'Stop smoking technology' has increased rapidly in recent years. As well as learning about the consequences and effects of smoking, we have learnt a lot about the practical question of how to quit smoking successfully.
Unfortunately, smokers' perceptions belie the well-researched facts. Ignorance accounts for unnecessary failed attempts, or reluctance to make a serious attempt in the first place. We now have plenty of evidence as to what works and what doesn't work. Comparisons have been made between, for example, patches, gums, willpower, acupuncture, various drugs such as Zyban and other methods.
A lot has been verified scientifically in large, controlled studies. In areas where scientific measurement is difficult, such as personal psychological factors, anecdotal evidence is in certain cases overwhelming. More than anything the 'common sense test' plays a big part in whether a remedy will work in any individual situation - not least in creating the self-belief and motivation to embark on such an important lifestyle change.
However, this information takes a long time to reach the general smoking public, and myths still abound.
Identifying Contributory Factors
By dividing smoking into four categories we can show some of the important factors involved, and make the process of giving up simpler. Smoking involves:
- What goes on inside your brain - the neurochemistry that accounts for addiction, conditioning and the programs that run all our habitual behavior.
- Stimulus response-type reflexes, like Pavlovian conditioning.
- Psychological factors, such as attitudes and beliefs about yourself and your habit.
- Social factors, such as peer pressure, work conditions, and support from partners and others.
To give up you need to know something about these factors, to help identify those that contribute to the problem in your specific case and to know where to direct your attention.
You will meet them all in some form throughout your journey to quit smoking (and they overlap), but in particular when they impinge on the giving up process. For instance, we need some background knowledge to explain why some remedies, contrary to popular understanding, are ineffective and why others, properly applied, just about guarantee success.
So we can use these four categories as a high-level checklist. In some cases we will need information - the facts plus some background. In other cases we will need techniques, orknow-how - such as to identify psychological factors and change them.
Some information is more readily available than other information. Thankfully the link between smoking and lung cancer, known for many years, has eventually got through. But that is just the tip of an iceberg. Smoking causes about 20 harmful diseases, and the average smoker is not aware of the true nature of the different risks.
Lung cancer, for example, accounts for a minority of deaths due to smoking. But this information, even when complete and accurate, doesn't address the practicalities of quitting.
Smokers are equally uninformed about how to give up smoking for good. Consequently, in their attempts to stop smoking, desperate smokers adopt techniques known to be ineffective.
