Become a non-smoker, instead.
Step Three: Be Versatile
The basics of my plan to become a non-smoker were to have a cessation date, March 15 (four months from my decision date) and to tell everyone that I was going to become a non-smoker. I needed more planning.
From previous attempts at quitting smoking, I knew that I had to go on a week-long diet (until I was certain the nicotine was all out of my system) that avoided caffeine, alcohol, and chocolate. I was too used to finishing those with a cigarette, and I needed to break that pattern.
From previous attempts at quitting smoking, I felt that fruit juice would help. My doctor told me that it did not have special properties to flush nicotine out of my system (as a medical stop-smoking program once told me), but I thought that having plenty of good fruit juices on hand would be a healthy choice to break me out of old patterns (drinking a lot of coffee) and start me on new patterns.
To take care of the oral cravings I needed something. Yeah, like a thumb-sucking baby, I need to suck on something, and I don't want to start chewing my fingernails. I bought hard candies, but I should have limited that to the first week. I went on too long with hard candy, and now I am working on weight loss.
I found something that works wonders! Stim-U-Dents.
From previous attempts at quitting smoking, I knew that I had to go on a week-long diet (until I was certain the nicotine was all out of my system) that avoided caffeine, alcohol, and chocolate. I was too used to finishing those with a cigarette, and I needed to break that pattern.
From previous attempts at quitting smoking, I felt that fruit juice would help. My doctor told me that it did not have special properties to flush nicotine out of my system (as a medical stop-smoking program once told me), but I thought that having plenty of good fruit juices on hand would be a healthy choice to break me out of old patterns (drinking a lot of coffee) and start me on new patterns.
To take care of the oral cravings I needed something. Yeah, like a thumb-sucking baby, I need to suck on something, and I don't want to start chewing my fingernails. I bought hard candies, but I should have limited that to the first week. I went on too long with hard candy, and now I am working on weight loss.
I found something that works wonders! Stim-U-Dents.
Click on the picture for a link to Amazon.com and options for purchasing this product. I buy them in bulk.
Why are Stim-U-Dents so perfect?
- They are made of soft wood so they are easy on your mouth. I have one in my mouth for a good part of the day, particularly for several hours after eating.
- They have a pointy pick end and a blunt eraser end for cleaning teeth. I am getting the best dental check ups of my life!
- They have no calories. They are not fattening!
- They are cost effective. Depending on where you buy them and in what quantity, they can cost 1 or 2 cents per stick. I smoked three packs of cigarettes a day, and now I use up about five of these picks a day. Think of the savings!!!!
- Truthiness: I get absolutely nothing from Johnson & Johnson. I just think that this product contributed to a significant degree to my ability to change from a smoker to a non-smoker.
Don't Quit Smoking by Ida is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at dontquitsmoking.weebly.com.