Joe Armstrong provides some timely advice on addiction and healthy outcomes
Imagine it is December 31st, 2005. You feel and look great. You're healthy and fit. You've an amazing intimate relationship. You love your work. All financial worries are gone. You're free of all anxieties. You believe in yourself. You've stopped smoking. You enjoy a balanced lifestyle.
Eleven days into 2005, have you already chucked your new year's resolutions? When you take the long-term view - 354 days to make it happen - compared to the cop-out "11 days gone and failed already", you see the challenge is active, not over.
If you've been smoking for years, you might feel it's unrealistic to imagine your being a non-smoker by the end of this year. Well, who decides what you are capable of? Only one person. You've possibly heard of the professional runner whose dream it was to run in the final of the Olympics. He got there. But no prize for guessing he didn't get any medal. Why? Because his dream, his self-belief, extended only to partaking in the final, not to winning it.
You decide. You alone decide what you are capable of. You set the limits of your own achievement. Dream big. You decide whether you move beyond addictive thinking and behaviour. You also decide your income. You decide your body weight. You decide your professional success.
If you decided last New Year's Eve to stop smoking and find yourself puffing like billy-oh again, don't think you've blown it. We can set ourselves up for failure and delude ourselves into thinking we gave it our best shot.
If you want to stop this year, start by writing down your personal mission. Companies spend megabucks formulating their mission, whether it's to manufacture computers, care for the sick or be a no frills low-cost airline.
What are you about? What do you want for yourself and those who are dear to you? What work do you want to do? Keep it short and simple, just a few sentences. For example, you could want to be healthy in mind, body and spirit, be the best spouse/partner you can be, a good enough mother or father to your children and to do work you enjoy.
Any addiction holds you back from fulfilling your personal mission. For instance, if you smoke in a car with your children in it, you're not loving your children. You are modelling addictive behaviour and exposing them to a known carcinogen. Once you've written your personal mission, discrepancies between what you espouse and what you do cut to the core. Even one striking discrepancy felt at gut level like choosing cigarettes over your children can provide sufficient personal motivation to stop.
Know the difference between 'abstinence' and 'sobriety'. Abstinence is the absence of smoking but the abstinent can still think like an addict. Sobriety - where you'll be next December 31st - is where you're not even thinking about smoking and you're living your life to the full.
So, imagine yourself smoke-free by the end of this year. Smoking is over and done with, a closed chapter of your life. That triumph opened doors for you. You've expanded a hundredfold your belief in what you're capable of.
Once you've written your personal mission, I suggest you go on smoking for the next month. During the first fortnight weigh up whether you want to stop more than you want to keep smoking. If you decide to stop, spend the following fortnight putting your personal plan in place. And don't quit before your Quit Date.
We choose our own thoughts. When the addict realises this, it can be a moment of liberation. If I think "I feel deprived" by not smoking, I choose to translate this into "I'm strengthening my self-belief with every cigarette not smoked". If I think "I will get fat by quitting" I could transpose this into "By stopping smoking I'll look and feel great".
Seek your doctor or pharmacist's advice about nicotine replacement therapy. Clean out your home and car of smoking paraphernalia. Get support from trustworthy friends. Visualise how you will manage situations where you usually smoked or when you'll be offered a cigarette. Anticipate which friend will offer you a relapse cigarette and, in your minds eye, play out the scene in which you choose to decline it, knowing that there is no going back.