Kick It! Quit Smoking Naturally: ...in about 30 days

By Angel Booth

My Quit Smoking Naturally Kick It! system is a process that helps you work with your habit and addiction rather than going to war against it. Using the Kick It method will gently shift your identity of smoker to that of non-smoker. You will mindfully and naturally move toward greater

• Language: English
• Publisher: Angel Booth
• Release date: Jul 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9798891218864

Book preview

Introduction

To Kick It you have to want to quit. If you feel like you should quit but don’t really want to, you can still benefit from this method—use this method to get ready to want to quit!

Kick It is a process that helps you work with your habit and addiction rather than going to war against it. Using the Kick It method will gently shift your identity or self-concept of smoker to that of non-smoker. You will naturally move toward greater freedom and health without feeling deprived, without activating a punishment/reward system, and without great mental or emotional effort.

I invented this system out of frustration. You may know the frustration of quitting and starting up again and quitting again with greater resolve, only to start up again at a party or during a stressful time. One time, I quit for a whole 2 years, only to start again because I thought, like an alcoholic, that I could have just one cigarette for old times’ sake. I bounced from quit to smoke again to quit again many times while trying to find the way to kick the habit once and for all.

Both of my parents died as a result of cigarette smoking. Both died decades sooner than their inherited health and vitality would have taken them without cigarettes. My mother, a dancer and golfer and champion swimmer/diver in her youth, died at 72. Her death certificate allowed three spaces to explain cause of death. Hers read: 1. Heart failure, 2. Emphysema, 3. COPD (chronic pulmonary disease). Her heart failure was a result of the second and third chronic conditions. All due to cigarette smoking.

Like my mother, my father had been an athlete in his youth. After World War II, he and mom studied Architecture and Engineering. He became a builder, seldom ill and always active and fit. And a dedicated smoker. One day he stepped outside to pick up the daily paper and likely was dead before he hit the ground. Heart failure due to COPD. He was 74. His doctor said he had never, in his 40 years of practice, seen a heart as enlarged as my father’s.

How could I be a better influence to my children? How could I avoid the same fate as my parents? How can I stand in my integrity as a healthcare provider, if I can’t get control over this unhealthy habit?

I decided there must be a warmer than cold-turkey way to do it. So, I considered that instead of depriving and harassing myself, maybe I could condition myself to live without cigarettes—that by using gentler techniques I could change my identity as a smoker while reducing the urge and urgency to light up. It worked!

After about 3.5 weeks of dedicated, but not insistent or pushy affirmations and creative mindfulness games, I awoke one day having no urge to smoke at all. I went about my routines, curious about my feeling of freedom, but determined to remain open and trusting of the thought I had upon awakening: This is the day!

Later that same day, I arrived at the Meditation School where I taught afternoon classes. Until that day, my routine, had been to beeline from the front door to the back porch, grab a cigarette out of the pack that Shirley usually left on a shelf (by then, she was charging me $1 per smoke!) and head out to the garden for a smoke before my classes.

But THAT day, the day I realized was THE day, I made my way as usual to the back porch, paused and looked up at the pack of cigarettes on the shelf, and felt happy that I had no desire to grab one. I don’t smoke anymore, I heard myself say, then turned the corner into the kitchen and made myself a cup of tea. And never looked back!

Since then I have taught many others to quit smoking—through classes and individual coaching. Most people were able to quit simply and quickly using this system. Some stretched it to two months or came back after a relapse to be successful the second time around. What matters most is not