Cutting Down to Stop
Cutting down to stop
I have been prompted to write this because of a recent posting by a friend in facebook who has already started to cut down on her smoking “habit” in the belief that when New Year arrives, she will find it easier to stop. Logically, cutting down should make it easier, but it is probably the most painful way to try to quit and almost guaranteed to fail. If smoking was a habit, then cutting down might help. The problem is that smoking is not a habit.
Quite a bold statement when we know that most medical professionals refer to smoking as a habit. But don’t we also refer to someone having a drug habit or heroin habit when we mean drug and heroin addiction? I feel another article coming on proving that smoking is not a habit but, for now, let’s just accept that smoking is not habit.
We believe that we got into the habit of smoking and sense that we got into the habit of smoking more and more. When it comes to breaking a habit, most of us would say that is just a matter of giving in to the impulse less and less until we no longer feel compelled to do it.
The “cutting down” approaches can sound really simple. All you have to do is smoke one less every day until eventually you find that you don’t smoke and hey presto you are a non smoker! If you usually smoke 30 a day then surely it can’t be difficult to smoke 29 on the first day of the attempt. Next day, just smoke 28 and the next day 27 and so on. At the end of the first week you would be down to 23 and by day 30, you could be smoking your last cigarette. It sounds easy except that in my thirteen years of helping smokers to quit, everywhere from the Shetland Islands to Paris and Dublin Amsterdam I have never heard of anyone who was successful in stopping by cutting down. Hands up if you know of one person that stopped smoking using the cut down method and found it easy!
If you smoke, you can prove to yourself how painful it is, by cutting down just for today. Nothing serious, just have one cigarette every three hours, then after that you can go back to your usual intake. It is true that even heavy smokers can go long periods without a cigarette when on a long haul flight or even a short hospital stay, and isn’t it also true that the cigarettes you enjoy most are after a long period of abstinence? Have you noticed that as you get closer to when you can smoke that cigarette it becomes the most precious thing on earth? Have you ever been in a meeting that went on longer than planned and all you could think of was “when will they shut up so I can get a smoke”? Have you ever been stuck on a plane that was delayed in take off or landing and the next cigarette took on a life of its own? Have you ever been so agitated with any other habit when you could not give in to it?
If you spend each day counting your cigarettes and waiting for the next occasion when you can light up, they become more precious, not less precious. This is why it didn’t work when you have tried cutting down in the past and you probably ended up smoking more than you did before your quit attempt. The worst thing about this method is that you go through such misery as you cut down that it will be a long time before you are willing to try again.
Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT, patches, gum, lozenges) is about pandering to your dependence while restricting the occasions when you smoke in the hope of minimising the “habit” until you eventually stop altogether. If you are a smoker, I bet that just reading this article makes you want to light up! Can you imagine going all day waiting for the next one and only being able to stick a nicotine patch on your arm instead of drawing a cigarette from the pack, placing the tip between your expectant lips, pulling out you favourite lighter, hearing it click and that flame that sparks up your favourite brand? Feeling the cigarette between your fingers as you draw the warm smoke deep into your lungs, and then blowing it high into the air. How can a patch or sucking on a plastic tube satisfy? It is no wonder NRT has a success rate of only six per cent at best. It has to be more than just the nicotine! Smokers who have tried to stop using the patch will often sheepishly admit to smoking with the patch on. There has to be another article - Nicotine patches, a waste of money – another time!
There is absolutely no doubt that cutting down makes it harder to stop, not easier. If we smoke when we want a cigarette, we often find ourselves smoking without even being aware of it. When we try to cut down, every cigarette is precious and our attempt is usually short lived. The truth is that it actually requires more willpower than stopping.
What is the most unusual way that you know to stop smoking? What worked for you?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ruth Deborah Rey on -
I used to smoke half a cigarette before going to sleep and actually got up in the morning TO SMOKE the other half. Then came that unusual morning:
I got up, went to the kitchen, took the butt of last night's ciggie from the ashtray ... stopped in midair, said (out loud):
"Comme tu est conne!"
Threw out the butt and never smoked again, nor felt like it. No withdrawal symptoms, nothing.
I still think this was rather unusual, but am very happy I could do it this way ... 17 years ago.
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Permalink Reply by Joe Bergin on -
I used to look forward to the second half in the morning to get a bigger "hit". EEuch!
"No withdrawals no symptoms" you hit the nail on the head Ruth Deborah. Recent researh shows that nicotine has a half life of eight hours, which means that the nicotine from the last cigarette is nearly completely flushed within the first day. So why are we told that we need three months supply of NRT? Looks like big pharma may have more influence than we know.
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Permalink Reply by Kenneth Barker on -
Stopping smoking is an intensely personal crusade against an addiction on the one hand and a social habit on the other hand. I started at the tender age of 17 years old in the seventies when smoking tobacco went hand in hand with smoking other things. At that age I felt compelled to conform to what was expected by my peers and the smoking habit, long hair and flared trousers were the prerequisites for hanging out with cool people at gigs and festivals. These days social attitudes towards smoking and smokers have completely changed.
Over a period of months, I managed to cut down from 20 cigarettes per day or at least I had persuaded myself that I was smoking less. I started a new job on 12th December 1977 sharing an office with a smoker and a non smoker. By Christmas the two smokers had announced their intention to stop smoking as a New Year resolution. Three months later my colleague was having a quick smoke in the toilets which he thought nobody noticed whereas my resolve was firm – not only a matter of pride but I had also rediscovered the joys of long distance running.
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Permalink Reply by Amanda Lister on -
In the past I have tried to stop a number of times. I tried patches and as previously mentioned I ended up using the patches and also having a sly fag.!
Last year I stopped again, but this time I decided on the date and 'just stopped'. I spent 3 days crying for no reason and being grumpy and bad tempered. Once I managed to get past these 3 days it all seemed much easier. Being around other smokers didn't bother me at all, in fact it made me feel rather good, smug infact.!
Unfortunately, 6 months later,a 'so called' friend started visiting more often and I would go outside to keep her company while she smoked her cigarette and each time was offered one. "Go on nobody will know, it's only one"!! After a few weeks of this I caved in and took one. The worst mistake I could have made. Needless to say it didn't take long for me to start smoking regularly again.
I have now set myself another date, being next monday. I know I did it before for over 6 months so I know that this time I can quit forever. I think the worst time for me is when I get up. Instead of having my coffee, cigarette and watching the news I need to start moving and get busy straight away and not sit dwelling on it.!
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Permalink Reply by Joe Bergin on
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Hi Amanda, You did exactly the right thing the last time by just knocking it on the head without dragging out the withdrawal NRT style. There are many different reactions when we stop and your three days of tears were simply because you felt you were missing out on the perceived pleasure or benefit that you thought the cigarette gave you. You discovered during your time off the smokes all the benefits of being a non smoker (which I don't have time to go into here) and that life is so much better without them. This time you know that all you are doing is stopping doing something that does nothing for you. Have fun.
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Permalink Reply by David Cox on -
Kenneth has pretty well hit the nail on the head. One of the problems with smoking is there are people who are addicted to the nicotine, and there are people who have a habit (smoking after a meal, in a social setting etc.), and there are people who are both! Their needs and methods for quitting will be radically different. As a genetic epidemiologist working in oncology, this is a fascinating subject that I hope to study some day, but is too politically charged (big pharma + tobacco = ouch) and statistically challenging at the moment.
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Permalink Reply by Joe Bergin on
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I firmly believe your third option is the real problem - addiction (both mental and physical) and habit which is where I disagree with my mentor Allen Carr. And you are right it is a fascinating subject. Over twenty percent of the adult population smoke despite all the health scares, cost (financial and social) and their own dislike of being smokers. Being so apolitically charged is part of the fun/challenge for me.
What do you mean by "politically challenging" for you?
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Permalink Reply by David Cox on
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Well for one, it isn't my main area of research (I'm interested in progression of breast cancer to metastases now). So I can't justify the energy that it would take to 1) write grants to do the work 2) spend the time fending off attacks from industry regarding results (albeit we don't know what those results might be). Being American, I guess I'm just afraid of the tobacco lobby, although I admit I am ignorant of how much of a force it is in France. I've just published a paper in the American Journal of Epidemiology where we show that smoking, no matter the amount, increases risk of breast cancer regardless of the genotype a person carries in a gene that detoxifies some of the carcinogens in smoke. I think I'll leave it at that :P
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Permalink Reply by Joe Bergin on
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Congratulations on publishing in the Journal. Wow!
I think you probably already know the power of the tobacco companies is just as strong here in France and my guess would be that big pharma is probably greater. It would take someone with your credentials and huge grants to begin to dent their hold. We can but hope. :)
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Permalink Reply by Joe Bergin on
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Hi Kenneth, Good to know of your success. believe it or not according to the NHS and ASH only three per cent of smokers succeed in stopping without any intervention i.e. patches, counselling, etc. So, you must have amazing willpower. I would be interested to know how many you cut down to before stopping and if you would have made the jump if the other two had not.
One of the ways that I tried to cut down was by rolling my own and found myself rolling up ten or twenty rollies while watching TV the night before. LOL. Managed to kick it in the end without withdrawals or cravings from 40-a-day.
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Permalink Reply by Kenneth Barker on
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Hi Joe
Glad that you are one of the lucky ones too.
In the middle of 1976 I had a period of unemployment which drastically reduced the money available for smoking - so for about three months I was smoking less than 20 and sometimes much less than 20. Then I found a job in a kitchen in the September, where for three months I simply did not have time to smoke more than 8 cigarettes a day. Actually smoking during this period occasionally made me heave!
on 12th December 1976, I started work in a sales office with one smoker and one non smoker.
My New years resolution was to give up smoking - my colleague did the same. The smoke free office was much appreciated by my non smoking colleague.
if you went back to 1972 you would find that I was a club level long distance runner. I went back to training 10 sessions a week and by 1982 I was able to finish the London Marathon in 2 hours 37 minutes.
so the motivation was
1. My desire to become an athlete again
2. My desire not to lose face with my colleagues over the public New Years resolution.
3. The health benefits
By rejoining the Athletics club, I had far more friends who did not smoke and I was old enough to ignore peer pressure from other friends to smoke as well.
All in all a set of happy coincidences
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Permalink Reply by 34i0ohtauhcgh on -
I've just taken a look at a manuscript i added to after a smoke, and though i made it a better read, it has a lot of grammar problems. This is going to take some editing. It's a good job i've got a clearer head now.
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