Chapter 15

Preparing Your Plan

IN THIS CHAPTER

Looking closely at your habit

Designing your own quit plan

Setting the date

Because you’re reading this chapter, we’re going to make a giant leap and assume that you’re serious about quitting and you want to know what steps you should take. This is a big book, full of lots of ideas on ways to quit smoking, using smokeless tobacco, or vaping. Very few people will want to use every single strategy contained in these pages.

The ideas and techniques in this book are like a menu at a restaurant. You’re not going to order every single item on the menu (of course, if you do, you probably need help with weight control!). But you can pick and choose what looks good to you. And if you don’t like what you select, in this restaurant, you can send it back and try something else.

In this chapter, we help you find and choose the best methods for your individual, personal quit plan. These methods will be the ones that fit your history and interests. But, again, don’t worry about choosing the exact, perfect plan. If one set of strategies doesn’t work, there are lots of others to try. So, if plan A doesn’t work, give plan B a shot, and possibly plan C.

Every time you take a run at quitting, you’ve cut down on your addiction and improved your health at least a bit. Every cigarette you smoke hurts your health. Every cigarette you don’t smoke improves your health. More important, by trying to quit, you’ve given yourself more data on what may finally work for you. Don’t quit quitting! The vast majority of successful, long-term quitters have a rich history of attempts.

Monitoring Your Problem Before You Quit

Your odds of success at quitting will increase if you identify your personal smoking patterns. A good first step for quitting almost any kind of habit is to keep track of the whens, wheres, and whys. You can do that with our Personal Pattern Tracker (see Table 15-1).

TABLE 15-1 Personal Pattern Tracker

When	Where	Why	Additional Notes

Keeping track of smoking may seem like unnecessary work, but it can provide useful information. Many programs suggest a two-week data collection/monitoring plan before you determine a quit date. We’re a tad more flexible.

If you’re not sure that you’re ready to prepare your plan, check out Chapter 14 to see what stage of change you’re in. You may need to do more preparation for quitting first. On the other hand, if it looks like you’re prepared to quit, let’s go.

Simply monitoring your smoking increases your knowledge and awareness of what you’re doing. It often leads to reduced smoking all by itself and improves your odds of successful quitting.

Some people already know when, where, and why they smoke. Keeping formal track may be superfluous for those folks. If you’re not learning anything new from your monitoring, why do it?

However, most folks will find a week or two of tracking useful. It’s really up to you to decide if it looks worth the effort and may give you useful information. If you’re not sure, try tracking for a least a day and see for yourself. Here are a few things you could learn about your smoking from this exercise:

• You smoke more at home than elsewhere.
• You smoke when you’re unhappy.
• You smoke when you’re stressed.
• You smoke when something unexpectedly pleasant happens.
• You smoke more around certain people.
• You smoke when you’re bored.
• You smoke more when you have a drink.
• There’s hardly a time you go more than an hour without smoking.

Here’s how you go about it. Every time you light up (or chew or vape), write down the approximate time, place, and situation. Time and place should be obvious. Situation can refer to how you were feeling, as well as any relevant observations, thoughts, or insights.

You can record the information on a 3-x-5 card, on a piece of notebook paper, on your smartphone — whatever is easiest for you. If you want to track on your phone, check out Chapter 11 for information about apps that have trackers. The bottom line is having the information somewhere that you can turn to for review. Keep the log going for at least 24 hours. Then decide whether to continue with it.

Table 15-2 shows a typical Personal Pattern Tracker for use with smoking, vaping, or smokeless tobacco cessation. Wendy is a pack-a-day smoker wanting to quit smoking in the next month or so. She starts by keeping track of her habit for a day and decides to go ahead and track for a week. This tracker just contains a few of her first cigarettes for the day.

TABLE 15-2 An Example Personal Pattern Tracker

When	Where	Why	Additional Notes
6:45 a.m., right after I got up	My bedroom	I always do it then.
7:30 a.m.	Kitchen	With my coffee.	I can’t stand the thought of drinking coffee without a cigarette.
7:45 a.m.	In the car on the way to work	To calm my nerves.	Traffic gives me fits.
8:25 a.m.	Walking from the parking lot to work	My last one for two hours.	I’m glad they don’t let me smoke at work. That helps.
10:30 a.m.	Outside the building on my smoke break	I feel like I really need it.	It sucks we have to go outside, but at least they let us do it.

Wendy hadn’t thought about the fact that she smokes when she first gets up in the morning. That information may help her in devising her personal quit plan. She’ll also be able to make use of the information about traffic serving as a trigger for her urges (see the “Personalizing Your Quit Strategies” section, later in this chapter).

Table 15-3 shows a typical Personal Pattern Tracker for use with smokeless tobacco cessation. Owen started out as a smoker and began chewing during times he couldn’t smoke cigarettes. Eventually, he managed to quit smoking cigarettes, but found himself still addicted to smokeless tobacco in the form of snus. This tracker contains a limited selection of Owen’s day with smokeless tobacco.

TABLE 15-3 An Example Personal Pattern Tracker

When	Where	Why	Additional Notes
8:30 a.m.	At work	I always enjoy snus when I’m working on a car. It relaxes and focuses me.	I didn’t realize how much I use tobacco to relax.
9:30 a.m.	Still at work	The buzz wore off from my first pouch. I love that buzz feeling.	I’m really addicted to this snus stuff. It feels great.
11:00 a.m.	Taking a car out for a test run	I enjoy driving, and I like feeling good.	I never thought about how much or often I use snus.
11:45 a.m.	Back at the shop, finishing the paperwork for the car	I hate doing paperwork. Snus helps me get through it.	Wow. I rely on snus to do a lot for me.

Owen had been using snus mindlessly, without thought. Tracking helps him connect what he’s been using snus for — to help him focus, relax, and feel good. He realizes that he’ll need quit strategies that help him take care of these issues, or he’s not likely to succeed. The good news is that he may also be able to quit with a manageable number of techniques — he doesn’t need to use them all.

Reviewing Your Quit History

Another source of information for use in developing your personal quit plan can be found in looking back at your previous attempts to quit smoking, vaping, or consuming smokeless tobacco. No doubt, a few things you tried in the past worked at least for a while, until you relapsed, whereas other strategies may have done nothing helpful or you may have even found them to be counterproductive.

Jot down as much information as you can recall about your previous quit history. Include the following:

• When did you quit?
• Did you plan to quit but gave up before starting?
• How long did you quit?
• What worked?
• What didn’t work?
• What do you think caused your relapse?

For example, if you tried quitting cold turkey and it didn’t work, you may want to consider using a bridge strategy that includes nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) or possibly even vaping with just nicotine and no tobacco (see Chapter 12 for more information about using vaping in this manner).

Or perhaps your history tells you that you tend to relapse during the holiday season. Well, obviously, you’ll need to quit well before the holiday season or come up with extra supports during that time. You may also want to change the way you celebrate the holidays, at least during the first year of quitting.

Many people find alcohol to be a daunting trigger for smoking. You may consider abstaining from drinking during your first months of quitting. Think of this time as an opportunity for starting a new healthy lifestyle.

If you find it almost impossible to consider giving up alcohol temporarily, you may have another problem. Be sure to talk to your healthcare provider about your current use of alcohol or any other substances.

We can’t say this enough: Every attempt at quitting smoking is a success because it gives you information and practice that will serve you well in case you need to make another attempt.

Personalizing Your Quit Strategies

The next sections give you a brief reminder about the major techniques found in this book. Then we give you some thoughts about why you may or may not consider each approach as part of your personalized quit strategy. Don’t worry about making the perfect selection; you can always change it up later. You can add one strategy or stop using another. It’s totally up to you.

Challenging obstacles to change

Perhaps your personal history tells you that you often have thoughts about quitting, but something gets in the way. You may think that you don’t have the willpower or it’s the wrong time in your life to quit. You may believe that smoking is part of who you are or that your friends or family members cause you to smoke.

Beliefs like these often keep people from attempting or cause them to give up prematurely. If that’s the case for you, review Chapter 8. Consider doing this task first, before you go any further.

Alternatively, if you don’t have these sorts of thoughts, and you’re pretty sure that you want to quit now, you may not need this approach. This is also true if you’ve had previous quit attempts that lasted for several months or more. You wouldn’t have been able to quit for that long if you harbored beliefs such as “It’s too hard” or “I’m too weak” or “It’s the wrong time.”

Trying nicotine replacement therapy

Almost everyone with a long-term history of using smokeless tobacco, vaping, or smoking cigarettes is addicted to nicotine. Yet the nicotine, by itself, is much less harmful than actual tobacco. Therefore, for many people, replacing nicotine through nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) makes sense.

In fact, you increase your chances for success if you use NRT. Most people who use NRT are able to decrease and discontinue it after a few months (see Chapter 9 to decide which form of NRT is best for you).

However, some people may not like the feeling they get when using NRT. Or some people, without great effort, can give up cigarettes for weeks or months without major cravings. For those people, nicotine addiction may not be what is causing them to relapse. Other strategies may make more sense than NRT if nicotine doesn’t appear to be a core part of the problem.

Starting medications

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved two medications for helping with smoking cessation efforts. Many people find them to be a useful part of their quit plan. Both of them are prescription medications, and you’ll need to talk with your doctor before starting them (see Chapter 9 for more information about this approach).

One of the medications, Chantix, allows you to taper rather than quit cold turkey. If cold turkey has given you fits in the past, that property of Chantix could be useful for you. In addition, you may find one or the other of these medications appealing if you’ve used medications for emotional issues (for example, depression or anxiety) successfully in the past. Another positive indication would be that you’ve rarely experienced problematic side effects with most medications you’ve taken before.

Some people get nauseous at the very thought of taking almost any medication. Both medications do have side effects such as upset stomach, disturbed sleep, and jitteriness. Some people who take one of these medications discontinue due to uncomfortable side effects. If you tend to be particularly sensitive to side effects such as these, medications may not be your best option. In that case, leave the pill approach on the shelf, at least for now.

Other people already take medications that may interact with smoking cessation medications — be sure to ask your pharmacist or healthcare provider. Finally, some people just hate taking pills for whatever reason. If that’s you, consider trying other things first. You can always go back to this one later.

Rethinking thoughts

If you’re someone who spends a lot of time in your head, that’s great. Thoughts can help you navigate all kinds of problems. However, some thoughts can get in your way of accomplishing what you want. For example, do you tend to exaggerate, dwell on catastrophes, try to predict the future, worry constantly, or take things personally? Or do you find yourself obsessively tangled up in your thoughts, unable to find a way out?

If so, you’re probably a good candidate for challenging your thinking. See Chapter 10 for lots of ideas about challenging and smoothing out your problematic thinking.

We think that most people could profit from spending at least a little time working on their thoughts. However, you may find yourself resisting tackling this issue. It may feel like a hassle or seem silly to you. So, if you choose to bypass this approach, that’s okay. Just remember: Challenging your thinking is an option if other efforts fail you. You decide — this is your personalized quit plan after all.

Doing something different

We really hope you have no trouble quitting smoking. We also hope that a million-dollar check will show up in our mailbox today. Unfortunately, we’re not getting that check, and you’ll probably have some difficulty with quitting.

One of the most important pieces in most people’s personalized quit plan is doing something different in response to triggers. Triggers are anything that you associate with smoking.

The power that triggers exert can be considerable. Frankly, it’s hard to imagine designing an effective smoking-cessation program without doing something about your triggers. This is one strategy you just don’t want to leave out of your plan.

See Chapter 10 for a variety of ways to take action for avoiding, minimizing, and/or confronting triggers.

Managing feelings and urges

There’s nothing that smokers fear more than being overwhelmed by strong feelings and urges. Some say they’ll do almost anything to avoid them. But you can’t really avoid all bad feelings when you give up an addiction. Instead, it’s important to manage, cope, and deal with unpleasant feelings. See Chapter 10 for ideas about relating to difficult feelings differently. You can also review Chapters 18 and 21 for a variety of methods for learning to relax and manage feelings.

Then again, you could be one of those rare people who take medications and quit smoking without problematic, strong feelings remaining to trip you up. If so, fabulous! Otherwise, ignore this strategy at your own peril.

Getting tech support

Quitting smoking usually takes lots of support. But support can come in many forms. Nowadays, technology has rushed to the rescue. There are some really good, free or low-cost apps to help you. Most of them warn you about problematic locations, give advice on managing urges and cravings, keep track of your progress, send you tips, and more. You’re likely to find them helpful or at least sort of fun.

Some people just plain hate tech or don’t own a smartphone or similar device. Those people may want to turn to online support (see Chapter 24 for useful websites). Others prefer speaking to a real live counselor at a free quit line — if that’s you, call 800-QUIT-NOW (800-784-8669).

Alternatively, you could be a highly independent person who hates asking for help or support on almost anything. Okay, but remember that the cost is typically either free or low. Why not give one of these options a shot?

Soliciting social support

Humans are social beings. Numerous studies tell us that having a good social support system helps with almost everything, including overall health, emotional well-being, success, and more. Overcoming addictions of almost any kind is no exception to the rule. We talk about formal social support in the form of Nicotine Anonymous and SMART Recovery in Chapter 11. And there may be other options in your local area — call the quit line number in the preceding section for more sources.

You can also cobble together your own, informal support by asking trusted friends and family to help you. See the “Declaring Your Intent” section, later in this chapter, for information about what to say to them.

Alternatively, you could be a certifiable loner. Maybe you find opening up to other people difficult, to say the least. Still, you can consider anonymous tech help lines. If that’s still too much, skip this strategy, at least for now. It’s available if and when you want it.

Choosing Your Quit Day

Gulp! Relax, you don’t have to quit today. It’s just a good idea to actively choose your quit day ahead of time. Give yourself enough time to complete your pre-quit plan (see the “Creating a Pre-Quit-Day Game Plan” section, later in this chapter). And give yourself time to go through our quit strategies for determining which ones you’ll put into your plan. But don’t push your quit date out so far that it becomes an excuse to keep smoking — that could even lead you to change your mind.

You also may want to consider the following ideas for coming up with your personal quit date:

• Consider your work and life schedules. Choose a day that’s busy, but not overly stressful, if possible.
• Reconsider quitting while on vacation. Although a vacation may seem like a good time to quit, it’s not always a good idea because when you return to work, the old triggers and stressors will be facing you again. Your success on vacation may possibly evaporate when you return to your “real” life.
• Consider selecting a personally meaningful date. Some possibilities may be a birthday, a holiday, a Great American Smokeout date (sponsored by the American Cancer Society), or an anniversary.

If all else fails, throw a dart at a one-month calendar! The point is, just set a date. And don’t make it more than a few weeks in the future. Don’t change your mind. There is no perfect time.

Declaring Your Intent

You’ve made a decision: You’re going to quit. Now you can devise a personal quit plan. Making a written commitment to yourself and others reinforces your resolve and improves your odds of quitting. That’s because most of us take contracts seriously. Let’s get to it!

Writing out a personal quit plan

You can write your quit plan on a notepad or type it into your computer or smartphone. It’s pretty simple. Figure 15-1 shows a sample template for your personal quit plan.

We introduced you to Wendy, a pack-a-day smoker, earlier in this chapter (see “Monitoring Your Problem Before You Quit”). After considering her smoking pattern and her quit history, she chooses the strategies she’s going to use and her quit day. She designs the personal quit plan shown in Figure 15-2.

Wendy’s personal quit plan spells out her commitment and some of the major strategies that she plans to use. Over time, she may delete a few items or add some.

Think of your plan as a flexible work in progress. Keep what works, toss what doesn’t, and add what could work. Keep your personal quit plan in a convenient place, and review it often.

Telling friends and family what you’re up to

Assuming you have a supportive family, you may want to make your intentions known to them. Share your plan with them and ask for their support. Tell them you’re determined to quit and why.

Not everyone is fortunate enough to have an unconditionally supportive family. Maybe your parents are highly critical or your siblings pounce on your every mistake. In that case, you’ll probably want to hold off telling them for a while. No sense in adding to your stress.

Hopefully, you have some friends who are less judgmental. If so, tell them all about your game plan. Acknowledge that you may not make it successfully and you want their support anyway. That’s because you’re going to keep on trying until you succeed.

FIGURE 15-1: A personal quit plan template.

FIGURE 15-2: An example of a personal quit plan.

If you don’t have supportive friends or family, consider calling 800-QUIT NOW (800-784-8669) and chat with a friendly staff person who’s trained in being nonjudgmental and supportive.

Creating a Pre-Quit-Day Game Plan

Before you actually quit smoking, there are a couple of things you can do on your pre-quit days. The first is to change components of your smoking habit in any way you can to make smoking less rewarding. The second is getting your house, car, office, and environment ready to be smoke-free.

Changing things up

Smoking is not just an addiction; it’s a habit. Like any habit, it’s tough to change because of all the associations you have that trigger your habit. Therefore, you may find it useful to change a number of your smoking associations. These changes are designed to make your smoking less automatic and less enjoyable. For example:

• If you love your cigarette with your morning coffee, try smoking it before that first cup in the morning.
• Change the position of your cigarette between your lips. Most people who smoke tend to have a habitual way of placing the cigarette in their mouths. Move it to the other side.
• Hold the cigarette in a different hand. Be careful not to drop it and burn yourself!
• Use a brand of cigarettes (or other tobacco product) that you don’t like as much. But don’t try to reduce tar or nicotine at this point.
• If you smoke outside your office, go somewhere else to smoke. Look for places that feel less comfortable for you.
• Use different ashtrays in different locations.

You get the idea. Use your imagination with the goal of coming up with ways of making your smoking habit less habitual — in other words, less automatic and comfortable. You’re not actually depriving yourself of nicotine yet, but you are breaking down pesky associations.

Cutting down on the overall number of cigarettes you smoke prior to quitting works for some people. However, you need to be careful not to inhale more deeply and take more frequent puffs.

Cleaning out your smoking environment

Before your quit day, survey your home. Look for all the ashtrays. Clean all of them and put them away — except for one (you can get rid of it after you actually quit). Then clean your house from top to bottom, especially rooms you typically use for smoking.

This is a great time to get your carpets and drapes cleaned. Don’t forget to take clothing like winter coats in for a cleaning — they collect smoke and smell. And do your car a favor: Get it washed on the day before your quit day.