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Friday, July 4, 2008

Trying to Quit

I've been smoking for sometime now and there have been umpteen people around me who have asked me to quit, but it never happens. Everytime someone asked me to quit, and depending who was asking, I either tried to reduce the numbers or more often just smoke hiding from these people.
But there've been these few times when I have decided to quit and that's the only time I have lasted long enough to make a difference.
What I am trying to say is that, don't wait for people to ask to you to not smoke, just go ahead and decide for yourself. Now, you may be thinking "Has this guy ever had a single drag of smoke? Has he ever felt that urge that gets doused when you have that drag after you reach work, after a meal, while having a drink etc?" I really know what you are talking about and I agree that you will have to have a compelling reason to quit, so I'll try putting down a few things that can be useful.
First step is to convince yourself to quit...
Each one of us has something that is REALLY important in our life, so be it attracting the opposite sex, your family, the environment, your health, respect to elders etc etc, now in each of the case, you would realize, you will get the best results without that stick in your hand, think about each, and believe me, you will realize that its best that you quit. Now this takes sometime, just reading it here wont convince you, mull over it a bit, sleep over the idea and maybe you will see where I'm coming from.
Next step, which is after you have decided to quit, is to sustain...
If you search the net, you will find a zillion sites that will talk about how to stop smoking, what I will try and do is just let you know what worked for me.
After I decided to quit, the first thing I do is go tell the close friends around that I have quit, once U have done that, I'm fairly conscious because I don't want any of these guys to come and mock at me saying "I told you, you wont be able to do it" it fucking pisses me off, so I decide to show it to them all that I can do it. While this is my most hard working technique, the others are things like, I keep telling myself that I can do this, give myself a timeline that, I have stay quits atleast for 'x' months. All this put together pulls me off without any smokes for a few months.
I have done the above a few times and has always worked for me, while I know the best thing would be to quit for good, but if that's now happening, let me try to stay away for as much time as possible, I'm sure it does some good.
The reason for telling this all to you was because, starting today, I'm gonna be off smokes for sometime, and by telling you I have only increased the number of people who I will have to face if I give up.
Happy Not Smoking to you...

3 comments:

Kay said...

Great news. :)

Saket said...

Chak De Parag!

S said...

Hi Parag,

Do you know that actual research shows that peer pressure happens to be the strongest reason to stay "quit". So yes, you've made a great beginning and I congratulate you for that.
Since I work on a brand that helps you quit smoking, here are my two cents for you:
1. Stay clear of thoughts of smoking - replace them with another activity (you can decide what you wish to include here)
2. Confront your moment of truth - its the toughest part of staying quit - confront the moment when the desire to have a drag is the strongest - the earlier you get comfortable with this re-concealment, the better it is for you!

-S