Smokers generally agree that smoking tobacco is addictive. Those who wish to stop this addictive behavior have tried many different methods, often without success. Smoking is not just one habit, but seven inter-related habits. To facilitate the process of quitting, acknowledge and deal with all of these habits.
I discuss these habits in a certain order, but one has to deal with them all simultaneously. This order is not necessarily the order of importance, which may vary from one person to another.
Vaping, smoking dried herbs, smoking cannabis or cannabis/tobacco mixtures, will change some of these factors, which I will let the reader work out for herself.
1. Nicotine.
Western medical science considers nicotine the addictive element in tobacco. Nicotine is a stimulant, and a poison in large doses. Sometimes people will use nicotine patches to help quit smoking. Usually this won’t work because you are keeping the one habit while going “cold turkey” on the other six.
As with many drugs, one builds up a tolerance and requires more to feel the same effect. One frequent smoker told me, “At first smoking gave me a rush. Now a cigarette just relieves the craving.”
2. Breath.
Breath habits are powerful and hard to change. Most forms of meditation and spiritual work (note that the root Latin word spiritus meant breath) begin with, or work with early on, breathing exercises, sometimes simple awareness of breath and sometimes control of breathing. These traditions consider breath important because it is a door between the autonomic and central nervous systems. It proceeds automatically but unlike the heartbeat one can observe and consciously control it.
3. Lips and Mouth.
Humans, being from the Mammal (Mammal, mammary, mamma…) class, start their lives sucking on their mother’s nipples. Harried modern mothers often wean babies early or use bottles, which can lead to neuroses later in life. Sucking, having the nipple in its mouth, means for a baby food, and also contact with mother’s warmth and comfort. Smoking can invoke those memories and feelings, and soothe the anxieties from the oral stage engendered neuroses. Sucking on that cigarette, cigar, or pipe connects one to those early feelings when sucking on the mother’s nipple. Odd that it became part of the image of the macho he-man!
4. Fire.
Archeologists infer from ancient hearth remains that humans have used and controlled fire for at least half a million years, maybe as much as a million years, predating by far our own species. Thus, much deeper than learned responses, fire instinctively evokes in us feelings of comfort and safety. For our ancestors, fire meant protection against wild animals, survival when it was cold, food, companionship and bonding to the clan – stories, myths, histories.
When you smoke, whether it is cigarettes, cigars, or pipe, you have your own little fire there, and that makes you feel good.
5. Fingers.
Humans biologically descended from the order of primates, which includes the monkeys and apes. All these creatures have flexible and sensitive fingers. They have many nerve endings in the fingers and enjoy frequent finger activity.
Smoking gives something to do with the fingers, and becomes a finger habit.
6. Social.
Smoking is also a habit connected to social interactions. Most smokers began with friends and regularly smoke in company, while having a drink, coffee breaks, and so on. Once the habit is established, even when smoking in private, the associations with memories of social interactions invoke pleasure.
7. Power Plant.
This may be more difficult for rational Western minds to accept. Traditional societies often consider that certain plants have a special power, usually those that have some definite physical and/or psychic effects, and that these plants represent spirits. Throughout the Americas, the original peoples respect Tobacco as a power plant.
The plant’s spirit may be a helper or an ally when used with the proper ceremony. In the modern world, most smokers use Tobacco automatically without any acknowledgement of the Spirit, so in fact the Spirit of Tobacco uses them. The Tobacco actually saps their power because they don’t use it consciously. You are in fact addicted to being controlled.
Applying to Yourself
Some of these habits may loom larger than the others for you. The first step is to acknowledge and experience for yourself each of the seven habits in your own behaviour. Then you may be able to substitute something else for each habit.
For example, breath: instead of lighting up a cig, go outside or open a window and take several deep breaths. Then just concentrate on your breathing for a while. Enjoy the sensation of the air going in and out. Remember that we all share the same air and that our oxygen comes from the plants, algae, and bacteria.
Nicotine? Probably the best natural stimulant, apart from sex, is aerobic exercise. Go to the gym, take up tennis or jogging or swimming. These would also get the breath going.
For the fingers you could find something else to do with your fingers. One man when quitting kept a supply of toothpicks on hand, which gave him something to do both with the fingers and the mouth. Take up knitting or get a rosary. Carry a little notebook and jot down your thoughts. People will applaud you for reviving literacy!
Fire might be more difficult if you don’t have a fireplace but you could have some time every day when you burn incense or a candle. If you really love fire, take up welding or glass-blowing as a hobby. But don’t run around setting fire to things. That’s not cool.
Lips and mouth: it might be a bit gauche to carry around and suck on a baby bottle, but chewing gum is generally acceptable. Or try the bottle, you just may start a new trend! Designer bottles. You heard it here first!
Social: hang out with people who don’t smoke? Or make a quitting pact with your smoking friends.
Conscious Use of Tobacco.
You may wish not to give up tobacco entirely, but to transform your habit into a partnership with the Spirit of Tobacco. Forge an alliance and use the power of tobacco when it is appropriate. In the traditions of America, Tobacco is considered to be a great purifier and is used to drive away negative spirits. So blow smoke in the face of your asshole boss or the neighborhood bully!
A good time to use tobacco is after times of intense emotion, excitement, adrenalin, when one may be out of balance. Yeah, I know: lots of people like a drag after you-know-what. It has the effect of soothing, straightening, balancing.
Thank Father Tobacco and invite him into your body. Ask him to protect and heal you. When you breathe in the smoke, feel it traveling to every part of your body, all the skin, the tips of the fingers and toes, all the organs. If you use it consciously, you won’t need very much. Also, get organic or at least additive-free tobacco and roll your own. Make rolling the cigarette part of the ceremony – talk to the Spirit while rolling.
Meditate on fire. We take fire for granted, with our cooking stoves and gas lighters, but remember Prometheus, the mythical figure who stole fire from the gods and gave it to humans. Perhaps a legend of a real person who so long ago first learned to use fire and taught others. Control of fire transformed proto-human animals into humans. Like “mind,” fire is not a thing, but a process. Where does the flame go when you blow out the candle? Where do you go when you go to sleep?
Addictions generally result from wanting to escape from something unpleasant or distressing, and achieve comfort and security. Since one does not address the root causes of the unpleasant sensation or emotion the substance can only give temporary relief and the feeling must return. Unconscious use of a substance like tobacco cannot lead to solutions. However, used consciously, tobacco can be an ally which might help with life’s problems.