Do you want to know how to actually quit smoking for the rest of your life? Do you want to know the 3 things that will help you to stay quit no matter what method you use to quit smoking? If you do then read to the end because I’m going to give you the 3 things you need to know and understand in order to stay quit.
I’m also going to put at the bottom of this post a link to my calendar so you can book yourself into a free 15 minute phone consultation with me. It’s fun and it’s free so take advantage of it. I will simply get you on the right track to quitting smoking for the rest of your life.
If this is your first time reading my content be sure to check out my YouTube channel and subscribe. If you’re interested in tons of tips, tricks, and hacks on how to quit smoking for the rest of your life hit that notification button because I post 2 new videos for you every week. It will simply tell you when I post new content.
My name is Ted Bradley, quit smoking expert. Let’s hop right into the content.
How can you quit smoking for the rest of your life, and what are the 3 things you need to have to stay quit?
There’s just 1 premise you need to understand. I want you to imagine that really quitting smoking is like a mountain and the summit is actually quitting.
We know that there are 9 ways to quit smoking that people use. There’s 9 known ways according to science. I’m not going to go into the 9 known ways right now. What I will do is I’ll post a link at the bottom to my YouTube video that goes through the science and the success rates of the 9 different methods.
The point I want to make is that these 9 methods are not equal. Some have varying degrees of success and are better. They are more likely to get you to quit. All 9 can get you to the top, but to get to the top you have to have these 3 things no matter what method you use to quit.
These are the 3 things you need to understand about how to quit smoking in order to have any of those methods be successful. We know this from science. It’s really just that simple.
So let’s start at number 3.
#3. It’s not about the addiction. I want to be really clear here because so many of us, a former smoker myself, focus so much on the addiction. The really important thing for you to get here is it’s not the addiction that keeps you stuck. It’s really the habit of smoking.
Now, we’re not going to go into the details of why smoking’s not really an addiction, but there’s a couple of things here that I think are really important to get. An addiction has 7 qualities to be classified as an addiction. Smoking meets almost none of them.
Instead of going through all the mud I’ll just make a simple point to save us some time and that’s this – if it was about the addiction, and it was really was the addiction that kept you stuck the nicotine replacement therapies would work. The patch, the gum, the lozenges, the Zyban, and the Chantix would all work, but we know that they don’t.
We know that they have a 12% to 14% success rate which is pretty much in line with placebo. That means me giving you a sugar pill and telling you, “This is going to cure you. You aren’t going to smoke” has the exact same success.
The reason why we say that they don’t work is if it has the same effectiveness as placebo what’s really working here? Is it the nicotine replacement therapies – the vaping, the gum, and the chew that is working, or is it that you believe it’s working?
We can’t separate the 2 out so it’s called in science ineffective. There’s no proof that it actually works because it’s no better than placebo.
The point here is those are all about treating smoking as if it’s an addiction. If it really was just about it beating the addiction then all of these methods would work.
Now, they do work for 12% to 14% of people, but so does a magic pill. That’s really the point I want you to get. You start to realize it’s not really about the addiction.
The last thing I really want you to understand about it not really being about the addiction is this. If you really think it is about the addiction that means it is something that is external to us. It’s the chemical keeping us stuck. It’s science that is happening to us. We get to blame the addiction. It’s external to us.
We think, “If it wasn’t for the nicotine and my addiction to it I would be free. I could quit. It’s not my fault. It’s the addiction’s fault.”
It’s external to us.
If it’s a habit then we have to face the fact that it’s about us. We have to take personal responsibility. That is way harder. Who wants to take personal responsibility, especially when we’re trying to do something that’s hard? Accountability is very hard.
So habit is internal, and addiction is external. We know it’s not really the addiction that’s keeping you stuck, because if it was the nicotine replacement therapies would have a much higher success rates. They’d be up there with hypnotherapy at 60% instead of down at 12%. It’s not the addiction that’s keeping you stuck.
#2. It’s about the mental game.
So, if it’s not about the addiction then what is it about? We have to look at addiction and habit and parse them both apart to really understand. If it’s not about the addiction, and it’s really about the mental game how does that work? Well, here’s the biochemistry that we know from neuroscience.
There’s really 2 things that happen to us when we quit smoking – withdrawal and cravings. They’re actually not the same thing, but we often make the mistake of thinking that they are the same. The reason why we make that mistake is 1 leads to the other, but they’re very different.
Withdrawal is a physical symptom. A craving is a mental or psychological symptom.
When we quit smoking what happens is our body and our system wants to have homeostasis or equilibrium. We’re used to having nicotine. Every time we smoke a cigarette the nicotine triggers our pleasure sensor and releases dopamine.
The average smoker inhales 500 times a day so all of a sudden you’re not getting this dopamine hit 500 times a day and the nicotine is no longer there. So the body is no longer in balance or equilibrium. Your body starts to look for the nicotine, but it can’t find it so what your body does to try and get you to smoke and return to equilibrium is it induces withdrawal symptoms.
Withdrawal symptoms are physical symptoms such as intestinal issues, insomnia is another. There’s coughing and phlegm. We start to get all these physical symptoms. These are withdrawal symptoms.
Here’s what happens. Our mind does something with these physical symptoms. Our mind does something called catastrophizing. It goes, “Wait a minute. Why all of a sudden am I having intestinal issues? Why am I having trouble sleeping? Why am I having these physical withdrawal symptoms” and it assumes the worst. We develop something called cravings from this.
Cravings are the inability to not think about cigarettes. In other words you can’t stop thinking about cigarettes. You’re thinking about them all the time, and then you catastrophize. You assume the worst.
“I’m having a craving and I’m going to fail!”
We play this mental game of all of these things that we think are going wrong because we’ve quit smoking.
This is what’s happening. The withdrawal symptoms, the physical symptoms, are driving the irritability and the short temper. (Do you notice these are all mental things?) It’s driving the constantly thinking about cigarettes.
These are all mental things being driven by the withdrawal. It’s all about the mental game. It’s about learning to deal with the cravings versus the withdrawal.
I’ll give you an example and I’m sure this will make complete sense to you. Let’s take the physical symptoms of withdrawal and the mental symptoms of cravings. What if I said to you I’m going to remove all the withdrawal symptoms – the irritable intestines, the coughing, and the insomnia? I’m going to take all the physical symptoms away, but I’m going to leave you with the cravings. The constantly thinking about cigarettes, the irritability, the stress, and the anxiety are all going to stay. I’m going to leave you with all those, but I’m going to take away the withdrawal. How easy would it be to quit?
Well it would be really difficult still wouldn’t it? The cravings are very difficult.
What if I flipped it? What if I left you with the withdrawal, but I took away the mental game? If I said you, “You have no cravings. You’re not going to be thinking about cigarettes. You’re not going to be irritable. You’re not going to be angry. You’re not going to be stressed out or anxious because you’re not smoking. You’re not going to have any of that, but you know what. You’re still going to be tired, lethargic, and you’re going to have intestinal issues. You’re still going to have these withdrawal issues.” How easy would it be to quit now?
Way easier, right! This is why it’s not about the addiction.
#1. Congruency.
So, we know that it’s about the mental game. We know it’s not about blaming the addiction, andit’s not about the physical withdrawal. It’s not about the irritable bowels. It’s aboutthe constantly thinking about it, theanxiety, and the stress.
Once you know it is about the mental game you are wellon your way to quitting for lifebecause you can now plan and prepare for the mental part. You don’t have to planand preparefor the addiction or the withdrawal. Youjust need to plan and prepare for the mentalpart.Those are the first 2 things you reallyneed to get, but the number 1 thing you canreally use to really help yourself quit and really one of the major keys in myprogram, not the onlykey but one of the major pieces, is congruency.
What do I mean by that?I mean aligning your conscious mind withyourunconscious mind so that they’re on thesame page.
Here’s why. If you were congruent rightnowand both your conscious mind and yourunconscious mind were aligned you wouldn’t smoke.Here is whathappens and why we’re incongruent.
This is why when we try to quit we fail.In our conscious mind we think, “I don’t wantsmoke. I don’t want smoke. I don’t want to smoke”but our unconscious mindwhere habit residesgoes, “Smoke feel good. I enjoy smoking. Ineed to smoke. If I’m stressed outsmoking makes me feel good.”
So what happens is even though your conscious mind says it doesn’t want to smokeyour unconscious mind says that smoking makesyou feel good, and when you are stressed or you get anxietyyou get triggered and your unconscious mind which is a supercomputer and super powerful says, “To hell with you! Smoke feel good. I needto smoke because I’m stressed out.”
Your unconscious mind takes over andwins.It’s a losing battle. It’s because yourconscious mind says, “I don’t want to smoke” but your unconsciousmind says, “Smoke feel good.”
You’re incongruent. Your consciousmind is going trying to go one way while yourunconscious mind istrying to go the other way. This isincongruence. If yourunconscious mind was aligned with yourconscious mindyou wouldn’t smoke. That’s whyhypnotherapyhas a greater success rate than anyother formof quit smoking method.
Now, just so we’reclearI am a hypnotist, but hypnosis is only asmall part of my program. You have toactuallytake all these different methods andstack them togetherto really have a very high success ratelike I do at 95%.
You have to treat it as if you’re awhole personand stack the different ways of quitting together.
Why only do one?Why just do hypnosis? Why just donicotine replacement therapy? Why not stack all of these thingstogether? That’sthe key to my program!
Let’s just goover thisone more time so we are really clear.
These are the 3 thingsthat you need to understand and have toget to that summit no matter what methodyou have.
You have to understand it’snot an addiction that keeps you stuck andit’s more about the habit. Even ifsmoking is an addiction it’s not theaddiction that gets in your way. You need to realise it’s really about the mental game. It’sabout the cravings not thewithdrawal. It’s about the mental aspect – theconstantly thinking about it, smokingbecause of stress, and feeling likeyou need a cigarette to feel good. You need to get your mind congruentso that your conscious mind and yourunconscious mindare headed in the same direction.
If youhave those 3 thingsquitting smoking becomes so much easier. Whenever you look at a model or a methodto quit smokingyou want to make sure that it has these 3 attributes. This is why stacking is the mostsuccessfulquit smoking method out there.
Here is a link to my website: https://calendly.com/quitsmokingtoronto/30-minute-appointment-strategy-call?month=2020-09 . When you click on that link you’ll get my calendar. You can put yourself into a free 15 minute phone consultation with me and I’ll get you on the right track to quitting smoking for the rest of your life. It’s free and it’s fun so take advantage of it.
If you want to learn more about the different quit smoking methods check out my YouTube video on this. Here is the link: https://youtu.be/DgRCqOo1Cko .
If this is your first time reading my content be sure to check out my YouTube channel and hit the subscribe button especially if you want to know more about how to quit smoking. If you want tons of tips, tricks, and hacks on how to quit smoking it’s all in my YouTube channel so subscribe and hit the notification button. It will simply tell you when I post 2 new pieces of content, and I do every week.
Also please subscribe to my Facebook channel and my Instagram. I post tons of tips, tricks, and hacks there as well.
I want to thank you very much for your time and attention. Blessings to everyone, and I look forward to hearing from you.