Making Progress while Stopping Smoking Addiction

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What happens:
The more times you get in touch with your feelings and deal with them, the stronger that behaviour becomes to the point where that becomes a new habit.

If you have felt the need for a cigarette, resisted and done something about what you are feeling enough times your mind will skip the in between bit of thinking about having a cigarette, delaying, feeling, doing something, and you will feel what's going on directly and then have the choice to do something about it straight off. A new habit of dealing with your feelings has developed and the old pattern of taking a cigarette has been overcome. You now only need to keep performing the new habit - which will become stronger, while the addiction becomes weaker and dies.

Progress along the way:
While I was doing the process on page 1, I was becoming healthier and quitting was becoming easier. Each time I felt what was going on and did something positive about it I was creating a new healthy habit and smoking if it hadn't already gone, was diminishing each time I followed the simple steps, "what am I feeling and what am I doing about it?"

In the delay period I did various things, some of those were; beginning to sort out any aspect of my life that I was unhappy about, stretching, running, eating well if needed, planning life, keeping busy rather that thinking about quitting smoking, (often keeping physically active would help), relaxing, enjoy being more alive even if it was painful, writing a list of things which made it easier not to smoke and things or circumstances which made it more difficult to quit.

I needed to learn never to smoke in response to a problem. I now always try to put my energy into sorting out any problem.

I gave in to cigarettes as little as possible. I knew that by reducing how much I smoked it would make it easier to continue the process or quit altogether.

When I thought of having a cigarette, I just kept doing the exercise.

I made sure my nutrition was as perfect as it could be with no lows of energy.
I am sure that to be optimally healthy a body needs live food. So I ate live fresh fruit or in the absence of that, salad, carrots, lettuce etc. When I ate live food my feeling of wellness, and so my resistance and willpower went up massively.

There is no natural need to smoke. Sometimes when I felt tempted I simply asked, "What natural need am I feeling? How can I fulfil it?" Was I hungry, tired, bored, etc?

I found it useful to have a 24 hour period without having a cigarette. In that period I took in good food and tried to be with people with whom I felt good and I tried to do things I enjoyed. A walk on hills was a good time filler, as could be taking a trek with a tent, having a lie-in, etc., all the while I knew that the further I was away from the last time I smoked the easier quitting altogether was becoming.

I just kept on doing my best. I know now with hindsight that I didn't need to worry if I didn't quit 100% straight away, in the overall picture I was forming a new healthier way to live, without cigarettes.

Something else which I did when I was tempted, was to ask myself how I wanted to feel, and then I began to put my energy into creating that.

I try to exercise twice a day for at least 5-20 minutes. I also stretch 2-3 times a day.

Lavender oil helped me to keep calm, a couple of drops on a handkerchief in a pocket.

It was when things were most tough that I gained the most by following the procedure, and the fights I had were intense but short lived. When I was at the depths of my emotions and succeeded I gained the most.

I learnt to choose the most positive choice I could, every time I made a choice.

As my energy levels rose, I used that energy to build the life that I wanted where I would be happy and know that I had quit smoking for ever.
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