Focus on personal values ​​to quit smoking

Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable illness and death. Only in Spain there are already 58,000 annual deaths associated with tobacco.

Smoking kills half of its users prematurely, causes multiple health problems for women exposed people and leads people infected with COVID-19 to enter intensive care with greater frequency.

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It is possible to quit tobacco from the management of values

Long-term use of nicotine produces an addiction, and therefore the abrupt cessation of consumption triggers a withdrawal syndrome characterized by the following symptoms: irritability, frustration, anger, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, increased appetite, restlessness, depressed mood, and insomnia.

That is to say, initially, when one tries to withdraw tobacco from his daily life, he feels a strong protest on the part of the body, which was used to that substance. This is one of the reasons why quitting tobacco is difficult, but with the right accompaniment quitting tobacco is possible.

Quitting an addiction involves going through a series of phases

The psychological approach to smoking initially consists of assess how this habit has developed; This includes knowing what factors are sustaining tobacco use.

Knowing the reasons that explain why the person continues to smoke, we can influence these triggers, which are often automated.

The person who suffers from an addiction (either to tobacco or to some other substance) moves through a series of phases: pre-contemplation, contemplation, readiness for change, action, maintenance and, when this occurs, relapse.

The initial evaluation of the case will allow us to know in what phase of this process the person is, and this is essential, because depending on this the therapy is will guide in one way or another, the objective being to accompany the patient through the successive phases until he is able to completely abandon tobacco and become former smoker.

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Quitting smoking involves dealing with ambivalence

The smoker is divided between the urge to smoke (craving) and the reasons that drive him to quit smoking. In this fight it is useful to remember that motivation is a state, it is not a stable aspect; This means that motivation fluctuates based on what the person feels, thinks and does.

There are internal triggers (getting rid of anxiety) and external (being exposed to situations associated with smoking). Internalizing the reasons why a person decides to quit smoking is essential, because values ​​are more stable than motivation and they can serve as something solid and stable to hold on to.

It is as if we are on a ship in the middle of a storm; rocking and churning waves, strong winds and instability would represent the unpleasant sensations associated with withdrawal syndrome, but if we have a good anchor, no matter how strong the waves, the boat will not will sink.

This anchor represents our values: take better care of our children, enjoy better health, increase our life expectancy to see our children grow. grandchildren, show ourselves that we can achieve difficult things, improve our performance in sports, have a home free of bad smells where our friends and family members can feel comfortable, have more money for the really important things, or whatever our reasons are for quitting the habit of tobacco.

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Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, a useful approach to quitting smoking

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a therapeutic approach that maintains that a large number of psychological problems, very different from each other, share a common characteristic, and it is that the person suffers a series of discomforts (anxiety, sadness, hallucinations, pain or desire to consume) and tries, in multiple ways, to reduce these unpleasant experiences. Short-term attempts to control discomfort may be helpful, but long-term lead to exacerbating symptoms her and, more importantly, to neglect those things that are important and valuable to her.

In the present case, many smokers smoke to avoid unpleasant situations such as anxiety, nervousness, insecurity in social situations, or boredom.

This type of psychotherapeutic approach aims to help the patient examine the usefulness of their attempts to control discomfort and show that, in the long term, these strategies are ineffective. The objective, therefore, is not so much that the patient does not suffer, but that he learns to tolerate the discomfort so that attempts at control do not lead you away from the things that really matter.

Clarifying these really important things is crucial; in this way the values ​​of the person who intends to quit tobacco become the new compass, being the commitment to quit smoking a deliberate decision, taken from freedom, not both from other less consistent factors such as fear of the consequences of tobacco or the desire to please someone.