Habit, Emotions and Physical Desire
Habit, emotion and physical desire are the three primary forces that lead us to light up, according to Andee, my smoking cessation counselor. She recommended that I resume the smoking journal (PDF) and identify which of these three factors led to each cigarette. I’ll then revise the smoking journal to accommodate this.
I’ll share a little more detail on these forces:
Habit
These are the cigarettes you light as a matter of course, often without thinking about it. I believe all of my phone-call cigarettes fall under this category.
Emotionally Triggered
Tough cigarettes for me to avoid, these are the smokes you light when you’re upset, stressed-out or exhausted.
Physical Desire
I have a great example of cigarettes you need because of addiction to nicotine: I was traveling from Canada back to Madison with clients. Hours had passed since my last cigarette. We landed in Minneapolis only to find that our connecting flight home had been delayed, with no departure time listed. And the blasted gate had been changed—to the other end of the airport. Exhausted and cross, we schlepped our luggage to the new gate and sat down to wait out the delay. At that point, I really really needed a cigarette. No, I did not smoke in the restroom—but I thought about it.
Since I’m not quitting cold-turkey, Andee recommends dropping cigarettes by their order of difficulty, beginning with the cigarettes I smoke out of habit, then moving to the emotionally triggered cigarettes—saving the physically desired cigarettes for last.
My worse-case scenario? A phone call first thing in the morning, before I’ve had a cigarette, announcing that my mother-in-law is coming for a two-week visit. Hand me a lighter!
