Although many people will try to tell you that quitting smoking is easy (and that is partially true), there are a few key moments that you will have to surpass on your journey to becoming smoke-free.
Most of the things you will come across are only some silly quitting smoking side effects. I call the silly because, although they can possible set you back a few steps, once you get to recognize them for what they really are, it all becomes really simple.
Here’s some of the things to expect, once you’ve stopped smoking (I will leave the physical, withdrawal symptoms out for now and only concentrate of the psychological ones):
First of all, cigarettes are (were) the one thing you use to turn to when you were very happy, very sad, depressed or disappointed. Therefore, we would not be making a mistake if we called cigarettes your ‘best friend’, right? Well, not really correct: your best friend would never cause you death, give you cancer, or make you impotent.
Still, from a smoker’s point of view, giving up smoking will be a bit difficult in those harsh times. What you SHOULD do in those moments is remember that this is a simple quitting smoking side effect and SMOKING is in no way going to improve your condition or solve your problems. If anything, it will make you feel even worse.
I’ve seen it so many times in myself, and others too: they do alright up to a point where something goes a bit wrong (in their/our mind it’s terribly wrong!); you light up, smoke one, two, … six cigarettes. And the realize you’ve done nothing to solve the problem, to begin with. In fact, you will soon realize you just threw away weeks of being smoke-free – all for a pretty stupid reason.
What each and every one of us must understand at this point is that THIS MOMENT WILL COME. All of us, me, you, your friend or spouse who is giving up smoking – WILL go through this exact moment, at one point or another. And what YOU should keep in mind and remember when this happens is that IT WILL GO AWAY. Maybe not as fast as it came around, or as fast as you wish it did, but it WILL go away. I promise. All you need to do is wait it out: either find good company – a friend or spouse – to take your mind off it, or simply do something by yourself: watch a good movie, go out for a walk – and NO, if you see someone smoking in the movie, or on your walk – it is NOT a sign you too should smoke. In fact, you should feel pretty impressed that your mind would go to the trouble of inventing such elaborate excuses to get you to smoke. Yeah, I know, it’s funny!
Another smoking side effect that seems to be quite common is dreaming of smoking. You go to sleep one night and dream that you either smoked – and felt terrible afterwards – of you were close to smoking, resisted it, and felt really happy and proud about it. Now, this is probably my favorite side effect of smoking, as it usually gets me thinking, again, of how perverted nicotine really is, to actually make you DREAM all these things. I always take it as a funny thing, and it works. There’s no need to panic about it or anything.
Ok, so what you should keep in mind is that you will need to surpass some of these ‘critical moments’ on your way to becoming smoke-free. Expect them to happen – and get an action plan on how to deal with them. If you’re one of the few people who will not go through this, then even better! But remember, it’s always better to be prepared and win the battle, than not be prepared and lose it from the start
