Avoiding Risky Situations to Increase the Odds to Quit Smoking Now

I’ve been there before; if you have just quit smoking now, the odds are that you find yourself a bit estranged from your favorite habits, pastimes and even friends. The behavioural component involved in smoking is so powerful that managing to stop smoking while being exposed to these familiar, smoking settings is extremely difficult, if not impossible. In fact, your physical addiction to nicotine is almost easy to ignore when compared to the very powerful urge to smoke that you’ll encounter in certain settings. In most cases, it is better to avoid those setting altogether for a certain period of time rather than risk certain failure.

So what are the most difficult settings to resist when you have made the decision to quit smoking now? Social environments are really the worst. These are social settings where you have a long association of smoking. This could be your favorite coffee house, or perhaps even a bar (we’ll get to that later). The point is that places have a particular smell and feel that you have, over the years, associated with smoking cigarettes. I’m not saying that you should avoid those places forever, but you should at least make yourself scarce until the worst of the cravings have passed.

If you have friends that still smoke, now is not the time to try to indoctrinate them to the virtues of being a non-smoker! Rather, you should perhaps speak to them over the phone rather than seeing them in person for a little while. Having your friends smoke right in front of you after you have gone through the decision to quit smoking now can be a real challenge; I recommend that you don’t test yourself in this way too quickly.

Associated to this is the desire and habit of drinking alcohol. This is a challenge with many aspects. First off, you are used to drinking and smoking at the same time, so doing one without the other feels strange and empty. Secondly, drinking lowers your inhibitions and generally does a number on your willpower, so your chances of relapsing and smoking are greater than ever. If you plan to quit smoking now, and stay quit, then avoiding booze if just about the best thing you can do.

None of these changes need to be permanent; you just need to break the pattern in order that your decision to quit smoking now becomes a permanent one. If all goes well, you’ll be back indulging in your favorite adult beverage, in your favorite hang-out, in a few weeks, or a couple of months at the most. It sounds terrible now, but it certainly beats smoking cigarettes.