If you have relapses, you should consider sticking to your commitment to quit. You should do an immediate re-start, to get right back on track. You have invested considerable time and effort in your success thus far. You may not have finished your plan, but you have made a good start! Don’t give up now! After all, your time off cigarettes has already cleared much of the nicotine out of your system. You’ve survived the worst days of nicotine withdrawal. And you’ve already had some good practice in coping with smoking triggers and in using creative alternatives to give your substitutes for cigarettes when you get the urge to light up.

Fast Way to Re-Quit!

Every cigarette you don’t smoke, every time you say, “No!” is a small victory. Every small victory helps you beat your old smoking habit. Practice makes perfect. If you slipped up, it means you didn’t quite handle a temptation you faced. It doesn’t mean that you are a failure or that you are addicted and can’t quit.

        So before you go any further, add up your victories:

·        On a calendar, check off the days you went without cigarettes.

·        Record the days on which you smoked one, two, or more cigarettes.

·        Give the reason why you smoked.

·        Write down what steps you could have taken that might have helped you to avoid smoking in that situation.

The goal is to pinpoint what went wrong each time you slipped and had a cigarette. Forget guilt and blame. Instead, focus on what caused the slips and what you will do differently next time. For example, you may find that your slips occurred only in the evening when you were home relaxing and watching television. An alternative can be that you have some substitutes ready while watching television in the evening, perhaps busy work or some hobby you can do at the same time, or perhaps some reasonably healthy snacks.

Long-term, successful ex-smokers almost never puff. Virtually all of them feel that it’s easier to have none, than one.

Mental Preparation.

When you first decided to quit smoking, you began the process of learning to be a nonsmoker. You thought about the benefits smoking had offered you (such as stress relief, weight control, social acceptance). You also became aware of the negatives (the health risks, the expense, the loss of control over your life). Then you identified alternative activities you could use to replace smoking in your life. The next step was to begin practicing those alternatives.

You’ve had some practice over the past few weeks, but you’re still learning. This learning stage will continue until you get really good at nonsmoking. That usually takes at least several weeks, but often two or three months. So if you’ve stumbled recently, it doesn’t mean you can’t accomplish your goal. It simply means you will have to continue in the intensive learning stage for at least another month or two.

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