocking willpower "but I'll get fat after I stop" nicotine notion is contained in the following truthful suggestions:
Nicotine Notion # 6: "Stopping smoking makes me jittery, irritable, maybe sad or keeps me awake." Not that many recently-free ex-smokers experience any of those conditions. That strongly suggests something other than a "natural" reaction to getting rid of nicotine is happening. What could that be? Perhaps you've noticed that smokers tend to combine smoking with consuming caffeinated drinks – usually coffee or soda. Nicotine may take the edge off caffeine or people who are recently rid of nicotine temporarily compensate (without realizing it) for the absence of nicotine stimulation. It is the increased potency or consumption of caffeine, once free of nicotine, that makes some people temporarily jittery, irritable or sad. (Why sometimes sad? With folks who weren't already sad or depressed – their irritability comes out as brief sadness.) Reducing by at least one-half the amount of caffeine used will give plenty of relief. Reducing the daily amount of caffeine consumed doesn't need to last more than the first couple of weeks. The belief needed to answer and replace the hidden when harmful "stopping smoking makes me jittery ..." butt-attitude can be said this way:
Nicotine Notion # 7: "Smoking is a habit or bad habit I must quit." This untruth tells us – even when we doubt it does – that smoking isn't all that dangerous ... not any more than many things that are done daily or often. Using the word "habit" is a cover-up and key element of health risk denial. Saying or thinking the word makes light of what's being thought or talked about. Using that word – even when smoking is said to be a "bad habit" – profoundly interferes with realizing the smoking (dipping, chewing or patching) that's health and life-risking is done because of addiction to the drug, nicotine. Most everyone understands that addiction is dangerous.
Many of the thousands of smokers I saw said "habit" once to several times within the first few minutes of talking to them. And they said it without realizing they did. Those soon-to-be ex-smokers would have sworn they hadn't used the word when talking to me. The reason they said "habit" without realizing it was because – this is important – it pointed to an unknown nicotine notion: "smoking is a habit or bad habit I must quit." Smoking isn't a habit, bad or otherwise! What people understandably confuse with and call "habit" is conditioning like what Ivan Pavlov did when he rang a bell each time he fed his dogs. Actual habits and unintentional self-training (conditioning) that does harm are different. Folks typically create true habits on purpose and to help ... as when saying, "I'll make it a habit." Or, "It takes 21 days of doing something regularly and purposefully to make it a habit." Soon-to-be and truly successful ex-smokers counter, undo, cancel-out that killer "smoking is a habit or bad habit I must quit" butt-attitude by purposefully and regularly changing the words they think and say aloud. Rather than calling smoking a habit or bad habit, they call it what it is: an addiction. They think about it in ways that clearly say smoking is dangerous and unpleasant. Making smoking (dipping, chewing, or patching) more clearly unpleasant is the reason I urge thinking of and talking about cigarettes as being "butt-smelly suckers" or as "smelly butts." Also think of and describe smoking as "sucking on stinky butts." Also, "quitting" something (even smoking) subtly suggests (denies) that whatever it is being "quit" not only isn't dangerous it is or might be valuable. Is work valuable? What about school? Those are commonly "quit" and they are good for us. I urge folks who are serious about saving lives and futures by ridding themselves of nicotine to "avoid quitting smoking. Get FREE of it instead." I strongly encourage understanding, "People quit what's supposed to be good for them but adults get and remain FREE of what hurts them!" The belief needed to answer and replace the unknown when thought and blocking willpower "smoking is a habit or bad habitI must quit" false notion is contained in the following truthful suggestions:
Nicotine Notion or Butt-attitude # 8: "I'll show you by not quitting." Continuing to smoke to defy or resist the considerable and commonly disrespectful pressure to stop. What has been termed the "big push" to get Americans to stop smoking began 40 years ago. Politically powerful health and public policy institutions and organizations failed to approach chronic smoking as being symptomatic of drug addiction. Smokers were pressured and hardly ever helped to safely become abstinent and achieve recovery from nicotine. Smokers perceived the pressure to make them quit as disrespectful and fostered anger and resentment. Pushing also fostered the nicotine addiction symptom substitution * that made people fat or abuse alcohol rather than enabling improved health.
The expected reaction of anyone who is pushed is to resist. Smokers say, through their continuing to suck on stinky butts, "I'll show you by not quitting." So little real progress has been made toward improving lifestyle health through taxation and other means to pressure smokers it's reasonable to question if there is genuine intent to help. Smokers are mistaken when they think some authoritative group or some individual who acts like an expert pressures them to stop "for their own good." Pushing is done to try and control people or for profit. The belief needed to answer and replace the unknown when thought and blocking willpower "I'll show you by not quitting" nicotine notion is contained in the following truthful suggestions:
Butt-attitude # 9: "What I don't know or think is true can't hurt me." “I can quit (stop, give up) smoking (dipping or chewing) tobacco and permanently any time I want. I just don’t want to.” Something like that is more likely said by a younger chronic or binge smoker. It is an unknown-to-be-untrue statement. The underlying message is that he or she already knows enough to get rid of smoking and successfully when he truly doesn’t. Put another way, if someone doesn't think that nicotine notions are real, then they aren't real or don't matter. If you doubt that one or more of the nicotine notions reviewed are there in your thoughts, I can easily understand. But they are there in a subconscious stream of your thinking. Consequently, they regularly and often sound off without you realizing it. Doing that they influence you far more than you know. More than anything else you can imagine, that thinking (nicotine notions or butt-attitudes) creates and maintains your willingness to smoke or return to doing it ... blocks the desire or motivation you require to permanently and safely end using nicotine without fattening or mind-altering replacements. I am convinced that you will either cancel-out those notions - enough, not entirely - or there will be no healthy solution that lasts. Answer to "what I don't know or think is true can't hurt me" nicotine notion:
If you use nicotine and when it's agreeable with your physician, testing out what I'm telling is simple enough. What you do is daily review and do what's recommended below for 3 or 4 days. When you find doing that useful, switch to using the more detailed version named "Simple-7." It includes some audio. |
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Clove with saying 'this helps' and special breathing relieves nicotine craving and stress: |
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healthfully deals with smoking and excess eating. |
I have recommended holding, wetting, and sucking on the stem of the spice, clove, to approximately 17,000 cigarette smokers, nicotine patch users, and tobacco chewers. Doing it can quickly help ease craving nicotine and the false appetite created.
Whole clove is a common spice sold in grocery stores. Humans have for hundreds of years sucked on them as a breath freshener. Some noticed doing that made it easier to avoid smoking and overeating. Clove has in it a safe (still check with a physician) substance that with some practice sufficiently eases wanting nicotine.
About as often as you lit-up and smelled butts before you take out a whole clove and as you do you repeatedly says to yourself, 'This helps. This helps. This helps.' You don't need to say it every time, aloud or be sure exactly what's meant by saying 'this helps.' It still works and powerfully.
Use the whole cloves at those times and much as you did cigarettes when smoking. Hold them in your fingers most of the time. Repeatedly and at approximately the same pace you put butts to your mouth before puts the clove there, wets the stem, and sucks it a little before taking it away. Keep the cloves where you kept cigarettes and use about as many daily as you did cigarettes.
Often when you put a clove to your mouth to wet and suck a little on the stem, take at least two consecutive breaths in a special way. Breathe iN mostly through your Nose and do it to a slow count of five . . . but count backward, 'five ... four ... three ... two ... one.' Hold each consecutive breath just a moment and then breathe OUT mostly through your mOUTh to another slow five-count. Again, do a countdown from five to one.
With enough practice for a couple of days the combination of saying 'this helps,' clove tasting, and special breathing becomes a safe, satisfying, non-fattening alternative to smoking that you won't have to continue. When after 3 or 4 days you find doing that useful, switch to using the more detailed version named "Simple-7." It includes some audio to listen to and a very simple and safe form of self-hypnosis.
Alcohol and coffee temporarily increase subtle nicotine craving. So I recommend being sure to use the cloves when drinking alcohol or coffee.
Some people have essentially said, 'That's right much effort using the cloves that way. Besides, wouldn't that look kinda silly?' I respectfully answered with, 'It is less effort than smoking was, and that was hurting you. Using the clove is temporary and you look far less unusual than when you did the deadly dope, nicotine.' Folks have asked, 'What if someone wants to know why I'm holding and tasting cloves?' I suggested they tell the truth: 'If someone inquires, tell him that clove is an inexpensive breath freshener.'
Also important, a small piece of clove can be chewed into some sugarless gum at those times you may have snacked or overate before. Between meals is a popular time to chew sugarless gum with clove in it.
Notes:
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Richard Terry Lovelace, Ph.D., MSW, is retired but maintains a professional relationship with Winston Clinical Associates - Winston-Salem, North Carolina USA - Phone 336-722-7300 All information you obtain on this site is for educational purposes only and is not medical, legal or other advice or services. If needed, please consult a licensed professional regarding your situation. See the complete legal notice. Copyright Richard Terry Lovelace. All Rights Reserved. You have permission to reproduce materials available on this Web site for your personal and non-commercial purposes. All copies should include this copyright statement. |