Relapse and How to Quit for Good

Relapse.

I experimented with smoking at age five. I didn’t start “really” smoking until I was 12. When I was 35, I smoked up to three packages of cigarettes a day. I didn’t want to quit, but I knew I had to.

So, I quit.

It was a struggle.

I fought not smoking every day for 31 days. I was still in the Air Force. On the 32nd day, I received orders that would send me overseas.

I didn’t want to go.

Instant Relapse Due to Zero Preparation

I was happy in the job I was dong (psychiatric clinic technician) and I was already accepted into my graduate program. I was to start in the spring semester.

I started smoking again on the day I received my notification of assignment.

When I quit the first time, I was inn the contemplation stage. I knew smoking was not healthy for me. So I went right into the action stage without doing any preparation.

I struggled every one of the 31 days I didn’t smoke.

Long story short: I continued to smoke for 11 months after I started smoking again.

Finally: Success Over Addictions

In November of 1977, my station offered a two-week course on stopping smoking. I attended this course. The first week or so of the class offered me nothing about quitting that I didn’t already know.

But a few days before we were to go tobacco-free a physician showed up to talk about the medical hazards of smoking. He said that if a cancer cell divided in your lungs today it would take five years for it to metastasize into a mass large enough to be seen.

Five years!

That scared me.

I thought “I could quit today, and five years from now be diagnosed with cancer.” I realized that the longer I smoked the greater my risk.

I quit and have not smoked again.

If you want to talk about preparing to change your behavior so you can continue on to the Action and Maintenance stages, call Dan Crowley: (541) 325-2118.