Most products and services offer you a way to “start small’ through replacements, such as the nicotine patch or gum, sweets, celery sticks, exercise, or hypnosis – anything to escape feeling the need for nicotine. The theory is that once the urges “blow over” you will be free and won’t need your fix anymore. Although appearing attractive, these methods are simply new ways to get a “quick fix”. They are merely replacements. Wouldn’t you rather, learn how to restore your need for nicotine? Which do you think is more lasting?
Replacement methods reinforce the search for relief in another form, but the behavior is the same. There is no recovery in practicing the same relief seeking behavior. Replacements eventually take you back to vaping or smoking because you still miss it the fix. Why do you keep going back? Because you never learned how to deal with your need for it. You just were taught how to block it out or run from it for a while.
Addictions are all about getting relief, the relief from going without. Let’s face it. You are a relief junkie for the nicotine found in your e-cigarette or your smokes. What’s more, you don’t know how abstain from your fix without feeling deprived, empty, irritable, and miserable, and God forbid, without gaining weight. What to do? Who to trust?
Have you ever heard that you can’t solve a problem with the same mind that created it? Lasting recovering from an addiction is about changing one’s behavior over time, not merely changing the external stimuli. It’s an inside job.
What if, instead of making your desire for nicotine your problem, you made it your solution? You see, there is another way to view your need for nicotine. If you are wanting it, it means you are not inhaling it. That desire gets reframed as being a good thing; not a bad thing to be avoided. So, getting free from nicotine is a matter of making friends with your desire for it, learning to accept it and hang out with it. When you learn to do this, your desire for nicotine loses its power. It diminishes and eventually goes away. You are no longer enslaved by your urges, they have become your ticket to freedom.
If you want something that last’s a lifetime, then contact me for a free half-hour session where I can outline in detail how you can get free from nicotine in just a few days, but also get ongoing, meaningful (and not time consuming) support for 90 days from the day you stop. Why so much support over time? Because it takes that amount of time for the brain to reset from drug seeking to freedom seeking behavior.
Have no confidence that you can do it? Join the club! I never thought it was possible for me to remain nicotine free either. That is the nature of addiction. It erodes our confidence because we know deep down, just how hooked we are! But I am here to restore hope in your ability to make positive choices and to help you choose a smoke free life. You too deserve a life of freedom!