Self treatment remains the most effective way of giving up smoking. About 95 percent of smokers who quit do so on their own, usually abruptly, or cold turkey. Relapses are common, however, and most people make several attempts before quitting for good. To improve your own chances of success, make a systematic plan for stopping, beginning with an analysis of why you continue to smoke and a list of alternatives. For example, many women won’t give up smoking because they are afraid of gaining weight. Joining an exercise class can help prevent weight gain and provide other health benefits as well. Self treatment is not recommended during the detoxification stage of overcoming substance addictions. After this initial phase, however, self treatment is the key to success. The goal of counseling, for instance, is to help strengthen a person’s emotional resources so that he can overcome the urge to resume previous behavior. This does not mean, though, that one must go it alone; there are dozens of support and self help groups ready to help.
This 12 Steps
- Admit we are powerless over that our lives have become unmanageable.
- Come to believe that a Power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity.
- Make a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand Him.
- Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
- Admit to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
- Become entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
- Humbly ask Him to remove our short comings.
- Make a list of all persons we have harmed and become willing to make amends to them all.
- Make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
- Continue to take personal inventory and when we are wrong, admit it.
- Seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand Him.
- Having a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, and trying to carry this message to others and practicing these principles in all our affairs.