By havetoquit

A Terrified Smoker Cannot Quit 

I belong to a writer's group and became friends with several of the members. One of them is a fellow self-publisher, on motivation and self-help, and I got a call from him this morning. His wife is a smoker and wants to quit but she's terrified. Of what? Of the power that will give her. Erik said it seems a legitimate fear. Because she hasn't been able to quit before she's pretty much settled into a kind of miasma of fear of ineptitude (his words, not mine). In other words, she's afraid of her own power. If she succeeds in her quit, she can, or should be able to, accomplish anything, and that scares the hell out of her. I thought this might be interesting to talk about. Is she and/or Erik overthinking her fear? For myself, I would welcome that great sense of accomplishment. Does anyone else fear that sense of power and, if so, how do you work around it? I mentioned Erik's work because he's tried to motivate her without much luck. Anyone have feed-back on this??
allypterns
This is another reason why many don't finish Allan Carr's book because he says not to quit smoking until the end of the book.
cheekywarm
Fear of the unknown, Fear of changs, Fear in itself...
gonefishin
I was afraid to quit. Afraid of losing a basically lifelong friend. Didn't know how, or what to do. I cried about quitting months before I actually quit. I get it.
bornandbread
Sounds like denial to me. She is not ready to quit.
susanecox
I'm in day 3 of quitting and am scared to death! I do not want to smoke anymore but I feel that it wouldn't take much to push me in that direction to start again. I have to stay focused all the time.
shultz
I finally took the steps to quit hopefully before it totally ruined my body. So far so good!
catsndogs
It's another excuse.
sillygraph
Yep, first things first, the desire, the want must be there,,,,
numberwang
I would personally say go with the flow, take one day at a time, tomorrow will look after itself and as they say face the fear and do it anyway
rockinout
I guess I would say take some power for a test drive ... if she really hates it that much, the misery of smoking would welcome her back with open arms and gladly take that power back..... just give it maybe the first day and maybe the next and the next till a few months go by and see if that test drive and the wind in her hair of driving that new powerful convertible is that bad... she may find she likes the wind whipping in her hair after all
beachy001
I think you have to be ready to quit and with most of us, we're really not certain of anything. Fear can stop you in your tracks so you'd have to work through it in order to change your thinking. Change is never easy but it is constant.
marney
I agree with those that have said the desire has to be there. I smoked for over 30 years and never came close to having the desire to quit that I have now. I would always cheat and lie to people about my quit. With this quit I have been honest with myself and have taken time for self reflection. Change is difficult
mysticangel
Sounds like bullshit!