Long Term Planning

Long Term Planning

Anticipating future risks

Quitting smoking is a massive achievement worth celebrating! But staying smoke-free is skill that needs a lot of thought and planning. Why? Well, it’s common to face high-risk situations that might trigger an urge to smoke. For example, stress, the holiday period and being around alcohol can make people want to smoke. However, you can prepare for these beforehand by thinking about your smoking triggers and having plans to deal with these – remember, it’s a wave that you need to ride!

Holidays

During the holiday period, your routine changes, you might be around smokers, and you might be reflecting on your emotions. Any of these may make you want to smoke but to prepare for this, you can:

• plan for how you will deal with urges to smoke or if you’re next to people smoking (e.g., going for a walk)

• practice ex-smoker statements to use if someone offers you a cigarette (e.g., “I don’t smoke anymore”, “No thanks, I’m good”)

• think about how you can distract yourself (e.g., helping with the cooking or hosting duties)

Stress

When you’re feeling stressed, it’s normal for your brain to want to go back to old habits (like smoking) that will help relax or distract you. But remember – stress being reduced by smoking cigarettes is a myth (link to Kesia’s stress article about this)!

To prepare for stressful situations, you can:

• practicing deep-breathing (e.g., box breathing and five-finger breathing – link to my coping with urges article)

• writing down what’s causing your stress, to help you think through how you can manage it

• developing a ‘comfort kit’ for when stressful situations might make you want to smoke – a calming music playlist, chewing gum, fidget toys and positive statements to remind yourself why you want to stay quit

Alcohol

Sometimes, when we drink alcohol, we find ourselves doing things that we wouldn’t normally do or making poor decisions. We might also be around smokers. Together, all of this explains why we’re more likely to smoke when drinking alcohol. To avoid this, you can:

• decide your limits beforehand – how much will you drink? Which situations will you avoid?

• ask a friend to check in and remind you of your goal to stay smoke-free

• practice deep-breathing, finding distractions and using self-talk (link to my coping with urges article)

Prevention tasks

Whilst the holiday period, stress and alcohol are common triggers for smoking, you might find that there are actually other situations that are high-risk for you. Have a think and write down your answers.

My top 3 smoking triggers are:

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Now that you’ve thought about your high-risk situations, you can plan how you will deal with your three trigger situations: 

Situation: .....................................................................

What is making me want to smoke? ....................................................................

Why do I want to stay smoke-free? .....................................................................

What will I do instead of smoking?:

• .....................................................................

• .....................................................................

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