How many times have you, or someone you love, stopped smoking or vaping only to return demoralized, even more dependent on nicotine, and fearfully hopeless? Personally, I tried eight times, not counting the innumerable times I flushed my cigarettes down the toilet in disgust only to find myself later at the corner store, shelling out food money for another pack. Methods I tried: nicotine gum, patches, substitutions such as mints, carrots and celery, candy, donuts, etc, shock therapy, hypnotism, a support group without guidance, hospital programs, and scare tactics. Nothing worked for long.
So, I did what all unsuccessful smokers and vapers do. I gave up. And it got worse and worse. A few years later I got pneumonia. I was told I had to quit. I was so bummed by the news that I went to the cafeteria of the medical building to have a coffee and a cigarette to figure out how I was going to quit. Smoking had become my best coping mechanism. Pneumonia didn’t make me stop. It merely slowed me down.
It was grace that I met a man who took what he had learned from drug rehab programs and applied it to smoking. He taught me how to quit and trained me to teach in person classes. But he was heavy handed in his approach, and equated smokers to drug addicts, brow beating us into submission. Fortunately, he went out of business. I got work elsewhere.
Friends of mine were having a conversation about their struggles to quit nicotine. I helped the three of them in my living room. They all quit. They told their friends. My “side hustle” grew into a stop smoking business. Along the way I became an alcohol and drug counselor, learned a whole lot about addictions, how to teach and how best to support folks. I dropped the former harshness in my training message and incorporated more harmonious ways to engage and apply the process of stopping. Chooseasmokefreelife.com emerged. Along the way, vapers became half of my clients. Chooseavapefreelife.com was birthed.
Now there are two websites with two platforms for helping folks get free from nicotine. These platforms evolved as the result of Covid and today’s demands for convenience and accessibility. Folks may choose a five consecutive day, in-person Zoom course, or a digital course. Both offerings provide ongoing support after the five-day course for three months through in-person phone calls, emails, and a private online support group. The training combined with the amount of ongoing support conspire to present an effective, convenient, and wholesome approach that is easy to follow and fun to do.
A whole new mindset emerges from these online stop smoking and stop vaping courses. What was once viewed through the lens of dread and reluctance becomes a positive engaging opportunity to demonstrate one’s agency in facing one’s nicotine dependency. Clients acquire skills to help steer clear of the pitfalls in stopping in a community of others addressing their common challenge. Clients do it themselves, just not all by themselves. The most effective ways to stop smoking and vaping for good are those programs that help you face the problem from the inside out, not effortless, outside quick fixes. Chooseasmokefreelife.com 512-758-1910.