According my to home page (www.jimwcoleman.com) I have kept my New Years Resolution for 3 months, 10 days, 19 hours, 47 minutes and 33 seconds (at the time of this writing.) Feel free to click the link to make sure I'm still adhering to the tenants of a healthier, smoke-free 2007. Additionally, the same ticker will show that I have saved $562.78 since I quit. Sure wish I knew where that $562 bucks was, though. I could use it right about now.
As someone very experienced at quitting smoking, I'm well aware of that "three month barrier." Once you get the hang of not smoking, it's pretty easy, until you hit the three month mark. Ask anyone who has tried to quit, and they'll tell you the same. And then it hits again at about nine months.
I finally figured out why!!!
As part of my smoking cessation program, I have had to really analyze my smoking behavior and identify my triggers. I found that I smoke basically when (1) bored out of my skull at work because I'm held back from what I could be doing for the company or (2) I'm changing activities. Of those, the second point is most important.
When I work in the garden, I finish hoeing (am I still allowed to use that word after Don Imus ruined it for everyone?) one row and I start to hoe (there I go again!) another. Changing activities. When I'm done in the garden and I'm ready to organize the outbuilding. Again, having a smoke and changing activities. When I go from there to my garage. Again, changing activities.
But that didn't solve the three-month riddle. I know I have battled it many times before when trying to quit, as have many of my friends. I'm not the only person to have brought up the "three month barrier" when talking casually in a group about trying to quit.
It's simple, and I realized it several times in the past week. The seasons are changing. It's seasonal. That's the answer. I quit smoking in winter. I have become rather used to not smoking in winter, because I quit in winter. But, whoa, here comes spring. Now I can peel down to my short shorts and go hoe the garden. Last time I did that ... guess what? I smoked! So now I have a very strong urge to smoke again.
Okay, let's go back to last year when I quit in the summer. Once I got past the worst part of it, I got used to not smoking in the summer. But, whoa, hey - the leaves started falling. Subconsciously, I remembered walking down the road in years past, puffing on a cigarette while watching leaves fall all around me. I remembered raking leavesw and flicking my butt into the wet pile of leaves, knowing it would not ignite.
Follow me?
Once I figured this out, it was very easy to handle my cravings. I realized I was just projecting back to the past and that my cravings were based more on nostalgia than anything else. It was a great exercise to show how to identify triggers and how to deal with them.
And in case you think I'm some happy-crap Democrat on a social-welfare limb or a kick to make you quit smoking with some Gregoire-like passion, think again. I've smoked more than 25 years and I love smoking. I absolutely love it. But I get tired of the side-effects and at 42 years old, I'm finally starting to think about myself and how much I would love to see my grand-babies - whenever they show up.
You have cravings and you can't imagine giving it up? Going even one day without? I've been there. I am there. And thus far (knock on wood) I'm making it. Because I'm looking at it logically and trying to figure out how the hell to get this monkey off my back.
So I pass my tips along to you. Best of luck. Let me know if any of this helps. I have a lot of other observations and tips but it's not worth putting them all here unless I know that they work for someone other than myself.
Remember: $562. That's just from January 1 to April 11 - barely over three months. And now I'm walking 20 miles a week, I've lost most of the weight I added when quitting, and I feel great. I've figured it out. I hope this helps.
