Smoking Addiction

Smoking Addiction

You’ve probably heard just about enough about the downside of smoking. You may have read somewhere that each puff contains 4,700 chemicals, including poisons like arsenic, formaldehyde, and ammonia, that raise your risk of cancer. Unless you’re in a news-blackout zone, you realize that a single puff raises blood pressure, constricts blood vessels, and deprives the heart of oxygen. And you know that each puff sends a jolt of nicotine—the world’s most addictive drug—surging into your brain.

But you probably didn’t know that the average person who smokes a pack a day takes about 75,000 puffs a year. So if you’re one of the 16 million Americans over age 60 who continue to smoke, you’ve taken at least 3 million puffs since you began lighting up in your teens. That’s enough air to blow up about 300,000 balloons.

But even if you’ve been smoking for decades, it’s not too late to quit and ensure that you’ll have plenty of lung power to inflate your grandchildren’s water wings well into your eighties and nineties, says Thomas Cooper, D.D.S., a nicotine-dependency researcher and professor emeritus at the University of Kentucky College of Dentistry in Lexington.

“It is a great feeling to be able to say I’m better off as a nonsmoker,” says Dr. Cooper, who smoked for 36 years before quitting in 1984. “There’s nothing like knowing you have more stamina, you smell better, you breathe easier, and you like yourself better, all because you quit smoking. Once you get to that point, when you do see a cigarette, you can honestly say, ‘No deal. I deserve better.’”

Admittedly, nicotine can have a pretty firm grip. “Nobody would get up at two in the morning and rummage around in a trash can for a toothbrush. But some people will do that in order to get a cigarette. It’s that powerful of an addiction,” says Mitchell Nides, Ph.D., psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

But you can beat it, Dr. Nides says. Even if you’ve tried to quit several times in the past, don’t give up. Researchers have discovered powerful tools that soothe withdrawal symptoms and make it easier for you to become a nonsmoker.

Try This First

Set a quit date. You’ll be more likely to stop smoking for good if you set a firm, unbreakable quit date, says Thomas Brandon, Ph.D., director of the Tobacco Research and Intervention Program at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute in Tampa, Florida. Avoid picking stressful holidays like Christmas, and don’t select a date that is months away. Odds are, your resolve will wilt by then. Instead, once you decide to quit, choose a day that falls within the next two weeks.

Other Wise Ways

Freeze ’em out. You’ll have better luck quitting if you do it cold turkey, Dr. Brandon says. Gradually reducing the number of cigarettes you smoke only prolongs nicotine withdrawal and makes it easier for you to fall back into your old habits. If you quit cold turkey, you’ll have no more than 7 to 10 days of withdrawal, but then the worst will be over—and chances are, you’ll be a nonsmoker.

“We tell people that nicotine withdrawal is like the flu,” Dr. Brandon says. “It’s going to be a week when you’re not going to be as productive, friendly, or charming as you usually are. You’d cut yourself some slack if you felt that way and had the flu. You need to make the same allowances when you are trying to quit smoking.”

Throw away all of your tobacco products and anything associated with smoking, including ashtrays, lighters, and matches, Dr. Brandon says.

Get your dose without the smoke. Over-the-counter nicotine gums and patches can help you get through the first few weeks without smoking, says John Slade, M.D., professor of clinical medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and co-author of The Cigarette Papers. These products release low doses of nicotine into your bloodstream and combat your cravings for a smoke.

If you are using over-the-counter nicotine gum, you should avoid chewing on a piece of it within 30 minutes of drinking any beverage, says Dr. Slade. Most beverages, including water, will change the acidity of your mouth and block the absorption of the nicotine in the gum.

Beverages have no effect on nicotine patches because the drug is absorbed directly through the skin into the bloodstream, Dr. Slade says.

De-stress for success. Gums and patches are only a short-term solution. To truly become a nonsmoker, you’ll also need to make behavioral changes—such as learning stress reduction techniques—that will stop you from automatically reaching for a cigarette, says Dr. Slade.

Pen a note of certainty. Write a goodbye letter to your cigarettes or a love letter to your grandchildren, Dr. Nides suggests. Either one can solidify your determination to quit. Simply tell your grandchildren how much you care for them and that that’s why you’re quitting, he says.

As for cigarettes, “you could talk about how you once viewed cigarettes as true friends. But now, you realize that cigarettes aren’t your friends, because they’re killing you and making you look older and more wrinkled,” Dr. Nides says.

Steer clear of smoke signals. Plan your day so you’ll be less tempted to smoke, Dr. Nides suggests. If you know, for instance, that you get your worst urges to light up first thing in the morning and late in the afternoon, schedule smoke-free activities at those times. Try taking a dawn walk in a smoke-free shopping mall or having an early-bird dinner in a smoke-free restaurant.

Let your fingers do the walking. Keep your hands busy, particularly for the first three or four days after you quit, when the urges to light up will be strongest, Dr. Brandon suggests. Play with a pencil, doodle with a pen, squeeze a tennis ball, work on a jigsaw puzzle, or bake a cake (just resist the urge to eat all of it when you’re done). Let your hands do anything except reach for a cigarette, Dr. Brandon urges.

Slice the space. During the two weeks before your quit date, gradually cut down the area of your home where you allow yourself to smoke, Dr. Nides says. Start by eliminating a room at a time, preferably the ones you use most often. When you’re down to one room, begin chipping away at that area until you are down to a one-foot-by-one-foot space. Then quit completely.

“It will help decondition you from smoking in the places where you would have normally smoked,” Dr. Nides says. “So when you do quit, you’ll already have had the experience of sitting in the living room without smoking. It can make quitting a lot easier for some people.”

Get an early start. Try to quit smoking on Monday or Tuesday of a busy week, Dr. Cooper suggests. “You don’t want to quit smoking when you have a lot of time on your hands to think about it,” he says.

Use the buddy system. If you’re trying to quit, ask a nonsmoking friend or relative to provide encouragement and a sympathetic ear, says Fredrick J. Kviz, Ph.D., associate professor of public health at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In his studies, Dr. Kviz has found that people who recruit buddies to help them are twice as likely to remain smoke-free 12 months after quitting as those who don’t.

Imagine that. Your imagination is a mighty weapon in your battle to quit. “Some people find that imagining life without cigarettes is a very effective way to quit,” Dr. Nides says. “That’s how former U.S. senator S. I. Hayakawa did it. Every day, he told himself he was a nonsmoker, and within a couple of months he quit.”

Here’s how to do it.

1. Take a couple of deep breaths and let them out slowly. Close your eyes for a few moments and imagine yourself not smoking in a situation where you normally would.

2. Imagine the vivid tastes and smells you can finally enjoy now that you don’t smoke.

3. See yourself mingling with people who are smoking, but having no desire to join them, even when someone offers you a cigarette.

4. Now imagine yourself walking out into a bright, beautiful meadow filled with wild flowers. Take in an enormous breath of fresh air and let it fill your lungs.

5. As you slowly breathe out, say to yourself, “I choose not to smoke.”

Begin doing this imagery for one minute five times a day at least two weeks before you quit, Dr. Nides suggests. Even if you smoke after doing it, the imagery will mentally prepare you for the day when you do become a nonsmoker. After you quit, do this imagery whenever a craving strikes.

It’s a snap. Put a stiff rubber or elastic band around your wrist. Every time you feel an urge to smoke in the first two weeks after you quit, snap the band so that it gives you a sharp, uncomfortable slap. The snap can distract your attention from the urge to smoke just long enough that the craving will pass and you won’t light up, Dr. Nides says.

Light up an apple instead. When blood sugar levels get low, smokers are used to reaching for cigarettes to perk them up, Dr. Nides says. Snacking on an apple twice a day for a couple of weeks after you quit will help boost your energy levels without lighting up, he says.

Knock off the booze. Alcohol dissolves your resolve and makes it easier for you to light up. Avoid alcohol for at least a month after you quit smoking, Dr. Cooper advises.