Tips for Giving Up Smoking

Every man and his dog can give you tips for quitting smoking, I will give you only one.

Never think of it as "giving up". This is a a very popular term and I have a big problem with it. Why? Because it has a real negative vibe, when in fact stopping smoking should be a really positive experience. I think this is a major reason as to why thousands of people fail to quit, they go into the process with negative thoughts and feelings right from the beginning.

I was once a smoker and just like a lot of you out there I was always saying to myself "I will give up soon". Unfortunately "soon" didn't arrive until 4 long years later. Why, because I kept telling myself that I needed to give up, I was putting myself into a negative frame of mind right from the start.

It wasn't until I eliminated the thought that I was giving something up, that I actually did quit.

This may sound strange at first but in order to successfully quit you need to be 100% positive about it. The fact of the matter is being smoke-free is a really positive experience and it needs to be thought of in this way. You are not giving anything up at all, it is in fact the exact opposite, you are gaining by no longer smoking.

What do you gain by no longer smoking:

• Your Health: It has been proven that overtime the health affects of smoking can be reversed, adding years to your life compared to if you kept smoking.
• Improved Hygiene: You and your clothes no longer reek of disgusting cigarette smoke and your fingers and teeth lose their yellow tinge.
  
• Money: If you are a pack a day smoker at a cost of $10 dollars a pack, you will save yourself $3650 in the first year alone.
  
• Time: A cigarette takes about 5 minutes to smoke. This may not seem like a long time but it all adds up. If you smoke 20 cigarettes a day thats 100 minutes taken up by smoking. What other productive things could you use that time for, work, play, time with friends and family.
• Pride: This was a big one for me as I wanted to be able to tell my friends and family that I had overcome this obstacle. I wanted them to be proud of me but most of all I wanted to be proud about myself.
  

The best tip I could ever give you about how to quit smoking is to not think of it as giving up at all. Instead think of everything you will gain and you will succeed.

Smoking Quit Tips: When Drinking

When you are trying to quit smoking, one of the biggest obstacles you will find is alcohol. I am a former smoker myself and I know that when you have a drink in one hand you are likely to have a cigarette in the other. The two do literally go hand in hand. In this article I would like to give you some smoking quit tips for when you are drinking.

To me quitting smoking was much easier than I expected it to be, I would go days and weeks without touching a cigarette. That was until I started to have a couple of Bourbon and Cokes, then I couldn't find my smoking buddies fast enough in order to pinch one of their ciggies.

The obvious solution to this is to not drink while you are trying to quit smoking. You could try and find reasons not drink such as being the designated driver or having family or work commitments the next day. Because the quitting process may take a few months and you still want to have a good time with your friends this will not always be a realistic solution. Here are some ideas on things you can do to avoid the dreaded cigarette while you are drinking.

• Don't go overboard, try to restrict yourself to a few drinks. The more drinks you have, the harder it will be to say no.

• Try to keep focused on the reasons why you trying to quit. Don't obsess on these thoughts as it may ruin your night, just give yourself occasional reminders. Again the more you drink, the harder it will be to focus.

• Try to avoid your smoking friends when drinking. This doesn't mean staying away from them at all times but just while they are smoking. Hang out with your non-smoking friends instead. Your smoking friends wont resent you for this, they wish they could give up like you.

• When at bars and clubs avoid the designated smoking areas at all costs.

• If you associate a certain drink with smoking (like I do with bourbon and coke) then try a different drink instead.

• We know that hang-overs are caused by dehydration, not only from the drinking but from the smoking also. If you have stopped smoking for a while then the dehydration effect of cigarettes becomes much worse. If you have a night out of both drinking and smoking than you will pay big time the next morning. Trust me, I have experienced this for myself and I now use it as motivation to not smoke while I'm drinking.
  

Without doubt the hardest time I had quitting smoking was when I was having a few drinks. By using the above tips I have managed to overcome this obstacle and now no longer get those urges after a few drinks. I hope you can do the same