the time she quit, Koenigsburg-Roshon was so angry at her cigarettes that she didn’t grieve their loss. But others do feel sad, and a bit lonely, when they leave behind what has been a lifelong companion. If you do think of your cigarettes as a friend, consider writing a “Dear John” letter to them when you quit. For example: “You’re spending all my money, and you’re trying to kill me. I need to let you go.”
Fear: I’m going to sacrifice my social life
At 20, Andrew Van Ness worried that if he quit smoking, his college friends wouldn’t want to hang out with him as much. “I felt like things wouldn’t be the same, like I would be an outsider,” he says. Eventually, alarmed by a smoking-related lung infection, he decided that friendships could be repaired later but he might not have the same opportunity with his lungs. “I decided to let the cards fall where they may and focus on quitting. I figured: If you’re friends with someone, they’re still going to make time for you whether you’re smoking or not.”
After he quit, Van Ness discovered the difference between acquaintances and friends. “Quitting smoking helped me find out which friends were committed to being by my side,” he says, “and it weeded out the people who were just hanging out with me because it was convenient for them.”
Your friends will want you to succeed at quitting, because that’s what friends do.
Fear: I’ll lose my identity
A manufacturing engineer with a rebellious streak, Sheila Woods always enjoyed bonding with other smokers. “Everyone else may look at us as if we’re idiots who don’t know we’re killing ourselves,” says Woods, 50, who lives in Rockford, Michigan, “but we look at each other with a deeper knowledge of who we are: addicts. We know that whether we’re a bank president or a custodian, we are all in the same boat.” Woods would even get a small thrill from the dirty looks nonsmokers would throw her way. “I was within my legal rights to smoke. Because of the way society treats smokers, I had to defend myself over and over, and when you do that you tend to become a bit defensive. Smoking was so much of who I was.”
At age 49, tired of feeling ruled by cigarettes, Woods decided she wanted out of the club. Yet for a long time after she quit, she wanted to tell smokers she was still one of them. “I wasn’t ready to let go of that yet,” recalls Woods, who smoked for 33 years. “I wanted to say, ‘Hey, don’t worry about it. A year ago, I’d have been right there with you.’ ”
Eventually, she did lose the instinct to bond with smokers. Now, she says, her identity as a smoker is gone. “I don’t miss the smoking or the bonding at all. I am who I always was, only now I don’t annoy people.”
Being a smoker may have once felt like a way to identify yourself as someone who marches to a different beat and who is unrestrained by social pressures to be “good” all the time. But as you consider your identity, challenge yourself to prioritize other aspects of the person you are, keeping in mind that everyone deserves to be healthy. In addition to being a smoker, aren’t you also a loyal friend, a hard worker, a loving aunt, a doting grandparent, a dog lover, a banjo picker, a car enthusiast, or an expert bridge player? Look at the bigger picture. Yes, you happen to smoke, but that doesn’t mean your self-definition needs to include cigarettes. Maybe you took up smoking because back then it was the cool thing to do. But now you’re cool in other ways. Your cigarettes don’t define you.
Leaping Into the Void
Whether you’re afraid of failing or suffering, of losing your social life or your identity, you have something in common with your fellow smokers who are about to quit: a fear of the unknown. Deep down, what may scare you most is feeling that without cigarettes, you won’t be able to function, to feel normal, to feel like yourself. Fair enough! Quitting smoking can be scary. But keep in mind that at one point in life you were a nonsmoker. You can be one again. As humans we have an amazing ability to adapt. It’s only a matter of time before you learn how to settle into, and appreciate, your life as a nonsmoker. You won’t just function, you will thrive. You will feel better than normal. You will be a stronger, healthier, happier version of yourself, and you will be awed by your own power.
QUIT TIP
“Motivation to quit and readiness to quit are important, but not as important as believing that you can quit and following through with a plan.”
— Michael Martin, Quit Coach
4 http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e4439
• Why you still smoke: letting your “little devil” speak
• Quitting for yourself, not for your family or doctor
• Exploring the values you hold dearest
• Your devil versus your angel: the final showdown
One morning Cheryl Procter-Rogers phoned a girlfriend, and a gravelly male voice answered. Startled, Procter-Rogers said, “Sorry, I have the wrong number.”
“Hey, girl, this is me!” the voice replied.
After clearing her throat, Procter-Rogers’s friend, a longtime smoker, sounded like herself again. But in that moment, Procter-Rogers, a 25-year, pack-a-day smoker, decided to quit.
“The sound of her voice shook me to my core,” recalls Procter-Rogers, a Chicago public-relations professional who was 38 at the time. “It was like someone on a ventilator.” Her decision wasn’t easy — she loved the minty flavor of menthol on her tongue and enjoyed smoke breaks with her friends at work and church. But it was final. “I thought, I’m not going out like that. I’m done.”
On your journey to becoming tobacco-free, nothing will serve you better than simply making up your mind that you will never smoke again. Medication will help. Planning is critical. Encouragement from friends will go a long way. But what will steel you through temptation, what will stop you from caving when a buddy offers you “just one,” is being able to say, with conviction, I’m done. Your decision to quit is your paddle in a canoe. It’s what will propel you forward and give you something to hang on to when the waters get rough.
What if you don’t feel ready to commit? What if, instead of I’m done, you’re thinking, I know I should quit, but darn, I love my cigarettes. Or I want to quit, but it’s too hard. That’s okay. Really! You can decide to quit even if you still enjoy cigarettes or fear failure or can’t yet imagine yourself as a nonsmoker. Commitment is only a first step, but it’s the crucial one that sets the course for all the steps to follow. It’s possible — in fact, it’s human — to take a vow while still harboring doubts.
