Smoking Cigarettes Why Its Hard to Quit

I've was a smoker for fifty years and I can remember the days when ads like the Flintstones one above were the most common ads on TV. We smoked everywhere in those days: theaters, restaurants, everywhere. Larry King says he smoked in the ambulance when they were taking him to the hospital after his heart attack! The last time I personally smoked in a movie theater was 1968.

While smokers are becoming pariahs in North America, smoking is becoming more prevalent in the rest of the world. Its easy to make the assumption I saw on one website recently that because smoking was now frowned upon here, that the rest of the world would be following suit. Not so! That's one reason why the cigarette companies here aren't fighting harder. They're doing quite well with their overseas sales and don't need to worry much about the North American market. Smoking is becoming so widespread that nowadays more trees are cut to make paper for cigs than are made into printer paper.

It really isn't possible to talk about smoking without having an explanation of addiction. Which treatment you will believe in depends on which model of addiction you endorse. Here's the model that makes the most sense to me.

Freud divided the mind into three parts, Id, Ego and Superego, each having different roles to play. He was wrong about a lot of things, but brain research has revealed physical structures that correspond closely with his three-part mind. To see how addiction works we have to look to the Id.

According to Freud, the main function of the Id was to want. It isn't rational. It can't think. All it does is want. It wants all the time and it wants now. The brain structure that corresponds most closely with the Id is the old brain. It is also called the reptile brain.

This function of wanting is very important to the survival of the organism. If we didn't want things, after all, we wouldn't feed ourselves or procreate, we'd just sit around. So the reptile brain has a vital function to perform.

The old brain gives you urges or feelings, and the new brain helps you figure out what to do with the urges and feelings. If a much bigger kid calls you a “loser,” you may have an urge to punch him, but your new brain might say, “Actually, that's a very bad idea.”

Its only when we want things that are bad for us that things start to go off the rails. When we are exposed to substances like opiates or nicotine the old brain starts to want them, more and more often; more and more urgently. And it can't be reasoned with. The more it is denied, the more urgently it wants. That is its function and that is all it can do.

When you are addicted to something, its like being split in two. One part wants to quit and knows all the logical reasons for quitting. The other part doesn't care. It wants a smoke, or a drink or whatever, and it wants it right bloody now! Ultimately, in order to overcome any addiction you have to identify with the part that wants to quit and distance yourself from the part that wants to use. One of the most powerful ways of accomplishing this is through AVRT (addictive voice recognition therapy).

What this comes down to is monitoring your self-talk and learning how to rewrite some of your thoughts. So, when a thought pops into your head: I'd really like a smoke you rephrase it to It would really like a smoke.

This seems really simplistic, and it is simple. The effect of this over time is to wipe out the confusion between what you yourself want and what the old brain wants. Confusing the source of the thoughts in your mind is the main thing that makes it hard to overcome an addiction. As long as you feel that the one that wants to smoke and the one that wants to quit are the same you're stuck. Once you realize that there's a spoiled, demanding child inside you its fairly easy to break through.

So what's the role of the various quit smoking aids? Are they a big con? Absolutely not. They can do two main things for you if you want to quit smoking now.

1. They can make things less miserable while you build your inner strength.
2. They can turn off the physical side of the addiction, leaving you to deal with the mental part

The second point is really important because you will find that even if the physical cravings are taken care of entirely by the stop smoking aid, you will still want to smoke. This is the habit part of smoking and its tied into your self-image very closely. Somehow you have to develop a new concept of yourself as a non-smoker and start to live that life. As smokers, we tend to hide behind the addictive power of nicotine as an excuse for not quitting. Once that cover is taken away by a smoking aid we are free to do battle with the habit directly.