5 Reasons Why It’s Not The End Of The World If You Relapse After Quitting Smoking

Not everyone succeeds the first time that they attempt something. If you were able to quit smoking for one week, one month, one year or longer but eventually ended up getting back into your old habits, do not despair. Some people may relapse, but the past is the past. The important thing is whether your relapse is a temporary relapse on your path to quitting for good, or whether you are going to continue your bad habits until the day you die. Only you can determine where you will go from here. That being said, you are not the first person to relapse, and you will definitely not be the last either. There are things you can learn from the experience of other people who have been in similar situations as you.

Why Do People Relapse?

Everyone has their own reasons, but there are some reasons which are more common than others. Sometimes people feel social pressure from their peers. Sometimes people are put in an unexpected situation and they are facing a lot of pressure. Due to the extra pressure from the situation that they did not expect, they may behave in ways that deviate from their normal behavior. The extra pressure may cause them to have a lot of stress and the way that they deal with the stress is by picking up their old habits like smoking cigarettes. If you faced a lot of stress and ended up smoking because you did not expect that you would get into such a situation, that is OK. It does not mean that the next time you try to quit you will be unsuccessful. With your new awareness of the situation, you can try to quit again and be successful.

Accept Responsibility And Do Not Make Excuses

If you have relapsed, you must accept responsibility that you made the choice to smoke even after you tried to quit. Nobody had a gun to your head and forced you to smoke a cigarette. Maybe your friends offered you a cigarette, or maybe you were with your friends and they were smoking and you didn’t want to be left out so you chose to smoke. That’s OK if you did that. But you do not need to give into peer pressure. Next time if you really do not want to smoke and your friends offer you a cigarette, then you can express to them that you like being their friend and you want to hang out with them, but you simply cannot smoke because it is a choice that you have made. If they are a true friend, they will respect your decision.

Quitting Smoking Is Not Impossible

Some people may give up in their attempt to quit smoking because they believe that for one reason or another they will be unsuccessful. They believe that they do not have the willpower to actually do it. They believe that they are already too addicted to nicotine and their body needs to function. They may believe that the pain of not smoking is too great and they will not be able to bear it. These beliefs are all wrong. If you really want to quit, you can do it. Reframing the situation can change your perspective on what you are capable of. There are other people who have had the same struggles that you have but they were able to successfully quit. You are not any worse than those people. If they could do it, then so can you. But if it is too hard for you to do it by yourself, then you should join a support group or find someone that can help you. There are many resources available and a lot of them, but not all of them, are free. If you can afford it, you may try to get some expensive help, but the price that you pay is not necessarily going to make it easier. There is a lot of free help available because the government pays for it.

How To Move On After A Relapse

Just because you have smoked one cigarette after you thought you quit forever, that doesn’t mean you need to keep smoking. You may think that because you’ve done it once you might as well keep going since at this point it cannot be much worse. It is true that relapsing is a mistake, but it doesn’t mean that you have lost. It just means that you made a small error, but you can still recover from it. You can look at it as a learning moment. If something in the environment causes you to relapse, the next time you try to quit and meet that same problem, you’ll be much better prepared to deal with it due to your past experience. And if you were able to quit for a period of time, then you have already succeeded. You may not have succeeded in fully quitting smoking, but you have succeeded in quitting for a significant period of time. That is a commendable achievement. The next time you try to quit smoking forever, you will be able to build on your previous experience and knowledge and it will be easier for you.

Dealing With Temptation

It is natural to feel tempted to smoke. If you have a history of smoking, then your brain and body is accustomed to the good feeling it may bring you. However, the good feelings of smoking are short-lived and will not last very long. If you get lung cancer, that could last for the rest of your life. Think about your short and long-term goals and the best way to achieve them. Think about not how you’ll feel in the next few minutes, but how you will feel in the next few weeks or months.