Stub Out The Habit
Quit Smoking Without Cravings Or Regrets
Jennifer Clare
Copyright 2011 by Jennifer Clare
Published by Thought Matters Publishing at Smashwords
This book is also available in print at most online retailers.
Names, characters, businesses, places and events herein are the product of the author’s fertile and over-active imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Art work by Ben Mastwyk ©2011
Cover design by Engel Creative
ISBN 978-0-9569953-0-8
All Rights Reserved.
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The Legal Bits
This book details the author's personal and clinical experiences and opinions about smoking cessation, hypnotherapy and neuro-linguistic programming.
The author and publisher make no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to this book or its contents. The author and publisher disclaim all such representations and warranties. In addition, the author and publisher do not represent or warrant that the information accessible via this book is accurate, complete or current.
The statements made about products and services are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any condition or disease. Please consult with your own physician or healthcare specialist regarding the suggestions and recommendations made in this book.
Except as specifically stated in this book, neither the author nor publisher will be liable for damages arising out of or in connection with the use of this book. This is a comprehensive limitation of liability that applies to all damages of any kind, including (without limitation) compensatory; direct, indirect or consequential damages; loss of data, income or profit; loss of or damage to property and claims of third parties.
You understand that this book is not intended as a substitute for consultation with a licensed healthcare practitioner, such as your physician. Before you begin any healthcare program, or change your lifestyle in any way, you will consult your physician or other licensed healthcare practitioner to ensure that you are in good health and that the exercises contained in this book will not harm you.
This book provides content related to topics of physical and/or mental health issues. As such, use of this book implies your acceptance of this disclaimer.
Stub Out The Habit
Quit Smoking Without Cravings Or Regrets
Jennifer Clare
Thank you to all the clients who trusted me to facilitate their hypnosis so they could Stub Out The Habit.
And thanks to all the students on the Stub Out The Habit Smoking Cessation Courses – articulating my work made the process even clearer.
Special thanks to Patricia Mackenzie for taking out all the superfluous exclamation marks, sos, buts, reallys, likes and other unnecessary words and punctuation I liberally sprinkled about. Any extra words that snuck back in are entirely my fault.
(A note about language: I grew up in the States, lived in the UK and moved to and from Australia. My version of English is a mixing pot. Please enjoy. And if the occasional spelling or usage jars, send me an email at www.stuboutthehabit.com so I can correct it for future editions.)
Finally, thanks to Steve for believing in me all the way.
You’re my lobster.
Jennifer Clare is a specialist smoking cessation hypnotherapist,
having helped many hundreds of people quit smoking in just one
session. She also teaches her signature method to other
practitioners.
Combining hypnosis, coaching, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, compassion and humour, she helps smokers discover who they are without their vice, making it easy for them to stub out the habit.
Jennifer smoked for many years herself, until her fingers turned yellow and she coughed up grey phlegm, and she knows how smokers think. A decade ago she quit, effortlessly, and she’s worked since then to help others stub out the habit.
Her qualifications include:
•Trained and certified hypnotherapist
•Master Practitioner of NLP
•Hypnosis trainer
•Therapeutic Coach and owner of Thought Matters
•Best speller, Mrs. Downie’s 5th grade class
Maya Veronica Churchill Fitzwilliams started smoking when she was
eleven years old on a dare from Bobby Shepton up the road. (It was
either smoke or get a purple nurple.) She coughed and spluttered and
tried not to let him see her cry.
And then to prove how tough she really was, she became a full-time smoker by the age of 16. (Bobby Shepton ended up serving three years for aggravated assault later on in his life, but that’s another story.)
She spent countless years and untold amounts of money trying to figure out the best way to quit, with very limited success, until a serendipitous series of events sent the right information her way. She’s been a non-smoker ever since.
How This Book Works (Otherwise known as the Table of Contents)
In addition to the information about the authors, above, and the Ten Ways To Read This Book, below, this book contains three sections, working together to give you all the skills you need to stub out the habit once and for all, without cravings or regrets.
Maya’s journey through the pitfalls of quitting smoking, the various methods she tried and discarded, and how she achieved success in the end.
In the process of preparing herself to be a non-smoker, she stumbles across a coaching resource. Parts of it are interleafed in her diary, and the rest is here:
The REAL Reason For You To Quit Smoking
•How To Stub Out The Habit Once And For All
A guide to the inner workings of the mind and how to use your head to be completely successful as a non-smoker.
Conscious and Unconscious Minds
Use Your Head To Change Your Mind
Entertaining information about the history of tobacco, the health implications of smoking, what you’re actually inhaling and some other facts you may not have known. Or, perhaps, have wanted to know.
The Truth About YOUR Cigarettes
•A copy of all the written exercises may be downloaded from the resource page at www.stuboutthehabit.com
•That site also has additional resources and information for you, including a free stress release MP3. Come by for a visit!
1. Start at the beginning, do all the exercises to the best of your ability, give it 100% of your effort and attention and close the last page a non-smoker.
2. Skip around and read all the interesting bits first, then go back and start at the beginning and follow the exercises.
3. Start a support group and get a half-dozen of your friends to read the book with you so you can all do the exercises together.
4. Flick through the book reading a little here and there, decide you don’t want to do the exercises and put the book down.
5. Read the first chapter and put the book under your pillow at night, hoping your unconscious mind will take it all in and quit smoking for you without having to go to any effort at all.
6. Pick up the book once or twice, decide it’s all too much for you and put it in the Too Hard Basket. Give up on yourself without even trying.
7. Set the book on fire and use it to light a cigarette. Pray that works.
8. Get someone to tie you to a kitchen chair and read you the book from cover to cover while chain-smoking and putting the butts out in plates of food.
9. Keep trying patches and gum and electric cigarettes and pills and cold turkey with limited success, without addressing the deeper issues of why you smoke.
10. Hire someone else to quit for you.
Dear Diary –
My name is Maya Veronica Churchill Fitzwilliams, and I am disgusting.
I have yellowing teeth, I smell, I have no self-control or willpower and I’m a weak pathetic excuse for a human being.
Because I’m a smoker.
I’m writing this diary because I hope to be able to make sense of this whole smoking habit – and GET OVER IT ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!
There. I said it! I think part of me is really ready this time.
(Are you wondering about my name? It’s a mouthful! Maya because my mum read a book while she was pregnant and liked the character’s name. Veronica after my grandmother. Churchill because my Dad said I looked like the old Prime Minster when I was born, and Fitzwilliams because that’s our family’s name.)
Unfortunately our family has a long-standing tradition. We’re all smokers. Mum did it, Dad did it, all my aunties and uncles and cousins smoked.
Everyone.
Grampie died of emphysema before I was born, Grandma Lulu died of lung cancer and Uncle Weston had such bad circulation problems they amputated him bit by bit.
I really don’t want to die.
Mum quit when she found out she was pregnant with me. Dad stopped when Grandma Lulu died, and one of the cousins bought a hypnosis cassette tape that helped him quit. The rest of us still smoke.
When I think of dying I imagine going to sleep, tucking the sheets up to my chin and passing softly in the night. Not choking and gasping and wheezing in a hospital, attached to pumps and wires like Grandma Lulu or chopped up toe by toe like Uncle Weston.
I have got to do something about this disgusting habit RIGHT NOW.
This has been the worst year of my life so far, and I am smoking more than ever.
I blame The Weevil.
I didn’t really smoke that much – just on the weekends if I was out with friends and a couple here or there throughout the week – less than a pack a day - until I got involved with him. Since he smoked, I did it more. We shared some nice times out on the deck, just smoking and chatting.
Before I knew it I was a pack-a-day smoker and it’s been the same ever since.
Things seemed to be going along fine in the relationship – we were even talking around the M word, although he hadn’t formally proposed. Yet.
I feel like such an idiot now. I thought I knew exactly how my life was going to turn out. I had the dress picked, the flowers decided on, the guest list mapped out – even the cake! I had a big file all prepared to help with planning THE BIG DAY. As soon as he actually asked me, I was ready to hit the ground running with the preparations!
So when he started working longer hours I assumed it was to make the money to pay for the ring. And when he wanted to spend more weekend time with his friends I was fine about it – after all, these were his last bachelor days!
I should have gotten suspicious when he joined the gym, started drinking protein shakes and spent more time in front of the mirror than I did. I thought he was doing it all for the wedding photos. Or the honeymoon. Silly me!
He even went to a hypnotherapist to quit smoking. One session, and he was done. But it turned him into an anti-smoking crusader – he was always commenting on my yellow fingers or the smell in my hair and asking me to go brush my teeth whenever I came near him.
He even stopped wanting to sleep with me unless I’d been pretty much boiled in essential oils.
I put it all down to pre-proposal jitters. I figured he was just waiting to pop the question until everything was absolutely perfect.
But every conversation seemed to roll around to the topic of my smoking. He couldn’t understand why I didn’t just quit the way he had. He had the nerve to tell me that I was weak-willed! That made me determined to quit and prove him wrong, but it’s been so difficult...
I even went to see his hypnotherapist, but it was too weird for me.
I didn’t like the way she looked at me. And she asked a lot of really personal questions about me and my relationship with The Weevil. She said it was important to know my background as a smoker so she could help me be successful, but I thought she was way too nosy.
I didn’t trust her, so the hypnosis didn’t work very well. I heard every word, I didn’t feel hypnotised, and when she said I’d be a non-smoker for the rest of my life my first thought was ‘yeah, right’.
And I lit up as soon as I left her office.
I didn’t have the heart to tell The Weevil it hadn’t worked. He put so much faith in that woman! So I hid my cigarettes away and bought another purse-sized perfume spray and more breath mints so I’d be able to cover my tracks.
Not that it helped – he has a nose like a bloodhound. Before long he caught me smoking, and we argued yet again. This time he told me I was spineless because I’d rather be addicted to cigarettes than be in control of my own life.
Ouch!
***
Dear Diary –
A week later The Weevil told me We Needed To Talk. There Was Nothing Wrong With Me. It was All About Him. He Needed Space. Time To Think and Sort Things Out.
And he packed a bag and left on a week-long work conference.
I might not have figured anything out at all, except that the bath overflowed one night (I was out on the deck having a cigarette at the time…) and I needed to call him to find out about the insurance policy.
But when I phoned the hotel at the conference centre, he wasn’t registered. And when I called his office, they said he was on holiday.
Being a calm, rational, logical woman, I immediately started chain-smoking, swilling wine and crying uncontrollably.
Then I got suspicious - I went through his suit pockets and his underwear drawer and checked the phone bills. I found new silk boxers, some aftershave I didn’t recognise and a pair of dodgy pink fluffy handcuffs he’d never used with me. Plus there were two receipts for dinners I hadn’t eaten, one for a bunch of flowers and one hundred and twenty-seven phone calls to the hypnotherapist.
That’s a lot of follow-up for one hypnosis session!
I called her office, only to be told that she was on annual leave.
Arithmetic was never my strongest subject, but even I could figure out this equation:
1 + 1 = Two-Timed!
Nasty pinching Weevil.
I packed all his stuff up in bags and sent it by cab to his mother.
Now it’s six weeks later and I haven’t heard a peep. I’m ready to move on.
Tomorrow is my birthday and I am determined to change. A new year, a new me. I shall find my real Prince Charming and avoid all Weevils. I shall stop smoking, join a gym, eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, drink only water and be a paragon of virtue.
I hope.
***
Dear Diary –
Happy birthday to me!!
I woke up this morning all excited to quit smoking and as I lay there in bed thinking about my life I realised I’d lit up without even thinking. Of course when I noticed what I’d done I immediately stubbed it out – after all I am starting on a whole new way of life today. I’m sure that little blip didn’t make a difference – and it was my very last one ever.
What a great birthday present to myself!!
…later…
Oh, dear. I don’t feel so good. I’m anxious and snappy and even when people wish me Happy Birthday I feel like biting their heads off. This can’t be right. I am crawling the walls. All I can think about is having a cigarette. Maybe I should just have one to take the edge off – I can gradually cut down until I quit altogether. Maybe it was too much to want to stop cold turkey and I should just taper off instead…
…There. I had one and I feel much better. Obviously I am very addicted and my body needs a regular dose of nicotine for me to feel normal.
Perhaps I shall just limit myself to six a day. That should be fine.
***
Dear Diary –
Who was I kidding????
I went out to Bar Humbug with friends last night and we had a couple of cocktails and then some wine with dinner and then when everyone trooped outside of the restaurant to smoke I went too and before I knew it I was smoking more than my allotment
and then we went to a club and I must have smoked an entire pack over the course of the night.
I feel like a hippo is sitting on my chest.
This is not a good feeling. I must do better.
Today I will limit myself to just six and I’ll be that much closer to quitting.
***
Dear Diary –
It’s not going as well as I hoped this week. First the girls from the office wanted to go out for birthday drinks. Then I had dinner planned with my best friend Sharon Dipity (we call her that because she has a knack for being in the right place at the right time. Serendipity, get it?). Then my boss insisted that I get an extra month’s worth of paperwork done and a massive report written, so it’s been lots of stress and late nights and coffee and cigarettes.
I know, I know, stress isn’t an excuse, and there isn’t ever going to be a perfect time to quit. But still. How can I focus on quitting when I have so much to do??
Maybe I should switch to lower tar cigarettes while I’m weaning myself off them. That might work.
***
Dear Diary –
Here I am once again, smoking, sucking on a low-tar poor excuse for a cigarette, feeling horrible.
The elevator was out of order at work today and I had to climb five measly sets of stairs. At the top I was wheezing like Grandma Lulu.
My body is trying to tell me something. Why don’t I listen????!!!
This is my last weekend as a smoker. Starting Monday morning I am going on a detox, cleaning up my life and saying goodbye to that old habit once and for all.
This is just stupid.
Here are some ideas I had to make it easier:
•Lock self in tower in middle of nowhere. Throw key out window
•Duct tape mouth closed
•Wear oven mitts on both hands at all times
•Get a dental mirror and closely inspect yellowing teeth
•Dip all cigarettes in lighter fluid. Fear burning eyebrows off
•Move to jungle. Find tribe who doesn’t smoke and join them
•Get loads of lovely brochures from travel agent. Plan holiday to take with money usually spent on cigarettes
Look at graphic pictures of cancer on internet
•Make recording of Mr. Greeves next door coughing up his lungs every morning and use it as my ringtone
***
Dear Diary –
Well, that went well!!
I’ve been feeling so ashamed of myself that I haven’t even wanted to write in you.
That’s stupid, because it’s only by getting to the bottom of this dumb, destructive habit I’ll be able to change it.
Okay, so here’s what’s been going on:
I was going to have one last hurrah before the big Monday Of Being A Non-Smoker and starting my detox. Went out clubbing Saturday and same old story – drank too much, let my guard down and smoked like a fiend. Caught myself tearing the filters off those low-tar cigarettes. Wasn’t very lady-like when I was spitting shreds of tobacco!!
(Worst of all – I called The Weevil at 3 a.m. all drunk and weepy and sort of hoping he’d be remorseful and apologetic and decide to come back to me. SHE-WEEVIL answered! I quickly hung up without saying anything, but I felt utterly humiliated.)
Tomorrow everything changes. For real, this time. Plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, juices, vitamins and healthy goodness. No sugar, alcohol, coffee, cigarettes or chips. I shall practice yoga and go for walks, and within a few short days my liver will be thanking me and I will have a beatific inner glow of smug self-satisfaction.
Bring it on!!!
***
Dear Diary –
I had such good intentions about my detox and quitting plan! I started out well, waking up early and doing some yoga before my shower. Had a lovely juice for breakfast and packed a simple salad for lunch.
But by ten o’clock I was starving, and by lunchtime I had a splitting headache from caffeine withdrawal and I was getting hungrier and hungrier and crankier and crankier until I couldn’t stand it, so as soon as I got home I gave in and smoked.
And then I stayed out in the back garden and smoked and smoked and smoked and cried and cried and cried, and felt completely sorry for myself and worthless and stupid and like a total waste of a human being.
(And to add insult to injury I ate an entire pepperoni pizza and a tub of fudge chocolate chip ice cream, just for good measure. Some detox!)
WHERE IS MY SELF-CONTROL?????!!!!!
Needless to say I’m smoking as much as I ever did.
This is NOT GOOD.
I’m going to sit down and smoke an ENTIRE PACK. Just chain-smoke them so I get so disgusted and sick I’ll never even want to LOOK at another cigarette.
Here I go. Wish me luck…
***
Dear Diary –
I have been sick in bed for three days. I cannot believe I did that to myself!
I smoked all those cigarettes, and by the last one I could barely force myself to inhale. My head was pounding, I was sweating, and I was wretchedly sick to my stomach.
It was horrible.
All the vomiting made my throat sore, and my chest hurt from all the smoke and my skin was grey with all the toxins – and then to top it all off I came down with a streaming head cold and I’ve been coughing up what’s left of my lungs. It's so unfair!
Although it’s probably just my body trying to stop being a toxic waste dump.
My throat still feels like someone has been writing inside it with a flame-thrower. And you don’t want to know what I cough up.
But has that put me off? Oh, no. The first time I was able to crawl out of bed I was back in the garden, puffing away.
I give up. Obviously I can’t do this on my own.
Tomorrow I’m going to buy some patches.
I am really really angry at myself.
And it doesn’t help that I’ve been receiving post for The Weevil – apparently he’s two months behind in his car payment, but he got invited to a movie premiere and it should have been ME on the red carpet with him, not that nasty, head-shrinking, man-stealing, thief of a WEEVILETTE.
Waah!
***
Dear Diary –
I did it – I bought some patches and slapped one on my arm and felt really smug and self-satisfied when I waltzed into work. I even told the receptionist what I was doing, because she swears by the patches. Amazingly she hasn’t smoked in six months, and she said it was easy.
I was looking forward to that. Easy sounded good.
But by lunchtime I was feeling light-headed and dizzy, and my arm was very itchy. I wasn’t smoking, though, but only because I didn’t feel well.
I soldiered on. The first day is always the worst.
The itching got worse and worse though, and when I got home and changed my clothes I was horrified to see my whole arm was red and blotchy and starting to weep where I’d scratched the skin away.
FAR OUT, BRUSSELS SPROUT!!
It really scared me!
I took the patch off and had a smoke to calm my nerves.
I thought maybe it was a reaction to my new moisturiser or my perfume, so I took a shower and put a fresh patch on my back.
That night I had terrible nightmares of maggots squiggling around on me, being crushed by rocks, being eaten by ants and other horrible scenarios. I must have woken up about 20 times in the night, until I got so scared I didn’t even want to go back to sleep.
And I couldn’t get comfortable, no matter how I wiggled. My back ached and I was itchy everywhere. And when I looked in the mirror, the area around the patch was as nasty-looking as my arm.
That is not right.
I called the number on the patch box and they said I should go to the doctor immediately. They said it might be a reaction to the nicotine.
My doctor says it’s more likely a reaction to the adhesive and I should just quit smoking. WITHOUT the patches, naturally!
I agree. But HOW?????!!!!!!!!
***
Dear Diary –
Okay. After the whole nicotine patch debacle I have decided on a new approach. I’m going to try the nicotine gum. Maybe I was using too strong a patch and at least this way I can control how much I’m taking in. Because if the advertising is right and it’s just an addiction to nicotine that’s making me have those cravings, a little dose whenever I feel the need should help to break up the addiction.
I hope.
***
Dear Diary –
Waaah! I really tried! Honestly, I gave it my best shot!
First Bosszilla pulled me aside and asked me to stop chewing gum in the office. She said I looked like a cow chewing its cud and she could hear me snapping and gnawing from her office.
So I furiously chewed three pieces on my lunch break, hoping to get enough nicotine into my system to last through the rest of the day.
Nicotine gum tastes horrible. And they don’t tell you that it makes you burp all the time. My mouth got really dry, too, so I kept going to the water cooler. That meant I spent most of the afternoon in the ladies…and that didn’t impress Bosszilla much, either.
Burping, peeing, feeling nauseous and with a jaw-ache from all the gum-chewing.
And I still have horrible nightmares from the nicotine. Every night.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME????
I am a FREAK!!!!
***
Dear Diary –
Life is all about change, isn’t it? Just when I thought I was going down one pathway (True Love/Marriage/Babies/Happy Ever After), The Weevil ran out on me and everything changed.
I lived with him for so long it's been a shock to my system (and
my finances!) to suddenly be on my own again.
But I’m determined.
I. WILL. THRIVE.
I’ve put myself on a strict budget. No new shoes until Easter. No more than one latte a day. And I’ve asked Sharon Dipity to move in with me. It makes sense for both of us.
I’ve even been reading financial and business columns for budget and savings tips - amazing what you can pick up.
And in Frou-Frou Magazine this month was this article about the cost of smoking. It’s all adding up!
Have you ever sat down and calculated how much money you spend on your smoking habit over the course of a year?
Even if saving money isn’t one of your big reasons to become a non-smoker, do it – you’ll be surprised at the cost!
Now think about that money. It’s coming out of your pocket month after month, year after year.
What else could you spend it on? For example, imagine the
holiday you could have with that lump sum.
And how much money are you really paying for those cigarettes? Did you know that it only costs tobacco companies about ten cents to make twenty cigarettes? Ten cents! That includes all labour costs, the cost of the tobacco, packaging and advertising, as well as the factory, machines, and transport from the factory to the shop.
The rest of the cost of your packet of cigarettes supports the government in extra tax revenue.
And what about all the additional money the habit costs you? You have to buy lighters. Gum. Breath mints. Teeth whiteners. Cologne or perfume to cover the smell.
Life isn’t cheap for smokers. They lose time at work because they tend to be sick more often than non-smokers. There are medical costs. Hospital stays. Higher insurance premiums.
A recent Australian study found that the average smoker spent over $300,000 in their lifetime.
Wouldn’t you prefer to have that money in your pocket?
I admit I was shocked when I did the sums!
***
Dear Diary –
Sharon Dipity has moved in and so far it’s been perfect. No stress, no mess. We might even join a gym together. I opened up a separate savings account to put aside my smoking money for a holiday to the Caribbean. Me, sun, sand. Sounds, looks and feels like a great idea!
Bosszilla has been coming down on me like a ton of bricks, but she’s sneaky and devious, so maybe in her perverse twisted way she’s pushing me harder than anyone else because she’s grooming me for a big promotion. And a raise!
Either that or she’s secretly a werewolf. I caught her tweezing chin hairs at her desk the other day.
I’m even getting over The Weevil. Not that there was so much to get over, really – once I realized how badly he had treated me. I like being able to go out with my friends without asking permission!
So everything in my life is going well. Except the smoking thing.
I give up. I honestly don’t know what to do.
My doctor offered to write me a prescription for the anti-smoking drugs, but she said they were developed as anti-depressants and can have lots of side effects and I don’t want to take drugs like that.
I’m not depressed. I’m just a pathetic wimpy loser.
Wanna smoke? I’m going outside to feed my pathetic wimpy loser habit.
Hmph.
***
Dear Diary –
Weird. I usually smoke out on my back deck. (The theory is that I don’t want my lovely clean home to stink like an ashtray, but then of course I come inside reeking of smoke and it’s on all my clothes and in my hair so I suspect everything is pretty smelly anyway.)
Anyway, I was out there smoking and checking emails. I subscribe to a daily inspirational quote site, and what they sent today seemed written just for me! Here’s what it said:
I
believe that you control your destiny,
that you can be what you
want to be.
You can also stop and say,
'No, I won't do it, I
won't behave this way anymore’.
– Leo Buscaglia, motivational speaker
That really struck home.