26. Do You Not Smoke Right Now, or Do You Not Smoke Anymore?

September 28, 2018 Mind-Body Column, Quit Smoking No Comments

Smoking does not (necessarily) make the smoker

Psyche, nicotine

It’s common knowledge that the physical aspect is just a little part of the total addiction. The biggest part of an addiction is present ‘in the mind’. Nicotine is not much more than the leverage of the jack with which the real smoking addiction is being lifted. The latter is for the most part ‘psychological’. This is to say: better to approach it through a psychological lens than through a physical one. This is also an important part of the wolf trap which makes someone start smoking.

Nicotine shot after shot after shot doesn’t look that bad in terms of addiction.

In the meantime, however, the real addiction emerges from behind, literally, because it’s coming from the own mind. It’s not even a Trojan horse. It is Troy itself, in the guise of a horse.

Having quit smoking for a long time, still a smoker

A smoking smoking-addict who quits smoking for one day still remains a smoking-addict. Even after two days, after three… Also after ten? After a year? You probably know someone who has quit smoking for years and yet still regularly feels the ‘pitch of the cigarette’ in a specific situation such as after a meal, or when he sees other people smoking. You also may know someone who, after many years without a cigarette, was seduced to smoke a single cigarette (really, only one) to then soon recur and smoke the same number of packets of yesteryear. In that case, there is an important question: “Has this person been a non-smoking smoking-addict over the past few years?” Apparently…

Now, let us call a ‘smoking non-smoking addict’ an S/N-Sa and a ‘non-smoking smoking-addict’ an N-S/Sa. A matter of laziness. So it is clear what is a S/Sa and what is an N-S/N-Sa. Well, is it then possible to have next to an S/Sa and an N-S/N-Sa also an S/N-Sa and an N-S/Sa? My answer to these statements is 4 times “yes”.

Spontaneously quit smoking

An N-S/Sa is someone who still bears the fact of being a smoker within. Merely quitting smoking is clearly not always sufficient to get rid of the interior smoker. It is even doubtful whether this would sometimes be indeed the case. Still, there are former S/Sa’s who currently have a new career of N-S/N-Sa. My experience is that this is about people who have turned the corner at a level of deep meaning, deep within themselves. I remember the extreme case of someone who suddenly saw ‘a very old and horrible smoky male’ in the mirror. Immediately stopped. Never a problem. Never started again. Please note: I do not recommend such a crash course. It is just one example of the effect of the significance level.

This provides possibilities. If an S/Sa can complete a full or partial course to become a S/N-Sa before one effectively quits smoking, the final step will be a relatively easy step. One no longer needs to fight the addiction with willpower, for the simple reason that there is no smoking addiction anymore. Well, since most of the smoking addiction is psychological and quitting is clearly no simple conscious decision, we come across the following assignment:

how to help transforming the deeper motivation of an S/Sa into that of a S/N-Sa.

In other words, it is clear that someone who consciously and unconsciously wants to quit smoking, is already an S/N-Sa. The smoky male before the mirror has said something like that to himself and that ‘affected him’. Maybe he had a magic mirror… but if you don’t believe that, it might be very important to really go into that language from which one element in this particular case, already had such an influence. You can interpret an addiction as the loss of a choice.