| So you have decided to stop smoking...great! You will never regret it, the case against the habit is overwhelming. Heavy smokers, light smokers, and very occasional smokers, we all of us know that cigarettes are more likely to kill us than not. Which means that to go on smoking we must suspend our intellects, refuse to think about it - pretend it doesn't matter or that the worst could never happen to us. As a long-time smoker myself I can tell you that I found it difficult to give it up. I must have tried at least twenty times over a period of five years. Finally I came to the conclusion that either I was just too weak to succeed, or I must be going about the thing in the wrong way. But what was the right way? Trying to arrive at the common factor of my past approaches, I recalled that I always tried to put the very thought of cigarettes and smoking out of my mind. It was like choosing to be unconscious while taking on a tough task, it was hoping to wake up one day and find myself, miraculously, a non-smoker. Could that be the problem? I concluded that it was - because doing anything difficult requires serious attention. * * *
'OK, ' I thought, 'next time I'll make a big issue of it.' I would think of it all the time, concentrate my attention on the project as if it were an important job I was obliged to get right for someone else. And I would review my progress hour by hour. So I made some cards, marked them off into 24 squares each. And I bought a packet of gold star stickers. Then I spent a couple of days psyching myself up for the job: thinking about the times in my daily life when I would be likely to be ambushed; running through all the excuses I could make to myself for having 'just one cigarette' here and there. I covered the many social events when having a cigarette seems to make one more at ease, things like having a cup of coffee or a few drinks with my friends. How would I be able to carry on with my normal social life without smoking - all of that stuff? I understood that if I was to succeed I would have to be fire-proof against the most ordinary lapses in daily life not to mention the toughest of life's blows which, when they come, seem tailor-made for a relieving cigarette. Finally I was ready. * * *
A last smoke one Saturday night at around ten, and then bed.It was ten hours before I was up and dressed the next day. Hooray! I pulled out my first card and whacked in ten gold stickers! I hadn't had a cigarette for ten hours! You will not believe how good that stamp-laden page made me feel. I could scarcely wait for nine o'clock, when I would be able to claim another wonderful smoke-free hour. The first day passed more easily than on any previous attempt and by ten o'clock that night I could look at my first card, full of beautiful gold stamps! Now I felt really good about myself! I almost looked forward to the next day's battle. And it worked; the first week went by comparatively easily and quickly. The second a little tougher because it was during that week that I began to cough quite a lot. It only lasted a few days and looking back I guess my lungs felt the time had come when they could safely get rid of some of that dreadful tar I had been building up! I kept up with the sticker routine, not every hour after a while, but on a daily basis, then week by week, then by month and so on. A year passed. And I have never looked back. Many of my friends watched this with great scepticism. Later they were impressed, some even asked for help of the same kind. So then I turned the whole thing into a real project. The BetterLife Passport to a Smokefree Future is the result. * * *
It has been a
successful aid for many, but for some who wanted a silver bullet
it did not help.I realised that the way to make them take it seriously was to ask them to pay for the passport, and to pay the equivalent of the cost of a month's smoking. That way it would have its own independent value. The difference was instantaneous - even for the most sceptical. So that is why there is a price for the package... paying for something adds to your own belief in its value. Of course if you have the will power that I finally developed over so many failures you could do what I did, make your own cards. On the other hand, here it is ready-made for you, quite a handsome product I think. And when you have won through, your Betterlifc Passport will be a forever reminder of a wonderful journey from danger to safety and the price tag will seem like a very small price for your success. Best of luck. Peter O'D.... (If you would like to include your own experience on this site, please e-mail me on montagumail@compuservices.co.za I am abidingly interested in the subject and happy to devote a lot of time to anyone battling to quit. I've been there...) * * *
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