It's Time To Quit Smoking: Kick-Start Booster

Hi! My name is Peter Guess. After 20 odd years of smoking, I failed unforgettable times to quit. I'm now over 18 months clean today 15 March 2021 (updated).

Note: If it is time for you to Quit, and you need help then WhatsApp +27 65 229 3040 or email: peterguess1@gmail.com | Join me on my Facebook and WhatsApp support group:

www.facebook.com/groups/quitsmoking90. and www.facebook.com/addictioninterventiontreatmentservices.

• I live a day at a time, knowing how easy it is to relapse.
  
• I practice daily gratitude. Recording each quit day (one of my key metrics - part of evidence based recovery and the 12 Steps)
  
• Periodically, I calculate the money saved (another very significant, key metric for me)
  
• Often I experience temptation & allure back to the old addiction, that played an invasive role in my life, for far too long - with many negative consequences, subtle and blatant!
  
• In the addiction field of groups like AA and NA, the saying is"Addiction is cunning, baffling, and powerful”. I change the first word to "seductive".
  
• I don't have a recipe. I do have many tools and approaches: the 12 Step programme; my site.
  
• There are amazing books, courses  and self-help groups.
  
• I Found my own combo to help me quit.
  
• I only share what has helped me in the hope it will lead you to motivation and clarity to stop.
  
• Your own path of recovery, health and living free from nicotine, will be unique to you.
  
• A better, richer, wealthier, less anxious lifestyle will, without question, help immunise you day by day from relapsing.
  
• But no programme or human effort has been enough for me. As such, I took step one in the 12 Steps to heart, with daily practice of humility.
  
• Step 1 says "We admitted we were powerless over nicotine - and that our lives became unmanageable".
  
• My head had become "unmanageable" with shame, self-reproach, waste of money, "invisible" ill health - fearing I would die like my mother from emphysema. Premature death, what a gift for my 3 kids?
  

This first episode of 7 short podcasts came from conversations I recorded during an Online Counselling session May 2020.

These 7 audios will help you to kick-start your quit process. You may already have begun your journey - even just in your head or already quit for a day or more. Or you are a "veteran relapser", desperate to stop and you need help to break this pattern.

The topics: readiness to quit, reasons for starting and stopping, motivation, the dynamics of smoking and addiction to nicotine - and more snippets of tips and advice from my own and others experience.

This episode focuses mainly on quitting smoking to become nicotine free. However, I firstly tap into my personal experience as a smoker in recovery for over 200 days, off all nicotine (and related products) and over 36 years in addiction counselling and addiction recovery work. This included rehab's, step-down facilities, half-way houses, outpatient centres and community education.

The Global Covid Crisis brought many acute realities. Tobacco ban. Black market costs to acquire cigarettes. Discovering the reality of the intensity and depth of the addiction to smoking and nicotine. The added reality is facing the relapse history and intense craving, so now fearing relapsing as soon as cigarettes or nicotine products become available. Then there are unexpected, subtle and horrible symptoms of withdrawal from nicotine and related smoking behaviour.