Congratulations! You’ve decided to quit smoking. Let’s make this desire a reality! We know if it were easy to stop smoking, then you wouldn’t need this book. But it is not easy. Many ex-smokers have claimed that stopping was one of the hardest things they ever had to do! So let’s do it right. Let’s accomplish this goal once and for all.

Quitting Is a Process

Recognize that quitting is not so much an event as it is a process. In other words, smoking cessation is not something that “takes place” and then is over. “Sure,” you might say, “one minute you have a cigarette and the next minute you don’t.” But the process of stop-ping-and then, more importantly, remaining it nonsmoker-is continuous. To be successful, you will have to consciously work on this process for a long, long time. This is not meant to scare you; rather, it’s meant to prepare you. If you really and truly want to quit smoking, you need to know exactly what you are facing. You need to prepare yourself as best you can for any obstacle you may encounter along the way. You can gain from your experience and the experiences of others as you begin to quit smoking.

How to Begin

Start by looking at where you are. Why are you reading this book? Was it your choice to buy it? Or was it given to you by someone who has been pressuring you to quit? When would you like to be a non-smoker? Are you thinking of quitting within the next six months? Would you like to quit during the next thirty days? Have you tried to quit before? What is the longest period that you have stayed away from cigarettes? These important questions provide some insight into your rela tionship with cigarettes. (Yes, breaking up is hard to do!)

The Four Stages Of Quitting

The process of smoking cessation has been researched extensively. From tine to time, we will refer to some of these studies. We are not trying to bore you. We are trying to present you with the latest conclusions drawn by experts who are (almost) as interested in your being successful at quitting as you are. The process of giving up smoking can best.be outlined as four stages: pre-contemplation, contemplation, action, and maintenance. Many smokers go through these stages a number of times. Your ultimate goal is to go through the four stages and successfully remain in the maintenance stage.

Let’s discuss these four stages in more detail.

First Stage: Pre-Contemplation

Remember when you were not really thinking about quitting? You may even have been annoyed by suggestions that you should quit. When you were feeling like this, you were actually in the first stage. At this point, you did not have any conscious plans to quit within the next six months. In fact, in this stage, you may have been actively resistant to quitting. Pleas from your family and friends went unheeded and may have made you hostile. Doctors may have advised you to stop, but this advice was rejected or sidestepped. Information about the harms of smoking was avoided or ignored. The pre-contemplation stage could also be appropriately called the avoidance or denial stage.

Second Stage: Contemplation

The second stage is called contemplation. In this stage, you become willing to contemplate, or consider, the idea of smoking cessation. You have become concerned about your health and are worried about the unhealthy side effects of smoking. But to legiti-mately be in this stage, you must seriously be considering quitting within the next six months.

The contemplation stage is a critically important time. It is now that you decide whether to go on to the next stage of quitting or to continue smoking, in some cases even returning to the pre-contemplation stage. Once the decision is made, many smokers forge ahead to attempt quitting because they do not want to lose their momentum. Although this may work for a few smokers, most benefit from pausing in the contemplation stage. Why? Because you really need to prepare yourself for success. If your momentum is so fleeting that you believe you must move ahead or lose your nerve, then you are probably not really ready to quit. Your success is likely to be short-lived.

Why is it so important to pause in the contemplation stage? No one would attempt a marathon and expect to finish unless he or she had adequately prepared. The challenge of quitting smoking
is no different. Now is the time to learn everything you can about quitting cigarettes in order to maximize your chances of success.

Third Stage: Action

This is the stage during which you act on your decision to quit. What does this mean? During the action stage, you start the actual behavioral process of quitting, or at least you structively prepare for it. In this stage, you set a specific date to quit and select the specific smoking-cessation method. All your preparation has been completed and you know how, when, and what you are going to do. This is the critical transitional stage, when you change from a smoker to an ex-smoker.

Fourth Stage: Maintenance

You’ve taken the “plunge.” You’ve stopped smoking. But you want to remain an ex-smoker, right? That is why the fourth stage, called maintenance, is the most important one. During this stage, you want to maintain your status as an ex-smoker and avoid a relapse into the old familiar behavior of smoking.

This is also the time when you must fend off the cravings, urges, and temptations, and maintain your abstinence.

If you are completely successful, the maintenance stage is the last one. Your ultimate goal is to stay in this stage for the rest of your life and never smoke again. That is why most people feel that this is the most difficult stage.

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