The tobacco companies probably spend more marketing money on keeping existing smokers hooked than on trying to recruit new smokers.   They’re spending billions to try to break your determination to succeed. 

If you’ve tried giving up cigarettes in the past and caved in and bought a packet, it is very likely that you felt very disappointed with yourself.  Some people can get very depressed.  Those people that knew you were trying to pack it in, tend to rub salt into the wound as well.

Some smokers will even go to extreme lengths to hide the fact that they’ve started again for fear of embarrassment and ridicule.  Trying to hide a guilty secret can lead to relationship problems.

How is it that the cigarette companies can have this effect on us?  This part of the course is about transferring the guilt and anger away from ourselves and on to the tobacco companies.

 

Exercise 3
Are you ready for the first real challenge?  How long do you think you can last between smoking the last cigarette in a packet and buying the next packet?  See if you can beat your previous record.

Once you have achieved what you consider to be a reasonable gap, say three days, be angry that you couldn’t last any longer.  But don’t be angry with yourself though, because it wasn’t your fault.  It is the tobacco companies and their sophisticated marketing techniques you should be angry with.   They have used all sorts of advertising devices to catch you at a weak moment.

But you’re not going to let them beat you without a fight.  As you smoke that first cigarette of this new pack, crush the rest of the pack in your fist as you vent your anger.  Throw the crumpled pack away in the nearest bin.  Also get rid of the matches/lighter (again thoughtfully).  What a waste of money I hear you say.  Why?  You’ve already spent the money and it was going to go up in smoke anyway.  Providing you can hold out at least as long as you did previously before buying your next pack, then you won’t have spent any more money at all. 

However, you have saved your lungs a bit of damage.  Although it can be a painful experience to do this the first few times, as you walk away from the dustbin you should feel good that you’ve been able to exercise such control.

Rather than thinking that you’ve thrown away nine cigarettes, just regard the one cigarette that you have just smoked as costing the same as the whole packet i.e. ten times the price of a normal cigarette.  Think how expensive that next cigarette is going to be.  You are going to have to want to smoke very much before spending so much on another cigarette.  Be even more angry that the tobacco companies can make you spend so much money.   When you need a cigarette bad enough that you’ll pay ten times the price for it, buy a packet (different brand), light up and again throw the rest away.  The gaps between your purchases will get longer and longer.

©www.quitsmokingdoctor.com

Part 4 >>