How hard is it to quit smoking, and what is the best way to do so/? -
I was just wondering. No, I don-t smoke, but nobody believes it when you say that anyway...please be nice. I-m asking this on behalf a relative who has no idea what I-m doing.
Quitting smoking is one of the most difficult addictions to break. In my experience as a physician, I-ve seen higher success rates from alcoholics and drug addicts. I think the reason is that smoking involves two forms of dependency.
The first is the addiction to nicotine. Nicotine binds to areas of the brain that are associated with -pleasure centers.- These areas are very active during orgasms. If one places an electrode in a similar area of a rat-s brain, the rat can be trained to push a button to stimulate that electrode. If given that opportunity, the rat will continually push that button. If you place such a rat in a cage with two platforms separated by an electrified grid, and one platform place food and water and the other platform place the rat, no matter how hungry or how thirsty the rat is it will not cross that electrified grid to get to the food or water. But if you place the button for the electrode it will cross that grid, willingly receive those shocks, in order to push the button.
Smokers are much like that rat, in that you know full well the hazards of smoking and yet you continue to smoke. This was demonstrated over 10 years ago in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzogovina, when during the height of the seige by Serbs, with bombs going off in the streets and snipers on the rooftops, people still waited in the open in lines over a couple of blocks long, to receive their tobacco ration. Another story is that of a man who was a survivor of the concentration camps who saw the depths that people would go through to obtain tobacco, even more than they would go through for food or water. This man vowed that if he survived he would become a tobacco seller because there would always be people to buy his products. After being liberated, he moved to California where he opened the first of what turned out to be a string of tobacco shops and became a multi-millionaire. Note that he never ever smoked a cigarette, cigar or pipe his whole life.
The second dependency involves all of the subconscious habits associated with smoking: Think about how you reach into the pack of cigarettes in your pocket, your purse or besides your computer, pull that cigarette out and unconsciously light it. It-s like driving a car. Do you actually consciously pay attention to how much torque you need to turn the key in the ignition, how much pressure to apply to the gas or brake pedal, how many degrees of rotation to turn the steering wheel? If you did, you-d be unable to pay attention to the road and would get yourself in an accident. Yet try to break the routine. If I try to even drive my car from the garage into the driveway and I don-t have my seatbelt around me, I feel very uncomfortable, yet while driving I-m unaware of the belt around me. Our brain constantly filters out a myriad of incoming sensory inputs. Consider this: until I brought it up, you were unaware of the sensation of the fabric of your jeans against your thighs. But now you are and in a few seconds you will go back to ignoring that sensation.
When you try to stop smoking you are changing the routine of your life and you will feel uncomfortable for a few days. That may not be so bad, except you are also trying to withdraw from a very addictive substance.
The strategies for stopping smoking try to reduce the impact of these dependencies. Certainly cold turkey is associated with one of the highest long-term success rates, but few people are truly successful at this. Nicotine replacement systems, such as the gum, the patches and the inhalers, allow you to get over the habits associated with smoking while delivering nicotine in a much safer manner. Once you feel comfortable not smoking, then you can systematically withdraw from the nicotine. The other method involves the use of buproprion sustained-release, an antidepressant that blocks the addictive nature of nicotine. When successful, the user of buproprion no longer feels the desire to smoke because they no longer receive the same -thrill- from smoking. The smoker quits because there is no enjoyment in smoking outside of its ability to efficiently deliver nicotine to your brain.
All strategies for smoking cessation should be combined with active counselling. When you do stop smoking, it is important to not even try to go back. I tell my patients that the first cigarette is the easiest to resist, but that the second is the most difficult. When you think, -What can it hurt?- to have just one cigarette, remember that one cigarette can put you right back into active smoking again.
Good luck in your efforts. In the end, if you fail a few times, don-t be discouraged. It takes an average of about 6 attempts for a smoker to be able to quite. Don-t give up until you are fully a non-smoker.
Try this website for quit smoking help and information. Quit smoking can be a very stressful experience so you-ll need as much help as you can get.
Remember why you-re doing it! (Family, friends, general health)
This is what yoo-re exactly looking for.
Don-t give up and good luck!
i don-t think there is a best way, but most people that i know, who quit smoking , did so suddenly after finding out they got ill
the best way is to just quit cold turkey
Try getting them to chew on a piece of garlic or garlic tablets before they light up. From then on when they get ready to smoke the cigarette will taste worse and worse to them making it easy to break the habit. Hope this helps and Good Luck!!!