UNDERSTANDING ADDICTION

One of the psychological ‘defences’ that goes hand in hand with all addictions is the process of denial.

IF YOU ARE A NICOTINE ADDICT (and if you are a regular smoker you almost certainly are) THEN YOU WILL BE AFFECTED BY THE PROCESS OF DENIAL.

There are no words that can adequately express the importance of that last statement. In fact it is so important to understand that I am going to say it again:

IF YOU ARE A NICOTINE ADDICT THEN YOU WILL BE AFFECTED BY
THE PROCESS OF DENIAL!

What is denial?
Denial is the method adopted by your unconscious mind to keep you feeding nicotine to your body. The easiest way to understand why on earth your own mind is attempting to get you to poison yourself with nicotine, is to think of it in these terms:

One of the functions of your unconscious mind is to ensure that you go through life feeling as little discomfort as possible, irrespective of how it manages to achieve this. Unfortunately, your unconscious mind does

UNDERSTANDING ADDICTION
Not make value judgements. It doesn’t, for instance, say to itself “Mmm.., I’ve stopped smoking and I’m starting to feel uncomfortable, I would like a smoke, but I don’t want to risk cancer so I will just tolerate the withdrawal symptoms until they go away.” If your unconscious was able to make value judgements of this kind - ie., I won’t do (a) because it will result in (b), then no one would have any real difficulty in giving up. When this situation arises, i.e., when you start to feel the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal, this is what you can expect from the treacherous little

‘voice’ that is your unconscious:

Firstly, your unconscious will notice your discomfort. It will then compare your feelings of discomfort to the memory bank of feelings stored in your mind, and will decide on what it believes to be the source of your discomfort. In no time at all it will figure out that the last time you felt these negative feelings you were able to relieve them by having a cigarette. Having found the simple solution to your problems, it will send a message to your conscious mind. That message is likely to be “Have a smoke”. The problem now lies with the conflict that arises between your conscious and unconscious mind. By the time you get to the stage of feeling withdrawal, you have already consciously made the decision that you are never going to smoke again. This is when the real battle begins. Before we look at this whole battle process, let me tell you some more

Quit smoking is about this destructive unconscious ‘voice’. This ‘voice’ is generally stronger and more determined than your conscious mind - a lot stronger and a lot more determined. For this reason when you first hear this ‘voice’ telling you to smoke, you will need to immediately be on your guard.

Here’s why -

When you first stop smoking your conscious mind will start of with a high level of motivation to carry through your resolve not to smoke. Now, all would be well if your little ‘voice’ was to agree with your decision to stop, and think: “Fair enough, I’ll just not smoke.” However, let me assure you that is never, ever, going to happen. Like a spoilt brat, this little ‘voice’ will then resort to all sorts of mental trickery in order that you feed it the nicotine that it so desperately wants. In fact, it will resort to levels of deception so low and cunning, that at first you will hardly believe it possible. Here is a typical conscious / unconscious

dialogue:

U: = Unconscious
C: = Conscious

C: “Oh, oh, I am starting to feel cravings”
U: “I’ll have a smoke”

C: “No I have stopped, I must be strong”
(Your unconscious may then wait until the craving becomes a bit stronger then:)

U: “I’ll have a smoke now, I can stop again tomorrow.”

C: “No, I mustn’t, I haven’t really given it a proper go.”
(Your unconscious might then wait until you are a bit more vulnerable, say a few hours later when you have just had a cup of tea and you are really gasping for a smoke, then:)

U: “I’ll just have this one cigarette with my tea, I never really had a proper ‘last’ cigarette.”

Some people may relapse at this stage and will decide to smoke. For those with stronger resolve the conversation may continue along these lines:

C: “No, I will try to stick it out a bit longer.”

(Your unconscious may wait until you are more vulnerable, say maybe two days later when perhaps the cravings feel quite intense)

U: “Huh, they told me that this would get easier but it’s getting harder; sod the lot of them, I am going to have a smoke.”

C: “No, wait a minute, I really do have to give it my best shot, I’ll get through this bad patch soon enough.”

(Your unconscious may then do one of several things. For instance it may allow you to feel almost no negative feelings for a couple of days and then when you are feeling good about how strong you have been and how easy’ it has been, feed you with this almost classic line:)

U: “See, I knew that I could give up smoking easily, in fact it was so easy I am pretty sure I could have a smoke now and stop again with no bother. Yeah, I think I’ll celebrate with a final cigarette.”

(You would be shocked by the number of people who have been suckered by that line!)

If, by this stage, you still have not succumbed to the little ‘voice’ then it will simply become even more devious. Remember, the sole purpose in life of this little ‘voice’ is to get you to smoke and it has no qualms about how it achieves this goal.

The next trick up its sleeve will probably be to convince your conscious mind that the pain of withdrawal is actually much worse than it really is. (You will be looking at this pain issue in some depth in the next section.) Your unconscious will also try to confuse you by allowing the feelings of both tiredness and hunger to masquerade as withdrawal:

U: (After a long and tiring day) “I’m absolutely exhausted and I’m gasping, I’m going to have a smoke, I’ll stop again at the beginning of the month when my work schedule isn’t as hectic.”

Again, many people will drop out at this (or a similar) point.

On and on this little ‘voice’ goes, relentlessly pursuing its perverted goal. In reality, it is actually even worse than I can describe here because its repertoire of excuses or justifications is almost infinite. If all the above fails to achieve its aim, then it can resort to tactics such as attributing just about anything negative that happens to you, to giving up smoking. Say, for example, that you are a salesperson. You have been off cigarettes for three days and you have had a bad day selling. The little ‘voice’ in your head starts to tell you that “I just can’t sell as well when I don’t have my cigarettes to help me concentrate.” Now, you may think this believable, until you consider that there is normally a bad day or two every week, irrespective of whether you smoke or not. The reality is that this may well be just one of those days - nothing at all to do with whether or not you have smoked! Again, it is just this little ‘voice’ in full trickery mode.
Another way the ‘voice’ operates is to have you constantly focus on your pain. Say, for example you develop a headache. The little ‘voice’ will get you to focus on it to such an extent that you will believe that it is the worst headache of your life and that the only thing that will get rid of it will be to have a smoke.

Again, it is simply an illusion created by your unconscious, in order to get you to smoke.

Given the deviousness and subtlety of your little ‘voice’, you will need to learn how to become aware of the true level of any pain you might feel (mental or physical), how to recognise and respond to its manipulations, and how to say “no” to its thousand and one reasons for why you should smoke again.

You will learn how to do this a little further on, but first, let’s go back to the big question!

ARE YOU A NICOTINE ADDICT?

In order to answer this question we first of all need to establish a definition for addiction. Before we look at this definition I would ask you to try and empty your mind of any preconceived notions that you may have of addiction, and to come to this question with an open mind.
As part of an assignment I was writing many years ago at university, I had to study several definitions of addiction and to finally settle on the one that would be the most useful to use as a model for actually working with addicts. The definition that I finally settled on is the one used by the World Health Organisation. It states (simplified) that an addict is anyone who suffers physical and / or psychological negative effects

when the substance they are using is withdrawn, to the extent where they would feel relief if given more of the substance.If we are to use this definition here then it should be easy enough to
establish whether or not you are a nicotine addict.

What follows is a simple questionnaire which you need to answer as honestly as possible with either a yes or a no:

1 HAVE YOU EVER TRIED TO STOP BEFORE AND FAILED?

2 HAVE YOU EVER FELT PANICKY WHEN YOU COULDN’T GET A CIGARETTE?

3 HAVE YOU EVER FELT NICOTINE WITHDRAWAL SYMPTOMS?

4 HAVE YOU EVER USED CIGARETTES TO CALM YOUR NERVES IN A CRISIS?

5 HAVE YOU EVER FELT RELIEF ON LIGHTING UP A CIGARETTE?

6 HAVE YOU EVER HAD A CIGARETTE IMMEDIATELY AFTER GETTING OUT OF BED IN THE MORNING?

7 HAVE YOU EVER SAID THAT YOU WERE ADDICTED TO SMOKING?

8 DO YOU USUALLY EAT A LOT MORE WHEN YOU QUIT SMOKING?

9 DO YOU EXPERIENCE A FEELING OF ‘HOLLOWNESS’ IN YOUR CHEST IF YOU HAVEN’T SMOKED FOR A WHILE?

10 DOES THE THOUGHT OF STOPPING SMOKING SOMETIMES SCARE YOU?

11 DO YOU EVER DOUBT YOUR ABILITY TO STAY STOPPED?

12 HAVE YOU EVER STOPPED BEFORE, ONLY TO LET THAT LITTLE ‘VOICE’
TALK YOU INTO SMOKING AGAIN?

13 DO YOU FEEL BAD ABOUT BEING A SMOKER?

14 DO YOU EVER SMOKE TO HELP YOU CONCENTRATE?

15 HAVE YOU EVER USED HELP TO TRY AND STOP SMOKING?
(Hypnotism, books, nicotine gum, patches etc.)

Now count the total number of times you answered yes.

Finished? Ok then, now, I’m not going to tell you that if you answered “yes” to so many questions then you are a nicotine addict and if you answered “no” to so many then you are not. This questionnaire is designed to be an awareness exercise to enable you to realise (if you don’t already) that you are an addict. To illustrate this point, take question 15 alone - who other than someone who had a real problem stopping would need to buy a book to help them? In fact, who would answer yes to even one of these questions if they didn’t fall into the category nicotine addict’. You made an unconscious admission of your addiction as soon as you decided to try this book. In practical terms, the more of these questions you answered “yes” to, the stronger and more ingrained your nicotine addiction is likely to be.

This next declaration is important. It is where you are going to acknowledge to yourself that you are an addict and that you are going to stop smoking.

When you can agree that you are an addict and that you are going to stop, then immediately sign the following declaration and move on to the next section. If you still have difficulty with the concept of being an addict then take the time to re-read the previous questionnaire and related matter, and consider your own case in considerable detail, and with an open mind.

It is important for you to see that using the above definition you really are addicted to nicotine and that an admission as such will close one of the doors that could well lead to your failure when the going gets a bit tough. If you don’t admit to your addiction you may find it all too easy to start smoking again. Sooner or later, through your little ‘voice’, you will tell yourself that you don’t really have a problem and, therefore, you can smoke now because you could easily stop any time you wanted to! Be aware that if you have told yourself this in the past, it hasn’t worked, because you are reading this book and must (presumably) still be a smoker!
Denial of your addiction is exactly what your little ‘voice’ wants and denial is simply setting yourself up for failure!

DECLARATION:

1 I am a nicotine addict.

2 I am going to stop smoking as soon as I finish this book.

Congratulations! Now that you have admitted that you are a nicotine addict, you are on the road to becoming an ex smoker, but there are a couple of things more that you need to know about the nature of your addiction:

NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO YOU WILL ALWAYS BE A NICOTINE ADDICT This may sound like an odd thing to be telling you in a book about overcoming addiction. However, it is of the utmost importance that you understand this concept otherwise relapse is waiting for you just around the corner.

Once you have acquired an addiction you cannot be cured of it. Two years from now, say, even if you have been totally smoke free for the whole two years, you might decide to have a smoke. Just the one of course, (yes its that little ‘voice’ again!) to celebrate say perhaps, the birth of your son. As soon as nicotine enters your body the whole addiction process which you have managed to put to sleep for two years, is suddenly reactivated. On finishing that cigarette you will find that two hours later you feel like having another one. Now the little ‘voice’ that had been lying more or less dormant for the last two years, save for a few token appearances at vulnerable or celebratory times, suddenly shakes itself awake, and in no time at all is going at full strength. The conscious / unconscious dialogue begins all over again:

U: “Well, I know I said I’d only have the one but it’s a really special occasion. I’ll smoke up until midnight tonight and then I’ll stop again.”

Yeah, right! This could happen after twenty, or forty years never mind two!
So what is the solution? Well actually the solution is quite simple. Within the first month or two after stopping, you will notice your little ‘voice’ has begun to quieten down. With every passing day the ‘voice’ will become not only less frequent, but also less intense. After these first couple of months, staying stopped will no longer be a problem that you need to make an strenuous effort to overcome, except, perhaps for the very odd occasion when you are feeling particularly tired, hungry, angry, happy, lonely, stressed or otherwise vulnerable. Even then the ‘voice’ will probably only make a small token appearance, but only

PROVIDED THAT YOU DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES ALLOW YOUR BODY TO INGEST NICOTINE.

Or, to put it another way, provided that you do not smoke. Not ever, not ‘just this one’, not a pipe, or a cigar, or a ‘joint’, or even a single draw of a low tar cigarette.
If nicotine gets into your system at all, you may well be heading straight back to square one. I realise that this sounds terribly daunting and may make you feel that you are about to engage in a lifelong and difficult battle.

In one sense you are going to be engaged in this battle for life, because as I mentioned earlier, there is no permanent cure for nicotine addiction. However, you can rest easy, because after you have succeeded in your initial battle with your little ‘voice’, and it becomes dormant, you will never really have any difficulty staying stopped. The worst you can expect is the occasional light pang, provided of course that you do not put any nicotine into your body in any shape or form.

Before we move on to the next section, let’s take a brief look at what you have covered so far. First of all you learned that most people suffer from one form of addiction or another and that there is no shame or weakness in being addicted to nicotine. You learned that denial is an integral part of your addiction and that it involves your unconscious mind trying to get you to smoke, in order that you don’t feel the pain of withdrawal. You also discovered that your denial doesn’t care about how it achieves its aim, and that it will create and feed invalid excuses to your conscious mind. You admitted that you were an addict and signed a declaration to that effect, and you agreed to stop smoking when you finish this book. You learned that you will always be an addict but that after a couple of months your addiction will cause you little or no problem, provided that you never let nicotine get into your body.