Kick It! Stop Smoking Cold Turkey or Gradual Withdrawal - How to break a habit and addiction

Kick It! Stop Smoking Cold Turkey or Gradual Withdrawal - How to break a habit and addiction

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Then don't do it.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Hello everyone, and thank you so much for Judy in
Doctor Judy Here, Doctor Judy, WTF and tonight's show Today
wherever time zone, whatever time zone you're in, is about
stopping smoking. And I'm so close to releasing my book
kick It. Stop smoking and be the cause of better

(01:23):
outcomes for your life. And this is a book that
you could use to stop smoking cold turkey or gradual withdrawal.
And also, of course if you don't smoke, you should
still stay on and listen, because we're going to apply
this to habits and addictions. And this is just one
of a series of books that I'm going to be

(01:44):
writing and releasing, and the first one, of course, is
going to be kick It. And interestingly enough, I released
a book called kick It back in o g.

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Nineteen eighty six, I believe, And that was before I
was a psychologist, before I became a therapist, and I
was a stop smoking counselor so just a little bit
about that.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
I had a father who was a smoker. He's no
longer alive, but at the time he was a smoker,
and I was desperately trying to get him to quit smoking.
And so I decided to pursue avenues that would teach
me how to help people stop smoking, and I ended
up at the Shick Center, which was a stop smoking

(02:32):
clinic back in the day, and I became their most
favorable counselor and people would request me all the time,
until I decided it's time for me to be entrepreneurial
and breakaway and start my own stop smoking clinics. So
I started Habit Breakers, and soon after I was approached

(02:53):
by a publisher to publish a book on stop smoking,
which fortunately so over a quarter of a million copies
and then went into another edition. And now I decided
to rewrite it. Why because I'm a psychologist now and
I understand on a deeper level that smoking and all

(03:16):
addictions are just a way to feel what I refer
to as the whole in the soul. So we're going
to jump right into it. And first I want to
show you guys the cover, because this will be out
hopefully in the next few weeks and available to be purchased.
And you can see that the cover is very metaphorical

(03:40):
for breaking the chains of addiction, snapping that cigarette, and
indeed this does not only apply to cigarettes, but it
applies to vapes and other nicotine products. So let's go
through what is this thing called nicotine addiction and nicotine

(04:03):
habit and what's the difference. So there are two aspects
to this. Number One, there is an addiction. So as
most people know, nicotine is a highly addictive substance and
it's more difficult to withdraw from than heroin. And that's
actually something that the Surgeon General back in the nineteen

(04:25):
eighties see Everett Coop said. He said that it was
a more difficult habit and addiction to break than heroin.
And I think part of the reason is that because
it's so so kind of I don't know if innocent
looking is the right term, but it's social, it's all
over the place. Heroin has a connotation of being kind of,

(04:52):
you know, out there and a drug addict and fringe
and all of that. But cigarettes somehow got into the
circle of what was labeled very cool at the time.
And if you remember, if you're old enough to remember,
the commercials of the Marlboro man riding around on his horse,
and then the commercials about women smoking with their long

(05:15):
red fingernails and advertising about the mintiness and the freshness
of the cigarette and associating it with fresh clouds and
air and beauty and sexy, sexiness, sex appeal, macho ness,
and just a general feeling of hey, this is very cool.

(05:40):
And then I'm kind of giving you a little history
about my smoking journey here, my stop smoking journey back
in the late nineties. I think it was somewhere around
nineteen ninety nine. Actually I remember because it was the
year that my mother passed away, and she was a
smoker too, but she quit the habit a long time ago,

(06:03):
not with my help. And at that time I was
invited on the Roseanne bar Show and they were doing
a big stop smoking show on teenage smoking, and Richard
Branson was there, and Eddie Griffin was there, and Roseanne
was there, and Roseanne's daughter was there. It was a

(06:26):
lot of fun for me and also very scary because
it was CBS. It was my first time on big
time TV. And I remember going on the stage and
you know, if anybody knows Roseanne, you can kind of
like hear her voice and welcome doctor Judy Rosenberg. And
at that time I was so nervous I thought I

(06:47):
would wet my pats quite frankly, but somehow I made
it across the stage and I sat around with a
bunch of people who were passionate about quitting smoking. And
that was sort of like the launch of another version
of Kick It in video form. And now that I

(07:07):
know more about the habit and addiction, I decided to
approach it from many angles. Number one, the habit, Number
two the psychological addiction, which is what I mentioned, has
the hole in the soul that addictions feel, that habits feel.

(07:28):
And also approach it from the point of view of
what it takes to quit smoking, which are many things.
Number One, you have to have your reason. It can't
be well, I want to the doctor, and the doctor
recommended that I stop or can't be I'm quitting smoking
because my girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, wife, lover child is telling

(07:51):
me that I should. It's a weak reason. A stronger
reason might be I can't stand being controlled by these cgarets.
So that was my mother's reason. Actually, so I'm using
her reason for why she so strongly leaned into quitting smoking.
And that was what I call her big eye. So

(08:14):
if you are addicted, if you have a habit and
an addiction, you need to come up with your big
Why otherwise it's too flimsy, it's not going to work
any questions so far in the chat.

Speaker 4 (08:28):
Room, there is a question. In fact, before we even
got on, it sounds like someone that has been dealing
with smoking for a while says, I've been a chimney smoker.
Started smoking when I was fifteen, quit when I was forty.
Why pure economical reasons. If you want to quit, quit

(08:53):
your sugar addictions, for sugar is the real killer. And
then he goes on to go ahead, No, he did,
and he also says, if you could quit sugar, you
probably won't be If you can't quit sugar, you probably
won't be able to quit smoking.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
Okay, Well, I like where this is going, because both
nicotine and sugar take you on a wild ride. They
pick you up and they let you down, and then
they create a craving and then you have to fulfill
on the craving, whether it be sugar or nicotine or

(09:33):
cocaine or heroine or whatever it is, and then they
plunge you. And so the association between sugar and smoking
is a very interesting one because when you are plunged
from too much sugar, or actually when you spiked from
too much sugar, and then you drop because the sugar

(09:56):
starts being absorbed by the body. It creates a cycle
of addiction. And so that sugar low, so to speak,
pairs nicely with the nicotine, which is a stimulant drug
as is sugar. So in essence, they're both boosting each

(10:18):
other and dropping and rising and falling. So you end
up having a mooth swing like this. So certainly if
you quit sugar, you're in better shape because you're not
having these high and low mood swings. And then the
cigarette is riding on the highs and the low. So
thank you very much for bringing that up. I really

(10:40):
appreciate it. And so if there is anybody who wants
to call in, of course you do know this is
a call in show, and that number is three two
three five two four two five nine nine. And most
of you know already that I like to talk to
you live rather than lecture. I'll be happy to answer

(11:04):
questions in the chat room. However, obviously I prefer a
live discussion. So let's talk about the average smoker. I
think there are still I don't remember the number, like
thirty million smokers left. I think that's in the United
States only and more worldwide. And that's a big number.

(11:28):
And why is it a big number Because it worked
itself into and it always has worked itself into the
teenage and even the population of children. I remember going
to elementary schools in high schools back in the day
and lecturing about the effects of smoking and the addictive qualities.

(11:52):
And you kind of have to start early because if
you don't start early, then kids are very prone to
hooking into the habit and addiction. And if you're a parent,
not a good idea to role model smoking to your children,

(12:13):
because if you role model this, your children are at
least twice as likely to be smokers. Remember, it's not
what you say, it's what you do, and they will
copy you. So if you're picking up that cigarette and
waving it around and blowing smoke out and looking really
cool in their eyes, then they'll want to grab some

(12:36):
of that image and take it with them. Now, if
you're a woman and you smoke, please understand that smoking
is the number one cause for small for birth infants,
so it actually interferes with the fetus's growth. If you're smoking,

(12:58):
so is your You're passing along all of those poisons
they do go through the barriers and end up in
the system of the fetus and the child. And of
course vaco constriction is a big deal. So if you're
a smoker, especially if you're diabetic and you're smoking, you're

(13:20):
well on your way to losing a limb. And if
you're eating sugar, starches in particular and other forms of
sugar and smoking, you probably are going to develop diabetes.
And the smoking is going to constrict your vessels and

(13:42):
not allow for the blood to flow to your extremities,
which is a horrible idea for the longevity of you
and your limbs. I think we all know the major
diseases associated with smoker, like lung cancer and emphysema, which
is where the little sacks, the air sacks in your

(14:06):
lungs burst and reduce your capacity to process oxygen because
there are just less air sacks to take in the
oxygen and deliver it into the bloodstream. So there are
so many medical reasons to stop smoking, and as the
other person brought up, there are so many economic reasons

(14:31):
to stop smoking. It's a bloody fortune to smoke, not
only to smoke, but to date. I mean, the stuff
is really expensive and so by stopping smoking, you save
a bundle. But you know, again, these reasons may not
be your big why. They may just not. But before

(14:51):
you begin any process, and I elaborate why the big
why is so important in my kick Get Stop Smoking book,
and how without the big why, you can't even really
get the party started. So I want to talk a
little bit about gradual withdrawal versus cold turkey. So some

(15:15):
people like to plunge into things. They feel that they're ready,
and they don't want to take the time to wean off.
They don't want to break the habit slowly. They just
want to take a block of time. And in the book,
it is a five day block of time, and during

(15:36):
the five days, you put aside a time where you
make an appointment with yourself to do the kick It
Stop Smoking process. And this is really a process that
involves preparation. It involves mental and physical preparation, It involves

(16:00):
good nutrition. We are going to be distributing vitamins kick
It vitamins for those who want to recoup all of
the vitamins that have been killed off in the blood
stream because of smoking. So it's just a plan where
you're going to be hydrating and eating healthy or hopefully
organic food and re introducing good nutrients into your blood stream.

(16:27):
It's also an environmental preparation where you have to set
up your environment for success and bring in substitutes like, oh,
instead of in the ashtray, you might have some pistachio nuts,
or maybe you'll have some cinnamon sticks in there, or
mince if you like, or anything to draw you away

(16:49):
from the habit. Okay, so that's one of the lynch
pins is setting up for success. Another lynch pin in
this whole Turkey approach, as well as a gradual withdrawal approach,
is a version therapy. Now, let me explain what a
version therapy really is. It's just like it sounds. You

(17:12):
want to develop an aversion two cigarettes, and so in
the course of the plan, there is a plan to
associate smoking, not with that it's not wonderful breathing process.
You start learning to associate smoking with coughing and rasping,

(17:35):
and the smell and the smell in your hair, the
smell in your clothes, the smell on your couture in
your car. You start associating the cigarette with the nuisance
of having to get up all the time and grab one,
or sit outdoors at a restaurant because they won't allow
you to go inside and smoke or have your dog

(17:58):
or your cat look at you. And that's something that
I want to make a big deal about, because if
you smoke, the people and the pets around you are
inhaling your side stream smoke as well. And so this
is no joke. You know, if you want to be
ruining your life and your lungs and your hearts and

(18:19):
your vessels, and your eyesight and your skin and you're
yellowing of the teeth and all of that, not a
good idea. However, now that you're smoking, you have to
also consider who is next to you. Are you smoking
next to your dog, your cat? Do you know that
they're also inhaling that nicotine. They're also inhaling the tar

(18:44):
and the other chemicals from the cigarette, especially if you
have children in the car. I remember, back in the
day my parents cease to smoke in the car and
I would always have to roll down the windows because
it smelt so badly. But then and the windows rolled down,
the ashes flew in the back, which is where I

(19:05):
was sitting, and I remember developing this huge blister on
my stomach, and I was really angry. Actually, I was
really angry at my parents for being smokers. And I
couldn't say anything because, like I say in my Be
the Cause Healing Human Disconnect book, childhood is a hostage situation,

(19:28):
and so I think there it is. If you don't
have a copy, please get one from Amazon dot com.
And if you want a PDF version, then you can
request one off of my website, Psychological Healingcenter dot com.
And so a lot of what I've talked about over

(19:52):
the years, as many of you know, is narcissism. So
let's relate smoking to narcissism, because I I was pretty
narcissistic of my parents to smoke and not consider my
feelings and laugh off that I got a blister on
my belly, or laugh off that I was coughing and
complaining and pretty much telling me to shut up and

(20:17):
you know, and not make a big deal of it.
Now we know more, We know more that children are
getting sick from it, and you know, as I mentioned,
pets are getting sick from it, and your friends who
inhale your smoke or co workers. Back in the day,
I used to be invited into corporations and I'm still
willing to set that up if anybody has a company

(20:40):
with smokers. The campaign went something like, put out that
smoke with an employer benefit that also benefits the employee,
meaning that smokers at the workplace are always taking breaks,
are getting sicker and taking sick leave and disturbing their coworkers.

(21:05):
And yeah, I think there's a question there. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4 (21:09):
We do have a couple questions. And I actually have
my own experience because I grew up in a household
that also were smokers. My grandparents, my uncles, my mom,
my siblings, so everybody around me except for my father,
who he al he drank, but he didn't smoke. I
was pretty much the one that never.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
Did any of that.

Speaker 4 (21:28):
But for me as a child, I didn't feel like
I had a choice but to be around it. It
just seemed normal, even though I hated it. But when
I went to college, I finally told my mother. I said, unfortunately,
I'm not coming back home unless when I come home,
you guys smoke outside. Because I said, I'm tired of
coming home and leaving with all my clothes and everything

(21:51):
smelling like smoke. When I went back to college, that
you did that and she actually my mom made her
and everybody else smoke out when I was home, so
I know, I know.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
But yeah, really, because most parents will just blow it off, right,
I just say, well, too bad, then don't come home,
or you go outside or you know. But I think
your mother must have cared about you, love. Oh she did,
and that was why she made it easy for you

(22:27):
to come home. She wanted you home.

Speaker 4 (22:29):
Yeah, and she knew I was serious too, So it
was it wasn't just a bluff because that was just
how I was, but how you are and are, yes,
especially if it's something I believe in or disagree with.
I you know, I do stand my ground with especially
when it comes because it was I said it was
my health. And but I do remember the days of

(22:52):
driving across country and that cars filled with smoke and
the windows are barely cracked. Yeah, I can't believe we actually.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
I have that experience. And you know, I believe in
cursed by designs, and all of that was powerfully influencing
me to one day be the cause of helping people
stop to stop smoking. And I particularly love this book.

(23:21):
I really mean it. I love this book. It's just
so deep and psychological, and it hits on all areas
like I mentioned, the habit, the addiction, the big why,
the hole in the soul. So what I'd like to
do is do a little bit of mind mapping, which
is what I love to do. And also in this book,

(23:44):
I am utilizing the mind map as an approach to
quitting smoking. So unlike all of the other books out
there that are more behavioral and clinical or I don't
know they are, but you know, this one is written
by a psychologist aka Mey, and I go deep into

(24:08):
the dynamics of the hole in the soul, which is
kind of like the why of why people smoke. So
let's take a look at panel number one and we
can shrink it. Okay. So Panel one is the wounds
of childhood. So there are many of them, physical abuse,

(24:31):
verbal abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, smothering, selfish parents that are narcissistic.
I mean, these are the abuses and the neglects. And
in the book, I ask people to go through an
exercise that helps them to discover what kind of smoker

(24:53):
they are. And so if you move to panel number two,
you could see that people have reactions to their wounds
of childhood and So in this reactionary piece of the
mind map, which refers to the amygdala, which is the
fight flight freezing fon part, smokers will smoke for countless reasons.

(25:17):
Their amygdala is not happy, so they're going to smoke
to soothe themselves. They're going to smoke to control. And
the other kind of smoker is the performance smoker. So
there's the control smoker, there is the smoker who smokes
to calm down, soothe self, soothe, and then there is

(25:38):
the smoker who likes to smoke to stay in control.
So people who come from households that are very out
of control will smoke to stay in control. People who
come from households where there's a lot of emotional abandonment.
I'm just using these as examples will smoke, let's say,

(26:00):
to soothe themselves. People who come from an environment where
there is a desire to please the parents, like a
narcissistic parent who says you will only be loved if
you perform for me, become performance smokers. And then in

(26:20):
panel three they encode horrible poor beliefs like you know,
I'm not good enough, I'm out of control, I have
to please to be loved, and on and on and on.
So in the course of mind mapping your smoking habit,

(26:41):
and again I'm going to be writing several books that
will address habits and addictions, we work through all of
the panels and your wounds of childhood which create the
hole in the soul, and the reactions and the encodings,
and then we move into what I call the chaotic

(27:03):
effects of smoking. So if you look at panel number four,
you will see that smoking creates chaos. What I mean
by chaos is that it creates time circumstances where you
come across having to go into another room to smoke,

(27:26):
or you have to go out of your way to
smoke outdoors, or you have to break up a relationship
because they don't like you smoking, or you're yelling and
screaming at your children because they're pressuring you to quit
smoking and you want them to lay off. So this

(27:47):
is what I mean by chaos. And then because of
all the chaos, you defend harder. So the defense, obviously
the strongest defense in smoking is the addiction and the habits.
So what is a defense mechanism? Smoking is one of them.
So you smoke to make sure that you keep people

(28:12):
away or you smoke to make sure that you don't
feel your pain, or you smoke to numb out, which
is so you don't feel your pain, or you smoke
to avoid people, okay, or to control your circumstances, or

(28:33):
to appear socially accepted by your peers. So that's what
I mean by the defense mechanism. Unfortunately, this is not
a defense mechanism that is meant to protect. It looks
like it does sort of temporarily, but at the end
of the day, these defense mechanisms will break down. And

(28:59):
that's what I mean by panel number six. So breakdown
is when the smoking becomes toxic and it creates disease,
or it creates a sense of disease, or it becomes
so cumbersome and costly and environmentally unfriendly that you just

(29:23):
you can't okay. So that's the breakdown. Now I want
to go back into this process and talk about nicotine withdrawal. Okay.
So remember there's the habit and then there is the addiction,
and they go together because the addiction reinforces the habit,

(29:47):
and then the habit feeds the addiction, so they pair nicely,
kind of like wine and cheese, if you know. What
I mean. Okay, So what has to happen is in
the talking now about the cult Turkey approach. During the
Cult Turkey approach, you pick your five days where you're
going to be stopping smoking, and in that process you

(30:11):
have to understand that you are going through withdrawal. You're
going to go through withdrawal, and what is just the
withdrawal symptoms inability to concentrate, anxiety, could be that your
moods are very low. You might get depressed, you might
get sleepy, you might get a little bit bitchy and angry,

(30:37):
intense cravings you feel like you can't do this anymore,
and extreme cravings for nicotine. However, remember withdrawal only lasts
forty two forty eight to seventy two hours. So when
I had my Habit break Breakers clinic back in the day,

(30:59):
I would wash people struggle through day one and day two,
and then by day three they'd start feeling less ruled
by the drug. Okay, And in order to help flush
out the drug, I have tips on how to help
move the nicotine out of the bloodstream through hydration and

(31:22):
sauna and bath and exercise and so on. But it's
very important to know that as you get closer and
closer to withdrawal, your body is going to rebel and
scream I need nicotine, I need it, I need it,
I need it. And so we teach you to see
that as a positive thing, because it's meaning that you

(31:45):
are nearing the end of the chemical addiction part of
your process. Now, what's very interesting is that people think
to themselves, Oh, you know, like, after I'm done with
the chemical part, I could just have a puff here

(32:07):
and there because I don't have a lot of nicotine
in me. And you know, one puff on a cigarette
isn't enough to re addict you chemically, which is true,
one puff is not mealy enough. However, throughout the book
I talk about how one puff re addicts people not
chemically but habitually. So remember how in several shows, if

(32:31):
you've seen any of my shows, I talk about intermittent reinforcement,
which I relate to narcissism, because narcissists will love bomb
you and then they'll withdraw their love, and then they'll
give you amazing presents and then they won't pay attention
to you. It's sort of like that if you have

(32:51):
one puff on a cigarette after you quit smoking, you
will have reinforced all of the hundreds and thousands of
urges it took to get to that one puff. Okay,
so we have a question.

Speaker 4 (33:05):
Go ahead, Yes, this is about relapsing. And that also
it happened to my sister where she quit for fifteen
years and then resmoked her started smoking again. But it says,
why do so many people relapse after quitting? Is it
more of a physical dependence or emotional attachment.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
I think it's more of an emotional thing. So they think,
you know, like I was mentioning, Oh it's my birthday,
I could just have one puff. Oh it's our anniversary.
Let's just smoke a cigarette, right, Oh? You know. And
sometimes it's a breakdown like a divorce or something you
get fired from work, or something traumatic happens in life,

(33:46):
and you somehow, you you know, it's that slippery slope
where you think, oh my god, I needed as a
coping mechanism. And that's why the book is so useful
because it dismantles all these beliefs that the cigarette gives
you power and control and strength and all that. So
by doing the process, you're dismantling the reasons people relapse However,

(34:09):
relapse is very common and I regard it as as information.
So when people relapse, if they do, then don't take
a break, don't keep smoking, which is probably what people
want to do. You jump right back on the horse
and you just keep going from there, and you get

(34:31):
back into the aversion sessions, you get back into hydration,
you get back into the steps that took you to
get to the quit smoking point. So all of this
works together, the habit, the addiction, the hole in the soul,

(34:54):
the reasons people quit smoking, the whys that are so
importan relapse prevention. And one of the things about relapse
prevention is to know what your triggers are. So you
have to understand that if you're drinking alcohol and you're
at a bar, you're probably going to be more prone
to relapsing. If you hang out with smoker friends, you're

(35:18):
going to be more prone to relapsing. If you do
other drugs, you're going to be more prone to relapsing.
And speaking of other drugs, when you're quitting smoking, don't
go for the other drugs. That's just another way to
fill the hole in the soul. You can't be drinking
and quitting smoking. You can't be doing cocaine or smoking

(35:40):
weed or anything like that while you're quitting smoking. Really
the best thing to do is to feel those raw
feelings so you can address them, and you can see
where they came from, and you can go back to
the source of the issue, the hole in the soul,
the childhood wounds, and address those, because that's where this

(36:04):
whole thing got started. Okay, And then the nicotine addiction
is just a way that made this whole process stick
really well and repeat itself. And now you're doing what
the Freud Habitually, you're doing the spin cycle, and chemically

(36:24):
you're also doing the what the Freud repeat of having
the nicotine in your system. One thing I want to
talk about is the myth of smoking. Okay, and I
get into this in the book. So people actually believe
that smoking makes them more creative, that smoking makes them smarter,

(36:47):
that smoking makes them feel more in control, that smoking
makes them feel more social, that smoking makes them feel
more relaxed, all of the above. Okay. So that's a
lot of power that people give to smoking, a heck
of a lot of power. But when you really think
about it, and I did my dissertation on this and

(37:10):
I discovered that it takes about a handful of seconds
for the nicotine to hit the brain, but the smoking's
effect of relaxation happens immediately. So what is it that's
really relaxing you? If it takes about let's say five
to seven seconds for the nicotine to hit and you

(37:35):
take a drag on the cigarette and you're nice and relax,
what is going on because it's not the nicotine that
is hitting you. So I want to put that out
to the audience. And I guess what is relaxing you?
I anybody out there want to put something into the

(37:56):
chat room? What do you think is really relaxing you
when it comes to smoking.

Speaker 4 (38:02):
Somebody, actually, somebody's typing. Let's see what they say. Well,
one says, somebody said, what's relaxing? It's doing something with
their hands. It's like keeping them busy.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
That's part of it. Yeah, good answer, that's part of it. Okay,
But what's relaxing you? So think about it. What are
you doing when you're smoking? That should be a dead
giveaway to the answer, what are you doing when you're smoking?

Speaker 4 (38:37):
Puffing?

Speaker 2 (38:39):
Yeah, you're puffing, but you're also inhaling, right, and before
it hits the brain. Before the nicotine hits the brain,
the oxygen is hitting you correct eating. So what's really happening,
and this is the trick, is that smoking, just like

(39:02):
a good narcissist, right, steals the show. It's saying, Oh,
you feel better because of me, and you're in control
because of me, and you're relaxed because of me, and
you feel social because of me, and that is the
biggest lie. Okay. So in the book I talk about
this myth that the big lie is that smoking relaxes you,

(39:27):
and it's really the oxygen that does. Hmm. Okay. And
then the other big lie is that when you smoke,
it creates the urge to want to smoke more. And
so when you do smoke more, you relax. But really
what's relaxing you is that you are fulfilling on the

(39:52):
urge to smoke. So you see, it creates the problem
that you then use to solve the problem. And that's
how it keeps you stuck and hooked. And you know,
I relate it to narcissism because it's sort of like
the vampiring effect of a narcissist.

Speaker 4 (40:09):
Right.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
It takes more than it gives, So you pay all
this money, you give it all this credit. You let
it eat up your clothes and your carpeting and the
burnt holes in the furniture and the fetus in your
womb and the children around you and your coworkers, and
you know everything, right, You let it ruin your life,

(40:31):
so to speak. And what does it give you? This
fake sense of control, power, relaxation, social fitting in okay.
And then we basically we're we're projecting these great qualities

(40:52):
onto the cigarette when all that's really giving you is
the nasties, okay. And all it's really doing is robbing
you of the ability to breathe deeply. And so part
of this process is really learning how to breathe, and
learning how to self soothe and learning to take your

(41:13):
power back. Okay. And so when all of these pieces
come together, the goal of the book is I came
up with this term and I'll share it with you,
destination disgust. Okay, So kick it helps you get to
destination disgust. So what you associate with smoking is wonderfulness

(41:40):
and fun and pleasure and break time and sex and
I don't know what else. And really we're shifting that,
we're paradigm shifting you out of the line, and we
are re in essence. We're recoding the meaning and the

(42:02):
sensation of cigarettes. And what we're doing is we're substituting
it with the aversion training, so that rather than feeling
so turned on to smoking, you're now actively participating in

(42:22):
turning yourself off to smoking. And can you imagine when
I come up with my other books, which I will,
we're going to be using this model to turn off
to all kinds of habits and addictions. And also I'm
asking the audience you're welcome to write me and suggest

(42:45):
which books I you would want me to write so
that we can address the aspects of your life that
are controlling you, aspects of your life where you are
in what I call the double dies of darkness and
psychological prison. So, any questions in the chat room about smoking,

(43:07):
the habit, the addiction, how they work together, Why it
is so important to have the big Why, Why is
it so important to learn relapse prevention skills, Why is
it so important to understand the lies associated with smoking?
Why it's so important to heal your hole in the soul,

(43:30):
which is why you fill it with drug, sex and
rock and roll or whatever you do. Any other questions
in that chat room.

Speaker 4 (43:40):
There's a couple Bonita, thank you Bonita for the question,
and just it says you have to be careful when
you think what you think when you're smoking. When Indian
chiefs smoke their peace pipe pipes, they their thoughts rise
into the smoke, into the heavens and then ask what

(44:01):
is the name of your book? So we can put
that book up there again. So she must have just
tuned in.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, look, I'm a big believer. Yeah,
it's called kick it, stop smoking and be the cause
of better outcomes for your life. And you can do
the culd Turkey way, or you can do the gradual withdrawway,
which I'll get into in a second. But you see,
what you brought up is that intention is causal. So

(44:29):
if you're a chief and you're smoking to please the gods, okay,
then that doesn't mean that you're going to not get
addicted to the nicotine. And that doesn't mean that the
nicotine is going to do great things for the body.
And it's a tricky one because if it's a ritualistic
thing and it's meant to enhance some sort of a intention.

(44:55):
Then stick with just the intention and don't make get
an excuse to continue to bring it into your everyday life. Okay,
so there's a difference between rituals like having a glass
of wine drink a ritualistic occasion versus drinking wine all

(45:16):
the time. I say, oh, I'm doing my ritual. I'm
doing my ritual. No you're not. You're not doing any ritual.
You're reinforcing a nasty habit that we all know is
toxic and there is no safe level of alcohol and
it corrodes your body. So not only does it do that,

(45:36):
but it also corrodes your mind. So please don't fool
yourself into thinking that rituals, when continued on as daily habits,
are going to be constructive in any way to your life.
Any other questions there we do.

Speaker 4 (45:56):
But the same with my mother. Just go back because
I this is very familiar to me. My mother before
she quit because she ended up started she lost some
part of her feet because of circulation issues and end
up getting emphysema. But before she quit, the first thing

(46:17):
she would do get up, light a cigarette, smoke a
couple puffs, then go use the restroom. Then she'd come
back and keep smoking. So I mean, it is this
habit and that was her ritual of getting up every
day doing the same thing.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
Yeah, look how controlled she was. You know my father too,
after he had some it was art surgery or lung surgery,
I don't remember, but the doctor said you can't smoke,
and he didn't listen, and he lit up a cigarette
and he put the pillow to his chest so he
would rip open the stitches. So you know, if that

(46:59):
doesn't tell you how powerful this thing is. And like
other did after experiencing emphysema and all, you know, the
extremities lots of toes or whatever she had to go through.
If you sacrifice yourself in the name of what, okay,
the habit and addiction.

Speaker 4 (47:19):
Yeah, no, I in my uncle also he ended up
getting My grandfather died of lung cancer and my uncle,
my dad's brother, got lung cancer and he smoked throughout
his treatment and even the doctor asked him to stop
and he would not. But yeah, it doesn't make sense.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
But yeah, yeah, absolutely not uncommon. And I want to
just touch on this point before the end of the show.
Some people don't want to do cold turkey. You know,
they tried it, and they it was too intense and
the timing wasn't good. And that's another thing, as we
talk about in the I talk about in the book

(47:59):
the time you know you don't want to quit smoking
right after some tragedy. It's too much, okay, So grieve
and do what you need to do, and then pick
a day. Some people like a gradual withdrawal approach, and
in my book, I put the maximum at three weeks.
And during that three week process, you are developing an

(48:22):
aversion towards cigarettes, and at the same time you're eliminating
certain cigarettes, like maybe you eliminate your mourning one, or
you eliminate your social one, or you eliminate you know.
So in the book, it's advised that you're eliminating certain
groups of cigarettes. Week one, you do one group, week two, another,

(48:44):
week three, another, and all the while you're practicing the
aversion therapy. So you keep associating the cigarettes with this horrible,
horrible feeling, these horrible sensations. So it's weakening the the link,
so to speak, in gradual withdrawal. What is nice about

(49:07):
it is that the nicotine withdrawal is gradual, okay, And
so you don't necessarily feel these intense cravings because you're
slowly but surely tight trading down the amount that you smoke,
and by the third week you're not smoking very much.

(49:28):
You've got new associations with cigarettes, you're building better habits,
you're dressing your hole in the soul. And so this
is a very profound book. I'm really pleased with how
it's turned out. It's just about ready to be uploaded.
And we're working on the vitamin portion of this so

(49:48):
that people can replenish their body with kick It Stop
Smoking recuperative vitamins. And I'm very, very excited about this,
And of course I will be writing other books on
breaking other habits and addictions and any other last minute

(50:09):
questions from the chat room.

Speaker 4 (50:12):
Actually, yes, and I think this is an important one.
It says, what do you think about switching to vape?

Speaker 2 (50:19):
Well, this addresses vapes. So even though I don't say vape,
you know, babe, smape, smoking, you know, it's all the
same thing. It's just a nice little trick. If you're vaping,
then you're still that's so constricting. But if you don't
have a big why as to why you want to

(50:39):
stop vaping. If you think it's so safe, think again.
It's still ba's so constricting. It still has a lot
of chemicals, it's still filling the hole in the soul.
It's not really allowing you to address the loneliness or
the pain, or the anger or whatever. And so I

(51:00):
think twice about how nice and safe it is compared
to a cigarette. I mean, maybe in some respects you're
not getting all the chemicals, but you're getting other chemicals.
You're still getting the nicotine, and you're still filling your
hole in the soul. So psychologically you're not really growing. Okay.

(51:21):
I hope that answers it.

Speaker 4 (51:23):
I think you did.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
Well. Thank you very much everybody, and look forward to
hearing from you. If you want more information about the
release of the book, you can go to Psychological Healingcenter
dot com and be in contact with me, and it
will eventually have its own website, and it will be

(51:46):
of course up on my Psychological Healing Center dot com website.
And for those of you who have not seen my
new website, please take a look at it. I've got
the mind map there and it is sort of like
a little slide show bringing you from encoding to decoding
to recoding, so watch the little slide show. It's very educational.

(52:11):
Thank you very much everybody, and I will see you
next time. Good night please, CULTI