Re: Quittin Dippin. Tips or Tricks??
Step 1: stop buying that crap
Step 2: substitute the habit
Step 3: eliminate the subbed habit
Its easier to quit chewing Big Red than to quit Skoal. Every time you want a smoke, or a dip, get a stick of gum out of the pack. If you want to dip 20 times, chew 20 sticks of gum.
After about 3 weeks(21 days) the <span style="font-weight: bold">nicotine</span> will have left your system. This chemical is responsible for the physical side of the addiction. As long as it is in your system you will feel 'relaxed' or whatever excuse your brain makes up to smoke/dip. The edgy, stressed out feeling you get when you crave is actually your body's reaction to the nicotine, a withdrawal symptom. So in context, the cigarettes and dip do not make you "relax" or "take the edge off". You are beginning to feel the withdrawal symptoms and are starting to bug out, so you need to reinoculate yourself with a new dose of Nicotine to tell your body to stfu for another 15 minutes. <span style="font-weight: bold">As long as you have nicotine in your system, you will continue to feel the withdrawal effects.</span> You have to completely eliminate your nicotine intake, and then after 3 weeks the <span style="font-style: italic">physical dependance will stop</span>.
The mental dependance (habit) comes from 2 things, routine and mouth efficacy. Its like a nervous mannerism or behavior, to relax you like putting things in your mouth and between your fingers. (Saving the innuendo for another day) <span style="font-style: italic">You have ritualized your smoking or dipping habit to coincide with the tasks and chores of your daily life. </span>
Tell me if this is true, cig smokers or dippers:
1. Wake up and have a smoke.
2. Pour a cup of coffee and have a smoke.
3. Leave the house for work or whatever, and have a smoke.
4. Eat a meal, breakfast, brunch or lunch, and have a smoke.
5. Arrive to work, or whatever, and have a smoke.
6. Go on your break, or finish a random task, and have a smoke.
7. Commute, or driving somewhere, you have a smoke.
8. After you get home, but before you watch TV, have a smoke.
9. Bored after a lapse of 15-25 minutes, you have a smoke.
10. Eat dinner, afterwards you have a smoke.
11. <span style="font-style: italic">Have a beer, you smoke twice as much.</span>
12. Settle down for the night, you have a smoke before bed.
You should notice, for every little thing you do throughout the day, you have made it a time to smoke or dip. It is a ritualized behavior pattern. You have to replace that ritual with one that doesn't smell like ass, affect your personal health, the health of those in your immediate surroundings, etc. This is why I recommend a big pack of chewing gum. I used Big Red to replace the 2 pack a day Marlboro Reds I smoked for 10 years. A pack of Big Red probably runs about a dollar, compare that price to a can of Skoal or a pack of Newports. Each pack has a good 20 or 50 individually packaged pieces of gum. The ritual of removing a stick of gum from the package, discarding the wrapper, and chewing up the stick is enough mouth efficacy to replace the joy of flicking ashes off a cigarette and mashing the filter between your lips. Big Red has a strong cinnamon flavor, it almost burns your tongue and throat in the manner a cig or pinch would. It helps to psyche yourself out. The stick will lose flavor quick--if you still feel like smoking chew another piece. Eventually you will get sick of cinnamon, and if you vigilantly chew a stick everytime you want a smoke or dip, your brain will gradually associate the flavor and habit of chewing a stick of gum with the mental desire to smoke. Since chewing gum isn't addictive, you will drop that habit pretty quick.
Final tips:
Forget "quitting smoking aids", half of them are marketed by tobacco companies anyway, they want you to keep buying tobacco products. Just becuase you quit smoking, doesn't mean you cant still be their customer. They want you to replace the cigarrette habit with patches, nicorette, whatever they can to keep nicotine in your system. Get the nicotine out of your system, (3 weeks to metabolize) and the rest is easy.
Stay the HELL away from alcohol. Nicotine and Alcohol are best friends. They go hand in hand. Alcohol by itself will lower your inhibitions and judgement and make you more likely to smoke. Smoking has a similar, although less prevalent effect on drinking habits. However the synergistic use of these carcinogens is very bad for your liver and a lifetime of abuse will greatly increase your risk of cardiovascular disease, Hepatitis, and Cirrhosis.
Think of your personal image: Girls don't like guys that have yellow nicotine stained fingers, yellow nicotine stained teeth, breath, hair, hands, and clothes that smell like an ashtray. No decent girl will want to get intimate with an ash tray.
Think of your personal health: Lung cancer SUCKS. Emphysema SUCKS. Throat, tongue, mouth, face cancer SUCKS. Smoking KILLS your stamina and endurance. You used to be able to run a mile and not get winded. I challenge you to run ONE lap now. Physical fitness is important, its directly tied to your personal health and quality of life. Eliminate the negative behaviors and bad habits in your life and replace them with constructive activities. Supplement the lifestyle change however you can. Quitting cigs or dips won't help much if you still hang out at the bar with all your drinking buddies.
out..