This Five Week “Quit Smoking Forevermore” program offers an effective alternative to quick fix methods that do not work. Designed to create lasting change, this thorough program can address all the key factors that keep a person smoking such as…
1. adolescent criteria that got a person to start smoking
2. a self-concept that reflects an identity of ‘who I am is a smoker.”
3. current associations with smoking such relaxation or self-control
4. situations where you are most vulnerable to smoking
It features …..
* interventions that help you experiment with new behaviors that will satisfy what smoking has been fulfilling
* a gradual, systematic approach for quitting which may appeal to someone who has tried and gone back several times
* making real and believable the future you desire and equally real the future you want to avoid.
Taking a more detailed look, we work together to....
1. Identify the “needs” that smoking has been fulfilling and replace them with behaviors that are equally satisfying and effective. The following are a list of the some of the “associations” a person may have linked to smoking behavior. These associations are often outside of our conscious awareness. Although smoker’s have individual versions of what smoking is doing for them, some themes are common. Smokers often think “smoking” is the only way to:
•belong to a group of people
•assert “independence” from parental or other authority figures
•pause and take a break from working
•perform or function competently
•keep your hands doing something
•bond with significant people in your life
•relieve tension and anxiety
•shift worry into reassurance
•alleviate ‘overwhelm’ and conflict
The bottomline is that smoking has become a default response and choiceless behavior. The smoker gets the immediate shift in ‘feeling state’ that smoking provides. The consequences and long range impact of this habit, are not real in the smoker’s mind. People often quit smoking when they have a health crisis, decide living to see their grandchildren and children is essential, or want to avoid getting dropped because a new love does not smoke. The desire to quit need not reach crisis proportions in order for a person to actually quit.
2. Specify the current situations that trigger lighting a cigarette. Since clients have the option of gradually letting go of smoking over a five week period, once identified, we take one situation at a time and make new choices. For those situations that are given a non-smoking option, we develop a number of new behavioral options, interrupt the ‘impulse’ with a 2 Step Strategy, and program in more useful behaviors. Over the course of five weeks, clients will smoke less and less until they are down to zero cigarettes.
3. Build a self-concept that reflects the mindsets of a nonsmoker. This expanded self-concept includes qualities and characteristics of the you of the present and future. You are not the same person who started smoking in his or her teens and twenties. Additionally, this is a self-concept that clearly supports setting limits and treating yourself with respect.
Sunday and evening appointments available for working people who cannot do daytime appointments.
Call now 760-798-9076
