CBQ Method

Quitting Smoking Naturally

Nasia Davos

How to Say No To Smoking Without Using Willpower – No Matter the Situation

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How can you say no to smoking without using any willpower?

Below I show you 3 little known ways to say no to smoking when someone offers you a cigarette or even when you’re alone and you think about having “just one.”

And NONE of them includes: hiding your cigarettes, avoiding smokers, or covering yourself with nicotine patches from head to toe.

Instead, they ALL show you how to use the power of your mind. 

Power you already possess but perhaps don’t know how to use to overcome this addiction. 

In other words, you’ll use mindpower instead of willpower!

The 3 strategies below will help you:

  • Prepare for and handle tempting situations
  • Feel more confident and in control
  • Find it easier to beat this addiction

Tip # 1: Visualize Yourself Saying “No” to Smoking.

This is going to help you prepare for high-risk situations before ever facing them so that when you do, you will remain smoke-free.

But what is visualization?

Visualization is when you see something in your mind’s eye. It’s a mental representation of yourself, other people, an object, an idea, or a goal. It’s like imagination or daydreaming but you’re focused on a goal. And your goal is to see yourself saying no to smoking.

For example, if feeling anxious and stressed is a very strong trigger for you, imagine yourself being in stressful situations, and instead of lighting up, you relax without smoking a cigarette.

Why does it help to imagine yourself overcoming temping situations?

Because your mind can’t really tell the difference between reality and imagination.

For example, when athletes visualize themselves training and when they actually train, what happens is that the same areas in their brain light up! The brain doesn’t know the difference, Because when you visualize something, your mind thinks you’re experiencing it.

That’s why when you visualize yourself facing and overcoming triggers, your mind thinks it’s actually happening. So when it does happen, you feel like you’ve been in the same situation before and conquered it. This gives you incredible confidence to say “no” to smoking.

What if you can’t visualize?

Let’s do something together now.

Think now of your front door.

What color is it?

Where is the handle? On the left or on the right?

What’s the material of the door?

Is it a big door?

Does it have a mat or not?

Now see your hands opening the door slowly…

If you did this with me now, you created a mental representation of your door, so you visualized!

So starting today, visualize yourself saying “no” to smoking in every situation you can possibly imagine.

After an argument, when you’re with friends, where stressed, at work, when feeling overwhelmed or even feeling happy and celebrating something.

For example, imagine:

Being offered a cigarette by a friend and saying no. And notice exactly how you say it and what your friend says back.

Driving to the store, going to the counter feeling tempted to buy a pack, and not buying it. And you buy something else instead, what do you buy?

Seeing your partner’s or your friends’ cigarettes lying around and you are not taking one. What do you do instead?

Being at work and you see your colleagues smoking, how do you say no without feeling you’re missing out?

And include in your visualization, what you tell yourself for being able to say no to smoking and how saying “no” makes you feel.

I promise you, if your practice this, it’s can change everything for you. Because when you actually find yourself in these situations, it’s going to be easy to say no without using your willpower because you’re going to have experience.

Tip #2: Think of What Will Happen after You Smoke.

What do I mean?

What makes a cigarette seem tempting is thinking only about the next moment. The moment where you picture yourself just lighting up, the instant gratification.

A while back, we did an experiment.  We interviewed a group of ex-smokers who were happy about their quit and a group of ex-smokers who struggled.

So, one by one they came into the room, sat on a big wooden table and I put a cigarette in front of each of them and asked them, “do you want that cigarette?”

Those who were happy non-smokers said they didn’t want it and they didn’t have to use their willpower to say no.

But those who were struggling said, yes, they wanted the cigarette and they had to use their willpower to say no.

And then I asked, “what do you think when you look at that cigarette? What comes to your mind?”

Those who didn’t have to use their willpower, they thought how terrible they would feel after they smoke and they break their quit. They thought how guilty and regretful they’d feel afterward and how one cigarette can turn into many.

One is too many and a thousand is never enough

But those who wanted to smoke and had to use their willpower to resist it, they thought how they would feel right after taking the first puff.  And they rationalized that they could have just one cigarette.

As you can see, this is a very different way of thinking.

Those who use their willpower, they only think about the next moment and they rationalize why they can smoke. But those who don’t want to smoke and they don’t have to use their willpower,  they think what will happen after smoking. And they’re more realistic about it.

So I want you to use that lesson, and do what the people who don’t use willpower do:

To remove the temptation, don’t just think of yourself smoking, instead, create a bigger, a longer movie in your mind: think how you will feel 10 minutes after smoking, how 1 cigarette will make you crave it the next day, and how that could lead to you struggling to quit for years.

Think of the conflict and regret that comes after smoking a cigarette and how one cigarette can easily turn into a thousand.

Because the temptation goes when you think it through. The temptation goes when instead of thinking what you want right now, you think what you want for the rest of your life.

Tip # 3: Use Your Self-Talk

Your self-talk is probably the most powerful tool you have in your possession.

When you are addicted to something whether that’s nicotine, food, or alcohol – you have 2 minds:

  • your mind
  • and the craving mind.

Think of the craving mind as Gollum, that creature from Lord of the Rings. All it wants is its precious fix.

And the craving mind communicates to you in the form of a thought.

Because cravings are thoughts.

Cravings are just positive thoughts about smoking that create positive feelings about smoking.

CBQ Method Principles

Thoughts like: “I need a cigarette” or “a cigarette would make me feel better now” or “I can’t cope without it” whatever it is, they’re just thoughts.

And thoughts can’t hurt you, break you or make you do anything. But they can be very convincing if you let them.

So how can you manage those thoughts, so that they will not overpower you?

What you shouldn’t do

You shouldn’t resist those thoughts because what you resist, persists. And when you resist your craving thoughts, they become stronger.

Also, it doesn’t help to scare yourself or make yourself feel guilty. Because when we feel scared or guilty, we tend to go back to the illusion of comfort that smoking gives us.

What to do

Acknowledge the craving thought.

When your craving mind tells you “you need a cigarette right now” reply back to it and say, “thank you for sharing but you’re wrong, I don’t need a cigarette.” Or you can say “I heard you, sssh now.”

Just have a small conversation. And then let the thought go. Because if you have that small conversation and acknowledge that the thought is there, it is going to be easier to let it go.

Thoughts come and go all the time in your mind, so don’t hold on to the craving thought, just say to yourself, “next thought, please” and your brain will listen, your brain will provide you with a new thought.

You have a stream of thoughts at any moment, so why focus on the one thought that makes you feel bad? Just because your craving mind proposes a thought and seeks your attention, it doesn’t mean you have to listen and entertain that thought.

And the great thing is that the craving thoughts will eventually fade away.

What happens when your friends, your partner, or colleagues tell you to smoke?

When that happens, you have two people to reply to: 1) that friend, and 2) the craving mind. And many times, when a friend tells you to smoke, you can become defensive or feel pushed, or even worse, give yourself permission to smoke.

So just remember that those who smoke, would like to be non-smokers and tell yourself and others “I don’t smoke anymore” or “I am not smoking today”. And if someone insists, just be a broken record. Say “I don’t smoke anymore”, a thousand times, as many times as you need to.

So, to sum up:

Visualize yourself saying no to smoking in different situations.

Think what will happen long after you smoke that one cigarette.

And use your self-talk and reply back to the craving mind.

All the strategies I shared come from the CBQ Method so I hope you apply them to say no to smoking without using willpower whether you’re alone or with other people.

If you want advice and support to quit smoking and remain smoke-free, make sure you join our Facebook support group for more tips and advice about the CBQ method.

Join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cbqmethod/

Will I Ever Stop Thinking about Smoking?

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When will I stop thinking about smoking?

Many times you message or email me and you tell me: “I quit smoking, I’m a happy non-smoker, I don’t want to go back but I still think about cigarettes. Is this normal? Does it mean I’m not over smoking?”

Maybe the same thing has happened to you.

You’ve quit and you’re wondering when you will stop thinking about cigarettes or you worry you’re not over smoking because it’s still on your mind.

You may even notice you think about smoking even more now that you quit.

So is this normal?

What does it mean?

And when will these thoughts end?

Is it Normal to Think About Smoking After You Quit?

Yes, it’s very normal to think about cigarettes more right after you quit.

As with any event, the memory of the event is intense right after it happens. But with time, the memory fades.

For example, if you break up from a relationship, take a divorce, or stop a friendship, you tend to think about this event more right after it happens because the brain is biased.

Well, smoking is like breaking up from a bad relationship.

So right after you break up with your cigarettes, you will think about it more because your brain is biased towards smoking. Your radar is wired to pick up on smoking-related thoughts, memories, and triggers, and focus on them.

It can be thoughts about cigarettes, smoking, or even thoughts about not smoking and how great it is that you’re smoke-free. You’re generally more likely to have smoking-related thoughts.

It’s neither good nor bad. It’s just your mind that’s focused there.

When You Will Stop Thinking About Smoking

There are two factors to consider here.

1. How you think about smoking

Does thinking about smoking means wanting it?

Absolutely not.

There is a difference between thinking about smoking and wanting it or missing it.

It’s how you think about it.

For example, I think, talk and write about smoking all the time without ever wanting it.

Why?

It all has to do with the associations you have with smoking.

Remember, a thought is just a thought. It cannot hurt you, break you, or make you do anything. As long as you change the meaning you give to those cigarette thoughts, they won’t bother you.

If you think about smoking as something that’s good for you, you will crave it.

If you think about smoking as something you used to do but don’t do anymore, you won’t crave it.

For example, let’s say you quit smoking and you’re drinking your coffee as a non-smoker. At that moment you’re very likely to have a craving thought like “oh I used to smoke with my coffee”. This is just a memory, nothing more.

But if you associate this memory with feeling deprived and not enjoying your coffee, you’re going to crave smoking at that moment.

Instead, if you tell yourself it’s normal to have this thought, it’s going to be very easy for you to let it pass and you won’t feel deprived.

So when you encounter a trigger or a situation where you used to smoke, reassure yourself that it’s okay to think about smoking. It doesn’t mean you want to smoke, it means you’re healing. It’s part of the adjustment process.

We can’t always control our thoughts but we can control what we focus on, we can control the meaning we attach to our thoughts. And the meaning we attach to our thoughts affects our experience.

So it won’t matter how long you think about smoking because if you change how you think about it you’re not going to crave it.

2. Time

With time, all craving thoughts will become less and less frequent until you rarely think about smoking anymore.

You’re not going to wake up one day and suddenly stop thinking about smoking. This is going to happen gradually.

But one day you’re going to think to yourself “Did I think about smoking today?”

And you’ll realize you didn’t! And you’re going to feel so excited about it.

How to stop thinking about smoking faster? How to speed up this process?

The more you let the craving thoughts pass mindfully without fixating on them the faster your brain will know that those thoughts are not worth focusing on.

Also, observe the dialogue that happens in your mind when you think of smoking and even write it down. Transferring a thought from your mind to a piece of paper or your phone, makes the thought weaker and helps you assess it better.

So thinking about smoking more is normal right after you quit. Thinking does not mean wanting and when a cigarette thought comes up, reassure yourself it’s normal to have it, let it pass without fixating on it, and if the craving thought persist, write it down and share it with someone.

Taking control of your thoughts is a core part of the CBQ method.

If you want to learn more about the CBQ Method and get support on your quit smoking journey you can join our Facebook support group. The CBQ Facebook community has thousands of amazing members who are in the process of quitting smoking or have already quit. Being in that group can really help you, plus we share tips and advice every day.

Join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cbqmethod/

Why Some People Find Quitting Easy and Others Struggle

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Have you ever wondered why some people find quitting easy while others find it hard?

Why some ex-smokers are happy while others feel deprived?

What are they doing differently?

What Happy Non-Smokers Have in Common

Over the years, my team and I have interviewed thousands of smokers and ex-smokers from all over the world and from all sorts of different backgrounds to find the patterns that make people find quitting easy or hard.

And happy non-smokers who find quitting easy have 1 thing in common.

And it’s NOT:

  • How much they smoke or how long they’ve been smoking
  • About how much stress they have in their lives
  • How much willpower they think they have
  • Or their physical addiction to nicotine. Because everyone who is nicotine-free for 5 days or more, they’re done with the nicotine addiction. However, there are millions of people who relapse and crave cigarettes even after the nicotine withdrawal is over.

So what happy non-smokers have in common is that they overcame their mental addiction.

The mental addiction is how much you believe you need smoking, how it makes you feel, and how ingrained it is in your life.

So happy non-smokers break up with their cigarettes. They realize that they’re better off without smoking, and they don’t want to be limited by their addiction anymore.

Yes, they have hard moments, but they know that one cigarette equals a thousand, and it’s just not worth it for them because being addicted is not a good place to be.

3 Ways to Know if You’ll Find Quitting Easy

Let me show you 3 ways to know when you’re mentally free from smoking, and you’re going to find quitting easy.

And if you notice you’re not doing these 3 things, use this article as a guideline so you will do things differently moving forward and find quitting easy.

1. How You Handle Your Craving Voice

When you’re addicted to nicotine, or to anything, you have a craving voice. Or else, a craving mind. Think about this craving mind as a miserable and needy creature that all it wants is its precious nicotine.

And the craving mind communicates to you in the form of a thought. It’s going to tell you anything to get you to smoke!

Cravings are just positive thoughts about smoking that create positive feelings about smoking. Craving thoughts create the desire for cigarettes.

Thoughts like “I need a cigarette right now” or “a cigarette would make me feel better” or “just one puff won’t matter”. Every smoker has those craving thoughts.

But when you’re mentally free from smoking, you’re able to handle those thoughts.

And there are many ways to do that.

You can ignore them. Imagine someone is talking to you and you don’t want to hear from them. When the craving mind tells you, “You need a cigarette right now”, just ignore it, say “okay, I heard you. bye”.

Challenge those thoughts. When the craving mind tells you “I need a cigarette right now”, think to yourself, “do I really need it?”

Let the thoughts pass mindfully. Or replace them. I explain how to overcome mental cravings here.

What you don’t do when it comes to your mental cravings is act upon them or believe the craving thoughts.

Remember there is a craving mind talking to you. This gives you the power and the choice to not act upon this thought.

That’s what it feels like to find quitting easy.

And none of the common methods out there teaches you how to be mentally free from smoking or how to handle your craving voice.

That’s why if you use nicotine replacement, vaping, or pills without working on your mental dependence, you will find quitting hard.

If you go cold turkey, quit gradually, take herbs or natural remedies and you don’t work on your mental dependence, you will find quitting hard.

If you do hypnosis without consciously working on your mental dependence, you will find it hard. But if you first set your mind free from smoking, you will find quitting easy.

And when you’re no longer mentally dependent on smoking, you have no anxiety, no irritation or deprivation, and you’re not jealous of other people smoking.

Because when cigarettes are out of the question for you, the nicotine withdrawal symptoms won’t even bother you. Because the mind is free, and the mind affects the body.

Even though most people are worried about the withdrawal symptoms, the withdrawal is not worse than a common cold and can actually be good for you.

2. How You Think About Smoking

There is this misconception that being mentally free from smoking and having no desire for cigarettes means that you never think about smoking. This is not the case.

The truth is that you actually think about smoking more right after you quit because your brain is biased.

But thinking is not wanting.

What matters is how you think about smoking.

When you’re mentally addicted, and you find quitting hard, you think of smoking as something you want right now. Otherwise, something bad will happen to you.

You’re going to have a nervous breakdown, feel stressed, or be irritable.

But when you’re mentally free from smoking and find quitting easy, you see smoking as something you used to do and choose not to do it anymore.

And you see cravings as just thoughts and memories – without having the compulsion to act upon these thoughts.

In 1971 during the Vietnam War, 20% of the US soldiers were addicted to heroin. So the government created an organization called Special Action Office of Drug Abuse Prevention to track those soldiers when they returned to the US and help them.

And what they found is that only 5% of those soldiers relapsed back to heroin within a year of coming home and 12% relapsed within three years.

So 90% of heroin addicts stopped basically overnight. No withdrawals, no deprivation. This is an incredible success rate especially, for heroin – one of the worst addictions.

How did these soldiers achieve that?

Because when they came home, they changed their environment, and their reasons for using were gone. They changed everything: how they saw their addiction, their context, their frame of mind, and their routine.

So how you see things, how you think about your addiction, will determine whether or not you find quitting easy.

3. You’re Not Using Willpower

What’s the difference between using willpower and mind power? Between willpower and overcoming the mental addiction? Like how do you know you’re not using willpower to quit smoking?

When you’re using willpower, you want to smoke, you see a benefit in smoking, but you have to deny yourself the cigarette you desire.

But when you’re mentally free from smoking, you simply say I don’t do this anymore. You talk yourself out of smoking.

When you talk yourself out of smoking, you don’t need to use any willpower to not smoke.

Because think about it. Do you need any willpower to resist eating rat poison, ammonia, or acetone?

Of course not!

Why? Because they’re harmful and disgusting chemicals.

Well, tobacco has inside arsenic that’s used in rat poison, ammonia that’s used in toilet cleaners, and acetone that we use to remove nail polish. And the only reason why you want to smoke is not to taste those chemicals. You want to smoke because you believe it offers you something. That’s the mental addiction.

So when you see smoking for the poison it is, a sum of chemicals, you don’t want it anymore. So you don’t need to use willpower to resist it because there’s nothing to resist.

To Sum Up

Why some people find quitting easy while others find it hard is because those who find it easy overcome their mental addiction.

And you know you’re done with the mental addiction…:

  • from the way you handle your craving voice.
  • because of how you think about smoking.
  • and because you’re not using willpower. Instead, you talk yourself out of smoking.

So I hope this was helpful and showed you a way to move forward.

As I mentioned before, we interviewed thousands of smokers and ex-smokers, so we took what the people who quit happily and successfully did right, and put it in a method that everyone can use to quit easily.

That method is the CBQ method. Over the last decade, the CBQ Method has reached and helped millions of smokers all over the world. It’s the same method I talk about in my TED talk, and it helps you overcome the mental addiction and find quitting easy because you take control of your mind.

The best way to get started with the CBQ Method and learn how it can help you quit smoking, is to get the CBQ foundational video.

The foundational video gives you an overview of your quit smoking journey from start to finish. So this is for you if you’re just starting your quit and need a plan or if you have already quit and want to stay on track.

Get the Foundational video of the CBQ Method here.

And if you want more support and great quit smoking tips, you can join the CBQ Method Facebook support group. The CBQ Facebook community has thousands of amazing members who are on the same journey as you. And my team and I post tips every day to help you quit smoking and remain smoke-free. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Join the support group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cbqmethod/

How To Overcome Mental Cravings

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Knowing how to overcome mental cravings is part of the third stage of the CBQ method: Change your smoking pattern.

Here’s what you need to know so you can overcome cravings easily.

What Are Mental Cravings?

There are two types of cravings: physical and mental.

The physical cravings are a twitch, a hunger feeling in your stomach when your body is low on nicotine.

The mental cravings are just positive thoughts about smoking that create positive feelings about smoking.

CBQ Method Principles

Thoughts like “I need a cigarette right now.”

“A cigarette would make me feel better.”

“If I don’t smoke, I won’t enjoy my day.”

Or “Just one puff won’t matter.”

All these are craving thoughts.

But remember, thoughts can’t hurt you, break you, or make you do anything- but they can be very overwhelming if you don’t know how to handle them- and I’m gonna show you how in a second.

How Long Do Cravings Last?

Physical cravings last around 3 minutes each. The physical cravings go away 3 to 5 days after you stop smoking because, by that time, almost all nicotine is out of your body. So if you stay nicotine-free for 5 days or more, you’re done with the physical addiction and the physical cravings.

Mental cravings are a bit different. Because they are thoughts, they can last for hours, months, and even years if you don’t handle them. Mental cravings go away when you change how you think about smoking.

So every mental craving will last for as long as you entertain the thought of smoking. For example, if you have a mental craving like “I need a cigarette right now,” and you start thinking, “yes, maybe I do need it.” And then you start picturing yourself smoking the first puff and feeling relief… then you’re putting fuel to the fire, and you are prolonging the mental craving.

You Have A Craving Mind that Causes Your Mental Cravings

Think of your craving mind as Gollum from Lord of the Rings. If you haven’t watched the movie just imagine a miserable and needy creature that all it wants is its precious fix.

And the craving mind communicates to you in the form of a thought like “I need a cigarette right now” or “a cigarette would make me feel better.”

Why Do You Even Have a Craving Mind?

The reason you have a craving mind is that nicotine has hijacked your brain and makes it believe that you need nicotine to survive – just like you need food.

For example, when you eat, your brain releases dopamine, which makes you feel rewarded, so you want to eat again. The brain does that so you can keep eating and survive (If it didn’t release dopamine when you ate, you would forget to eat and die)

Unfortunately, nicotine affects your brain the same way. It hijacks the dopamine receptors in your brain, which makes it think that you need nicotine to survive.

So your brain reminds you to smoke, through your craving mind, because it thinks you need nicotine to survive.

But of course, you don’t need nicotine to survive. Your brain simply has outdated information.

In other words, the biological part of your brain has been totally hijacked. So you need to use the intellectual part of your brain to rewire the biological part.

How to Handle Craving Thoughts

A craving is a thought and there are many ways to handle your thoughts.

1) Reply back to the craving mind. When the craving mind tells you “I need a cigarette right now”, you can disagree or disregard it. You can say, “No, I don’t. You’re wrong,” or you can say, “okay, I heard you now I’m gonna move on.”

2) Let the craving thought pass. There was a recent study that found we have 6200 thoughts every day! So just let the craving thoughts pass from your mind as if they were any of the thousands of thoughts that you have every day. Don’t interact with them, don’t try to think about them, don’t try to entertain them… just let them pass mindfully.

3) Replace the craving thoughts. You can’t have two thoughts at the same time. So you can always replace a thought you don’t like with a new thought. Just imagine you’re watching TV and you’re changing the channel. Or that you’re changing the station on the radio. You can do the same thing with your brain. When you have a thought you don’t like you can replace it, you can tell yourself “next thought please” and there will always be a new thought available. Watch how to do that in my TED talk.

Will You Always Have Mental Cravings?

Your brain is a learning machine. The same way you programmed your brain to think about smoking, you can reprogram it to stop thinking about it as something desirable.

How?

The more you put yourself in situations where you used to smoke, and you don’t… and you feel good in those situations, your brain gets new information and sees that “hey we didn’t smoke and nothing bad happened to us.” And this new information allows you to rewire your brain because it gets proof that you don’t need nicotine to survive. So with time, it’s going to stop reminding you to get it!

A Craving is a State of Wanting

A mental craving is a state of wanting but what are you wanting?

Has this ever happened to you? You stop smoking, and this feeling of wanting stays with you for a while. So you think that smoking left a void, and you try to fill that void with other vices like food and alcohol.

But here’s the thing. Everyone has this feeling of wanting – smokers, non-smokers, never smokers. But as smokers, we have learned to respond to that feeling by smoking. In reality, we don’t want the cigarette nobody wants rolled grass with poisonous chemicals. What you want is to change how you feel.

So when you have a mental craving, this is a sign you’re low on some of your emotional needs. We all need to feel certainty, love, security, comfort, and relief. But when you have a craving, what you’re really craving is to meet an emotional need. You crave to feel in a certain way.

What to do?

When you have mental craving, ask yourself, “What do I really need right now?” or “What am I missing from my life right now?”

Find what you need, meet that need in a helpful way, and the craving will go away.

For example, let’s say you’re home alone and you feel that something is missing. Ask yourself “What do I really need right now?” Maybe you’ll realize that you feel lonely and need some connection.

Then ask yourself “How can I meet this need in a helpful way?” Perhaps making a phone call to a loved one is going to give you some of this connection. And, if this is what you were looking for.. you’ll see that the craving will go away.

Or if you feel anxious after an argument, instead of reaching for a cigarette, ask yourself “What do I really need right now?” Maybe it’s to feel relaxed and secure.

Then ask yourself “How else can I meet that need?” Maybe do deep breathing, journaling, take a walk, practice gratitude, there are many ways to feel relaxed and secure.

Or let’s say you’re in a social situation and everyone smokes and you crave a cigarette. Ask yourself “What do I really need right now?” Maybe it’s to connect and feel belonging or not to feel awkward with your hand.

Then ask yourself “How else can I do that?” maybe change the conversation or hold a glass of water with the hand you used to smoke. There is a solution to everything.

To sum up

  • Mental cravings are positive thoughts about smoking that create positive feelings about smoking.
  • The craving mind reminds you to smoke – through your craving thoughts – because it thinks you need nicotine to survive.
  • You can overcome your craving thoughts – replace them, let them pass, reply back to them. Don’t act upon them.
  • A craving is a state of wanting but what you’re wanting is to meet a need (not inhale chemicals). Meet that need in a helpful way, and the craving will go away.

Overcoming the mental addiction and specifically overcoming the mental cravings is part of the third quit smoking stage of the CBQ method which is Change your smoking pattern. The CBQ method has four stages in total and they’re all important to take you from a smoker to a happy non-smoker.

If you want to overcome the mental addiction and change how you see smoking make sure you get the foundational video of the CBQ Method.

The CBQ Method is a 4-stage method that’s specifically designed to help you overcome the mental addiction, change how you think about smoking, and break the habit. The mental addiction is the biggest part of the smoking addiction so overcoming it makes quitting easy.

Click here to get the Foundational Video of the CBQ Method

If you want to learn more about the CBQ Method and get support on your quit smoking journey you can join our Facebook support group. The CBQ Facebook community has thousands of amazing members who are in the process of quitting smoking or have already quit. And we post tips every day to help you quit smoking and remain smoke-free.

Join the support group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cbqmethod/

Ask An Ex – Episode 6: How Valerie Quit Smoking 2 Packs a Day after 40 Years, Handled Cravings & Unsupportive People

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Welcome to episode #6 of Ask an Ex.

In this video, the incredible Val from the UK shares her story of how she quit smoking 2 packs a day after 40 years with the CBQ Method.

Val quit on the 30th of April 2019 and she is nothing short of inspiring, hilarious, insightful and, a true role model.

Every smoker and ex-smoker has something to learn from her story and mindset.

Tune in to watch:

• How her life changed after quitting smoking
• How to handle unsupportive people
• Quit smoking tips that work
• How a personal tragedy kept smoking for decades
• Her mornings as a smoker vs as non-smoker
• The 84-day habit rule

Enjoy!

About Ask An Ex

ASK AN EX is a new interview series. Each interview features an inspiring ex-smoker who succeeded with the CBQ Method ™

And they tell you everything – how they did it, what helped them, what challenged them, their fears, motivations and aspirations. 

Because the best person to ask about quitting smoking, is an Ex who’s been exactly where you are right now. 

Every EX shares their unique perspective and wisdom on quitting smoking (because everyone has a unique mix of background, mindset, and experiences). 

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Why You Don’t Need Willpower to Quit Smoking

by

Can you really quit smoking without willpower?

Every time I tell our members or seminar attendees “you don’t need any willpower to quit smoking and the CBQ method requires no willpower”, you’re asking me “How is it possible?” “How can I ever stop smoking without willpower?”

If you think it’s impossible to quit without willpower, then read on.

Because the truth is that you don’t need and, in fact, you shouldn’t use willpower if you want to find quitting easy.

What Is Willpower

Willpower is two things.

1) Willpower is a State of Resistance

Willpower by definition is…

Willpower is the control exerted to do something or resist an impulse

Quitting smoking with willpower means that there is the urge to smoke and you go against this urge, you go against the desire to smoke.

Quitting smoking with willpower DOES NOT mean being decisive, strong, determined, and making decisions like throwing your pack of cigarettes away. This decision-making process is an essential part of any change and it doesn’t mean you’re quitting smoking with willpower.

The problem with quitting with willpower is that you’re going against your desire. You think of smoking as something that’s going to benefit you somehow but you don’t allow yourself to have it.

And of course, this takes a lot of effort, it creates tension, it’s hard, and it makes you feel deprived. So you end up smoking more.

stressed woman after quitting smoking

For example, if you experience a lot of stress and at that moment you try to resist a cigarette with willpower… what’s going to happen?

Well, it’s going to be very hard, you’re going to feel more stress and want to smoke even more. And even if you successfully resist the cigarette at that moment… you may end up smoking two or three consecutive cigarettes later because you felt deprived before. This is the hard way to go about your quit!

And I want you to know that even if you had superhuman amounts of willpower from birth or even if you practiced increasing your willpower you would still feel deprived because willpower by definition means going against your desire, and that’s hard.

2) Willpower Is Limited

Willpower is not a manifestation or a sign of your inner strength.

We tend to think that if someone is a strong person that means that they have more willpower but that’s not always the case, that’s not what willpower is.

Willpower is like a muscle that gets tired during the day. The more you use it the weaker it becomes.

For example, if you have a chocolate cake in front of you and you see it in the morning when you’re rested it’s going to be easy to say “no”.

But is it going to be as easy after a hard day at work when you’re tired and hungry? Of course not.

And it’s not because you changed as a person; you didn’t grow weaker as the day went by. You just got tired, your circumstances changed and your willpower got fatigued.

And it’s the same thing with resisting cigarettes. You can’t always go against your desire with willpower because willpower is not dependable; it’s limited.

Willpower doesn’t work because willpower doesn’t last.

Everyone can resist a few cigarettes with willpower but for how long?

At some point you’re going to find yourself in a stressful situation and, you know, when we feel stressed our willpower gets depleted. And when your willpower gets depleted you’re going to fall back to old patterns and risk relapsing.

Also, willpower doesn’t work because you cannot use something you have a limited supply of like your willpower to resist something you have an unlimited supply of like your emotions and your impulses and your urges. It’s hard, it’s not a fair fight.

And that’s why willpower can only cause temporary change. I’m going to tell you how to create lasting change in a bit.

When You Need Willpower

Willpower is not all bad it’s actually amazing and helps us do the right thing.

When it comes to making a change willpower can help you start something it can help you take the very first step. In our case, it can help you start researching, watching a video, or start a program. However, willpower is harmful when you use it as the means to achieve a goal exactly because it’s a state of resistance and it’s limited.

For example, if you are on a diet it may need some willpower to throw all the junk food from the house or to go on the scale and see where you’re starting from. But you shouldn’t use willpower to stay on a diet because you will feel deprived and crave all the things you’re not supposed to be eating.

If you want to go to the gym you may need willpower to get up from the couch or get dressed but you shouldn’t use willpower to stay and workout because you won’t perform well, you’re going to waste your time and have a bad experience.

When it comes to quitting smoking, you may need willpower to start researching, watch a video or make small decisions but you shouldn’t use your willpower to resist cigarettes forever in the hope that the desire for smoking will magically disappear by itself. Because if you do, you’re going to feel deprived and end up smoking more.

So do you see now why you can’t go through life always resisting cigarettes with willpower?

This is not a way to live, you’re not going to be happy.

So what are you supposed to do?

How to Quit Smoking Without Willpower

Like we said a few moments ago, willpower means going against your desire and impulse to smoke and that’s the hard way.

But what if you change the impulse, what if you remove the desire to begin with?

Then quitting becomes easy!

What you need to quit smoking is mindpower, which is greater than willpower.

You can learn what’s the difference between willpower and mindpower in this video:

Learning how to use your mindpower will also help you overcome the mental addiction to smoking. The mental addiction is the desire or need for cigarettes. It’s how smoking makes you feel and how much you believe you need it.

At the moment, you believe that smoking offers you something. Maybe you believe that it helps you cope with stress and boredom, socialize, concentrate, take a break or control your weight. And even though smoking offers you nothing at all… as long as you believe it does, you will desire it.

And the thing is that willpower does not remove the benefits you think you get from smoking and it doesn’t magically remove your desire to smoke. Because it’s hard to control our desires with willpower, our emotions don’t work that way.

And that’s why the solution is to change the emotions and stop desiring cigarettes. And you do that when you realize that smoking offers you nothing.

Think about it. Do you need any willpower to resist eating rat poison or ammonia or acetone?

Of course not! Because it’s disgusting and harmful.

Well, tobacco has inside arsenic that’s used in rat poison and ammonia and acetone and 4,000 chemicals, and the only reason why you want it is because you believe it offers you something. That’s the mental addiction in action.

My point is when you see smoking for what it really is you don’t desire it anymore and when there is no desire there is no need for willpower and quitting becomes easy.

How do you remove the desire for smoking?

When I was trying to quit smoking I struggled a lot with this and that’s why I started developing the CBQ method, and the 4 stages of the CBQ method help you remove this desire.

Learn exactly how the CBQ method removes the desire for cigarettes and why the CBQ method requires no willpower.

Is It Hard to Overcome the Desire for Cigarettes?

It’s easy to overcome this desire because it’s not a real desire.

It all started because nicotine hijacked your brain and made it believe that you need it to survive just like you need food and air and water.

When you’re hungry your brain is going to insist that you eat. The brain will communicate to you via your thoughts and tell you that you’re hungry. And it will insist because it needs you to survive.

In the same way, the brain insists for you to smoke because it thinks that you need nicotine to survive. So if you feel compelled to smoke even though you know better it’s not because you really enjoy smoking or because you’re self-destructive. It’s because your brain has outdated information. And when you use your willpower to resist a cigarette it’s like telling your mind that indeed “I want that I need that but I can’t have it” so your brain goes bananas.

But when you treat these craving thoughts as a memory, as an addiction, as a thought …they go.

How to Rewire Your Brain

When you put yourself in situations where you used to smoke and you don’t… and you are relaxed in these situations… you’re actually allowing your brain to get new information. This rewires your brain.

Because you show yourself that nothing happened because you didn’t smoke. You show your brain that you don’t need nicotine to survive so your brain adjusts and the craving thoughts eventually disappear.

How to Quit Smoking Permanently

So the solution is to remove the desire, the impulse, and change how you see smoking and your associations with it – that’s how you create lasting change.

Let’s think about the examples we talked about before.

When you go on a diet you may need willpower to start… but to create lasting change you must associate eating healthy and looking after your body with happiness, health, and joy. You must create those associations and when you do that, bad foods start becoming undesirable.

If you want to go to the gym and work out you may need willpower to start…but to create lasting change, to create a habit, you need to associate working out with health, happiness, confidence, and feeling good. With time, you won’t even need willpower to start because you’re going to be chasing this good feeling.

And of course to stop smoking you may need willpower to get started, educate yourself, research, or watch some videos… but to create lasting change and quit permanently you need to associate being smoke-free with feeling confident, healthy, wealthy, accomplished, and free.

Because if you desire the result, you won’t need any willpower to get motivated. And when you get some distance from your smoking habit you’ll be able to see that it did nothing for you. It was an abusive relationship based on lies and fear and you’re glad you’re out.

Conclusion

Willpower is a state of resistance and it’s limited. It’s good for starting things but bad for creating lasting change because you feel deprived, it makes the process difficult, and you may end up relapsing.

Willpower means going against the desire to smoke and this is hard. But when you overcome the desire to smoke, quitting becomes easy. And when there is no desire there is also no need for willpower.

To remove the desire for smoking you must change how you see smoking and quitting and that’s how you create lasting change and quit permanently.

So I hope this helped you rethink the role of willpower in your quit and that it gave you a new perspective.

If you want to overcome the mental addiction and change how you see smoking make sure you get the foundational video of the CBQ Method.

The CBQ Method is a 4-stage method that’s specifically designed to help you overcome the mental addiction, change how you think about smoking and break the habit. The mental addiction is the biggest part of the smoking addiction so overcoming it makes quitting easy.

Click here to get the Foundational Video if the CBQ Method

And if you want help and support, you can join our CBQ method Facebook support group. We have thousands of amazing members who are on the same journey as you. And we post tips every day to help you quit smoking and remain smoke-free.

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