A Short Guide To Cure Cigarette Addiction
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When a person is addicted to cigarettes, addiction specialists and mental health professionals refer to this type of addiction as nicotine addiction. Nicotine addiction is defined as an inability to stop smoking cigarettes, e-cigs, or vape mods, due to a dependency on nicotine, the addictive chemical found in tobacco. Tobacco leaves are dried and used for cigarettes, snuff, cigars, hookah, tobacco lozenges and strips, and electronic cigarettes. It can be chewed, smoked, and even sniffed to attain the desired effect.
When a person smokes a cigarette, nicotine is absorbed in the inner lining of the air sacs in their lungs. Over time, nicotine can cause serious health complications, such as clogged arteries, COPD and other breathing issues, sleep disorders, and lung cancer. The thing that sets nicotine addicts apart from regular smokers is that nicotine addicts feel unwell and are unable to function properly if they don’t ingest it on a daily basis.
It is important to understand that chronic smoking is extremely dangerous and unhealthy.
The good news is there are treatments to cure an addiction to cigarettes, such as smoking cessation programs, nicotine replacement therapy, addiction treatment programs, medication, hypnotherapy (hypnosis), laser therapy, and psychotherapy. However, if you’re unable to seek immediate treatment for your cigarette addiction, you are in luck, because this article highlights ways you can combat your addiction – until you can seek professional help.
You can learn more about cigarette (nicotine) addiction (definition, signs, possible causes, and cures) by reading the following articles, reviewed to be the best by our professionals: Is Nicotine Addictive?, Nicotine Dependence, Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products, and Why Are Cigarettes So Addictive?
By learning more about your cigarette addiction, you’ll be better equipped to cure it!
If you want to cure your addiction to cigarettes, you’ll need to understand what triggers your urges to smoke. The best way to identify your triggers is to make a list of when you are most likely to smoke. Listed below are some questions you’ll want to ask yourself. Make sure you write down or type the answers in your phone, so you can refer back to them.
– Do you typically smoke the most when you’re upset?
– When you are happy?
– What about when you are tired or stressed?
– When you are nervous or worried?
– Are you smoking to lose weight?
– Do you tend to smoke on lunch breaks at work?
– After work on your way home in the car?
– In the mornings before you get to work?
– Do you smoke when out with friends?
– How about when you are alone?
– Do you smoke when you are lonely or bored?
Knowing when you’re most likely to smoke can help you avoid these instances, so you can cure your cigarette addiction.
Another good way to cure your addiction to cigarettes is to list why you want to stop smoking. You can add it onto the list above (when you’re most likely to smoke) or you can write down the reasons why on colorful Post-It notes and decoratively place them around your room. Or, you can put it on a spreadsheet or in a journal.
Regardless of what option you use to list why you want to quit, the goal is to keep you motivated to stop smoking. Making a list of why you want to stop smoking can help you remember why you are doing what you are doing. And, whenever you feel unsure about continuing on this journey, you can pull out this list or look at your Post-It notes, suck it up, and keep going.
Curing an addiction to cigarettes is not for the faint of heart. It’s challenging, but it can be done. Because nicotine is as addictive as heroin and cocaine/crack, it may take you between 8 and 11 tries before you are able to quit it permanently. So, even if you don’t succeed at first, keep trying because it will happen.
Next, you’ll need to set a date to quit smoking cigarettes. As with any addiction, you’ll want to start out slowly. So, begin this quest by reducing how many cigarettes you smoke a day. If you smoke 2 packs of cigarettes a day, you may want to reduce it to 1.5 packs a day for a month, then 1 pack a day for a month.
Then, try 1/2 pack a day for a month, then 8 cigarettes a day for a month, then 5 cigarettes a day for a month, then 3 cigarettes a day for a month, then 2 cigarettes a day for a month, then 1 cigarette a day for a month, and then 0 cigarettes a day. If you have trouble letting go, then when you get to 0 cigarettes a day, allow yourself 1 cigarette every few days.
But before you start to reduce your smoking, set a date and stick to it. If you set a date 6 months or 1 year in advance, plan your reductions so your 0 cigarette coincides with the date you chose as your smoking end date. Don’t however, go “cold turkey,” even if it’s getting close to your end date and you’re still smoking 1 pack a day.
Allow for mistakes and bumps in the road and simply revise your end date. But, don’t make a habit of changing this date. In other words, try to stick to the date you chose. However, make sure all tobacco products are out of your home by the end date, so you’re not tempted to pick up a cigarette.
Once you have selected a date to stop smoking cigarettes, you’ll need to make a plan as to how you are going to cope while you’re reducing the amount of cigarettes you smoke and when you no longer smoke cigarettes. Be as honest and as detailed as possible.
– What are you going to do instead of smoking cigarettes?
– How will you handle spending time with your closest friends?
– Are you going to hang out with the “fam?”
– Will you try to go back to school and get a degree or a new degree?
– Are you going to enroll in a hobby you have been dying to try like cooking, painting, playing the guitar, learning to sew, playing golf, riding a motorcycle, etc.
Maybe you can call up and friend and go get coffee when the urge to smoke hits you. Or, maybe you can go to the gym and work off those urges. Exercise is always a good substitute for smoking because it boosts your serotonin, adrenaline, and oxytocin hormones – the hormones responsible for energy, happiness, peace, and joy.
So purchase a monthly planner and fill it up to the brim with activities that will keep you super busy. Then, get out as much as you can, but stay away from friends and family who smoke.
Always carry hard candy, mints, and/or suckers with you, so you have something to put in your mouth if or when the urge to smoke a cigarette arises.
Ph.D. in Family Psychology
Ree has a Master’s in Marriage and Family Therapy (M.M.F.T.) and a Ph.D. in Family Psychology. She spent over ten years counseling families, couples, individuals, and children on adjustment issues such as blended families, same-sex couples, dysfunctional family relationships, relationship issues, etc. Now she writes for famous health organizations and is a published author.
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