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10 Ways to Quit Smoking
Posted on October 8th, 2008 by brandi.
Categories: smoking.
Smoking Cessation Tools and products
The number one reason why people fail to quit smoking can be traced to innately buried thoughts that may be almost impossible to reorient. Truly, abandoning this bad habit is a matter of changing one’s way of thinking. Let’s discuss 10 ways to quit smoking:
1. Read about the numerous hazards of smoking. A great majority smokers don’t quit because they fail to realize the ill effects of smoking. Worse, countless smokers are also familiar with the perils of smoking, but they deceive themselves to think that they’re not true - that is, until they get the particular ailment or disease.
2. Always tell yourself that you’re not immune from ailments and diseases. You’re a mere mortal. You’re no superman. Your body is susceptible to wear and tear, and smoking balloons that number tenfold. You’re not safe from the hazards of smoking. You’re just like any other person: human.
3. Remind yourself that you are more than how you currently are. If you want to, you won’t have to give in to the slightest inclination to smoke. If another person asks you to jump from a cliff, will you? You’re not a fool, right? Hence, you’re an idiot to remove seven minutes of your life with every stick you smoke.
4. Don’t think of a stick of cigarette as a reward. It never is.
5. Know that smoking doesn’t make you hip. Nowadays, when people would rather enjoy proper wellbeing and live longer years, smokers are seen as pathetic.
6. know that though smoking may help you calm down, it will come at a costly price. The perils of smoking are too big to ignore. Would you rather enjoy a few stress-free minutes at the expense of a lot of years reduced from your life?
7. No one ever said that you should smoke after eating. Smoking won’t take away the taste of food within your mouth. Want to eliminate this? Toothbrush and toothpaste will do the trick.
8. Learn that when you smoke in public, you’re committing murder. Second hand smoke is just as dangerous as the smoke you inhale. When you smoke in a public venue, you similar to a {walking personification|symbol|messenger of death and disease.
9. Realize that smoking doesn’t help you shred weight. Cigarettes burn your heart, not your calories.
10. Tell yourself that smoking won’t help you concentrate at work. It’s just a mind thing. It’s all about you and not what you depend on.
1 is too many and 1000’s never enough!
Posted on September 22nd, 2008 by brandi.
Categories: smoking.
OVERCOMERTOOLS.COM ———- For Recovery Tools!
I am trying to quit smoking. Ive been smoking for 15 years. I still like to smoke though, in fact, I am so addicted that I can just sit all day and smoke one right after the other. My husband decided to try Chantix the new stop smoking medicine. I thought I should quit since he was trying to quit. I was afraid to take the medicine though because I dont deal well with medications. I am chewing nicorette 4 mg. I havent smoked in a week! It is not all because of the gum though. I really had to decide for myself that I was going to quit. The gum helps a lot. The first three days were the hardest. After the third day I noticed that my face looked better. The pores on my face actually went back to normal ( I had large pores before). I also noticed I had more energy. I have less anxiety and depression too. Could it be that cigarettes are not really helping with your anxiety but making it worse? Ive also had about twice as much time to do things around the house. I wonder how many hours of my life I have wasted smoking! So far, between my husband and I we have saved $80 in a week. We were buying two packs a day. Of course I have only quit for a week but that urge to smoke one more creeps up every day. Thankfully I also have the tools from NA that 1 is too many and 1000’s never enough and that reminds me not to pick one up. It also reminds me that I am an addict and I always will be.
September is Recovery Month
Posted on September 21st, 2008 by brandi.
Categories: Recovery.
OVERCOMERTOOLS.COM ———- For Recovery Tools!
September is celebrated nationally as Recovery Month, a time to recognize the possibilities and promise of a life free from addiction. This year’s theme is “Join the Voices for Recovery; Real People, Real Recovery.”
The National Survey on Drug Use and Health for 2007 had good news and bad news. On the one hand, cocaine and methamphetamine use were down among young adults, cocaine use by one-fourth and meth by one-third. Still, one in five reported using an illicit substance the month before. Among the 12-17 age group, drug use in the month prior to the survey decreased from 9.8 percent to 9.5 percent, continuing a five-year trend. Their alcohol and tobacco use was also down.
Significantly, use by the 50-59 age group increased, suggesting that baby boomers have not given up habits started 30 and more years ago. Of 20 million people over the age of 12 who admitted using an illicit substance, the great majority reported using marijuana. The study found a direct link between illicit drug use and incidents of depression.
Millions of individuals suffering from substance abuse have found comfort and success in Twelve Step programs, such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Narcotics Anonymous (NA).
The steps refer to a process whereby the individual, through attending group meetings, relentless reading, prayer and study, and with the support of a sponsor, conducts a “fearless moral inventory.” The steps include admitting one’s powerlessness over the problem, asking for help from a higher power (“God as we know him”), acknowledging wrong done to others, making amends and, finally, helping others in their own path to the better life possible through recovery.
Donna Edmonds, a 34-year-old client of the UNC Horizons Program based in Carrboro, is a Voice for Recovery. Horizons, a component of the UNC School of Medicine, provides treatment for women addicted to substances. Its support includes outpatient support groups; prenatal and postnatal OB-GYN treatment; classes in relationships, job skills, nutrition and money management; a residential program for the women and their children; and onsite day-care and other comprehensive services for the participants’ children. After years of significant cocaine use, Ms. Edmonds has experienced success with Horizons.
Ms. Edmonds wrote an essay recently about what recovery has meant to her:
“The most amazing lesson I’ve learned while on the journey of recovery is how to become a source of comfort to those around me, thanks to my sharing of the story of my addiction. When I was crushed and overwhelmed by life during active addiction, it was then I received the gift of desperation.
“No one needs to fear the trials of life. No matter how great a hardship you face, there is a Higher Power to strengthen you, making you better equipped to provide understanding and acceptance to those around you who’ve encountered the same hardships.
“Release your burdens, return to reason and normality … and you’ll find that recovery is the counselor of peace within yourself.”
Why I love Recovery Meetings
Posted on September 21st, 2008 by brandi.
Categories: where to begin.
OVERCOMERTOOLS.COM ———- For Recovery Tools!
If you are trying to decide if you should go to a recovery meeting, stop thinking and just go. As they say in Recovery if you think you dont need a meeting that is when you need one the most. When I was a teenager I was introduced to Narcotics Anonymous. I did not think I had a problem I was just having fun like everyone else. I didnt realize I had lost trust from friends and family because of my lifestyle. I made excuses for myself.
Drugs are really never the reason for your problems. Your problems are a result of not dealing with issues and feelings that you have (which has probably led to drugs/alcohol).
Life seems to go so fast and most people really never take the time to get to know themselves and why they do the things they do. NA or AA is not a place where people get together to convince one another to stop using drugs. NA is a place where you learn the tools to deal with your problems and take the time to get to know yourself.
The 12 Steps of NA/AA are so simple and you may think you can read them and know all the answers. People at NA/AA spend weeks or months on every step. The very first step is “We admitted we were powerless over our addiction that our lives had become unmanageable.”
The 12 step program was actually based on the Beatitudes in the Bible. It says “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
The first step simply means “I need help- I cant do it alone.”
The secret is simple we must discover our soft spot, our weak link, our ignorant area and we must become “poor in spirit”, humble our attitude, acknowledge our weakness and ask for help.
Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous are such great programs. I do not regret my past, afterall it brought me to Meetings.
Where to start?
Posted on September 21st, 2008 by brandi.
Categories: where to begin.
OVERCOMERTOOLS.COM ———- For Recovery Tools!
What do you do early on in recovery. Where do you start when you finally make the decision that this way of life isn’t working? There are several schools of thought on this but here are a few ideas.
Change your playmates and playgrounds. I have learned from personal experience that this is probably number one on the list. I’ve read that the number one reason for relapse is simply someone making an offer. Either “Do you need any? I’m holding.” or “Some of the guys from work are going down to the bar. You wanna come?”. Especially early on, you need to stay away from people and places you used to use your DOC.
Get involved in a recovery program. For most people, you’re not gonna have any long-term success by yourself. For the Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous it’s go to meeting. 90 meetings in 90 days is what they say. Why? Because when you force the body to go, the mind will follow. They even say it’s ok to show up drunk or high. When you get involved in a recovery program of some kind, eventually, it will sink in.
Read up on addiction. There is a huge amount of information on the subject out on the internet or even the “Big Book” for some.
Make your recovery number one in your life. It has to be the highest priority for you. When you get out of bed say to yourself “I don’t know what all will happen today, but today I will not use/drink”.
There are many more. I’ll get back to this subject in the future.
SMART Ministry helps struggling Christians cope with past, face future
Posted on September 21st, 2008 by brandi.
Categories: stories.
OVERCOMERTOOLS.COM ———- For Recovery Tools!
As a Christian struggling to overcome addictions, Myra Hicks believed she was getting mixed messages. “In (Narcotics Anonymous) they tell you to deal with your past issues - bring them up and deal with them. But in church, they told me to put them behind me,” she said. “It was a conflict.”Now, nearly 14 years sober, Hicks, 53, believes she understands the need to do both. And the SMART Ministry she began four years ago attempts to show other struggling Christians how to do just that.
The ministry, she said, was born out of a revelation she had while pondering why it was that, no matter how much she tried to put behind her the past events of her life - molestation, rape, abuse, drug addiction and homosexuality - she always ended up carrying them into her next relationship.
“There has got to be a solution,” she recalls thinking while sitting in church one day. “I believe the word of God, and I believe it when he says to put the hand to the plough and move forward.”
Then she was struck by a realization: “God told me, ‘I do want you to forget the past, but it’s still in your present.’ I had never dealt with it. I stuffed it. … God showed me that the way to get it behind me was to deal with it.”
So Hicks began dealing with the past. She came to terms with the molestation that she believes triggered her downward spiral, and eventually was able to forgive her abuser. She apologized to her three now-grown children for leaving them with their father when she chose a life of drugs and lesbian relationships. She accepted their righteous anger, mourned what she had missed in abandoning them, and pledged to do better in the future. She examined her own role in three failed marriages and forgave her ex-husbands for the parts they played.She also learned to forgive herself.
“After I did all that,” she said, “I had to learn to let it go.”
Hicks cautions that none of this happened overnight. “It’s a process,” she says. “It took 10 to 11 years for the process to work for me.”
Today Hicks is a happily married grandmother who works as an insurance account manager in Concord. She serves as an inspirational speaker at retreats and runs the SMART ministry she formed four years ago through her church, S.O.U.L.S. Ministries in Vacaville.
“It started off being a support group for recovering drug addicts and alcoholics,” she says. “At the first meeting, most people who came had been clean and sober for 20 years or more, but their family members came - the ones who had never done drugs or drank. They started talking about the repercussions of the addicts’ behavior. From there, my ministry developed into learning how to get beyond your hurts, the pain of the past and working forward from right here.”
No matter what kind of hurt a person is trying to overcome, Hicks believes the key is to develop a relationship with God - not the “mean, cruel, hell-and-brimstone God - a loving, kind and generous God.”
As a child enduring molestation, she says, “I thought, ‘Where is God? How could I be his child and going through this stuff?’ Now I realize he was there, right with me. I survived it. The journey was difficult at first, but just getting to understand God really did love me, was important.”
The SMART Ministry group meets regularly on Thursday nights. For details, call 310-5674 or e-mail mjhicks@sbcglobal.com.