For chain smokers who believe they can't do without their 'precious sticks', a method or better still a short-cut to stopping the habit has been revealed.. A former chain smoker and British medical doctor, Dr Max Pemberton has compiled a step by step exercise to aid in the quitting programme...Hear him below.I loved smoking. Or at least I thought I loved it. As a doctor, I knew how bad it was for me, but that didn’t stop me doing it. In fact, if simply knowing the health risks of smoking stopped people doing it, then no doctor or nurse would ever light up a cigarette – and that’s simply not the case. Throughout my 20s I told myself I’d give up one day. Then my 30th birthday came and went. It was several more years before I realised that if I didn’t make a concerted effort, I’d be smoking until I died. But the thought of stopping smoking made me profoundly sad. I didn’t want to stop doing something that I enjoyed so much. I was in a muddle. I loved smoking, but I knew it was killing me.
I had helped smokers get out of their predicaments using cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), so surely I could use this to help get myself out of my own.
EXERCISE 1
Write a list of what you love about cigarettes, and why. It doesn’t matter how daft some of the things are. It’s important that you start to examine what you think cigarettes give to you. Do they make you feel more confident or more relaxed? What do you think you get from smoking – after all, it must give you something, otherwise why do it?
EXERCISE 2
Now write down a list of all the things that prevent you from stopping smoking. This might be harder than it sounds.Smoking is something we can do without really thinking about it most of the time, and it’s easy for us to create myths and illusions around why we should keep doing it. What it is that truly prevents you from stopping? And what is it that scares you? Write down your list, and, as always, you can add to it later as things occur to you.These are your reasons NOT to quit, or ‘Reasons to continue’.
EXERCISE 3
Go back to the list that you made in Exercise 1. Now, I want you to write down all the things that NOT smoking would give you. What are the benefits? Why stop smoking? What are your reasons for wanting to no longer smoke? We’ll call this your ‘Quit list’.
It might not seem like it now, but everything you wrote down in Exercise 1 is an illusion. These ‘reasons you smoke’ might seem very real, but they are not. Instead, everything on this list is your mind’s attempt to justify something that doesn’t make sense.
EXERCISE 4
Imagine that you are a lawyer in a legal case. First of all, put the case forward for continuing smoking. You already have the information for this from Exercises 1 and 2. Imagine putting forward this argument in front of a judge and jury, and be as persuasive as you can be. Use emotive phrases – play on their emotions. Cigarettes are on trial and you are defending them.
