Chapter 5

VI. SPECIAL PROJECTS (cont.)

(second section - for advanced focusers only)

2) Increasing the pleasure derived from smoking and curbing the habit

Many of the intended readers of this booklet are used to smoking nicotine mixed with various ingredients and burning materials. A significant number of smokers are not satisfied with the amount of the material smoked, the frequency of the smoking occasions and/or the sensations derived from it.

Frequently, smoking is an automatic behavior - a reaction to unaware internal or external cues. Some smokers think from time to time about trying to abolish the habit, but various activation programs prevent them from even taking that decision.

Other smokers have already reached a decision and want to decrease the amount smoked or to stop it altogether, but find that it is extremely difficult to do so - due to the trash-programs involved - and therefore cannot adhere to any of their decisions. They cannot do it at all or they regress to the old habit after a relatively short period of success. In both situations, the inability to reach a conclusive decision, or the inability to adhere to it, makes them the same as any other addict (of drugs, alcohol, etc.), who wants to stop but cannot.

I stopped smoking "cold turkey" 8 years ago while in an intensive care unit (because of a false alarm), but as a veteran of 28 years of numerous failed attempts to rid myself of the habit, I still remember what it was like. I still remember the difference between one failure to abstain from smoking and another, and how each cigarette (or pipe smoked) is a unique experience.

However, it is still possible to classify the smoking experiences into a few categories:

1. "The real one" - the first one you smoke at the beginning of your smoking day (usually first thing after getting up), or each time you feel a strong need or an intense urge to smoke.
2. "The boredom cigarette" - the one usually smoked when there is little with which to employ the brain. It is usually smoked when you are "killing time" - killing the felt sensation of boredom, or waiting without anything else to do.
3. The "substitute cigarette" - the one you light up when you are hungry or in pain or experiencing any other feeling you want to change on the spot. (It functions almost the same as a regular "cover-program".)
4. The "stimulating" cigarette - the one you smoke when you need more attentional power. You smoke it when you are not fully awake, and whenever you need to recruit resources to enhance your concentration, to sharpen your vigilance or to keep from falling asleep on duty.
5. The smoking for pleasure - the cigarette one usually smokes after a satisfying meal or other pleasures of the body to achieve a deeper satisfaction or to complete the pleasant feeling. It is really used to curb the effect of various trash-programs which are trying to destroy the good emotional climate of the moment.
6. "The automatic cigarette" - the ones you smoke without applying will power or deriving pleasure. Those are the ones you do not really want to smoke, the ones you are not really aware of and the ones you generally do not remember smoking. It is not you who really smoked them!!!. It is the pure act of your trash-programs, which serve processes not shared with the awareness.
7. "The social cigarette" - the ones offered to you and the ones you smoke from your own packet when people around you smoke. This situation as well as many others activate in you kind of social trash-programs, which initiate imitation behavior.

Actually, plenty of trash-programs are involved in the smoking behavior. When one wants to quit smoking or only to introduce a radical change in it, one has to deal with all of them. However, when one only wants to change the smoking pattern a bit, it is much easier. The mission of the person who needs to refrain from smoking in a few places or at certain periods of time or to restrict the number smoked, is an intermediate one. The focusing related to smoking is more efficient if done according to the following steps:

The first step - preliminaries

Decide for yourself what you really want to achieve: cessation of smoking or only a better control on the habit. Heavy smokers have to take into consideration that restricting the daily consumption to half a packet takes about a month. It takes about three months of arduous training to overcome the addiction completely. (For experienced focusers it may take only a few weeks.)

The second step - getting acquainted with the habit

As in the first step at the beginning of sensate focus training, you are invited on a tour to acquaint yourself with the whole variety of felt sensations and other body sensations related to smoking. The most appropriate time for this tour is the half minute preceding the actual lighting of each cigarette. During those seconds write on the packet the time each cigarette was lit (or mark on the form*), and pay attention to the felt sensation of the moment.

A standard form to mark the time each cigarette is smoked, and short instructions for this, are to be found in the supplement 1: at the end of this section. One can use it in the fight against other habits too.

During this period, try from time to time (in the few seconds immediately before lighting the cigarette) to locate the exact place you feel the sensations and feelings related to the urge to smoke, or the feelings of expectancy for the inhaled smoke.

The most recommended places to focus on are the pharynx and larynx, the throat and especially the vocal cords. The sensations and feelings located in the lips and fingers are not so important but are worth focusing on - in order to become acquainted with them - as they are often the source of the first signals to the awareness that it is time to light a cigarette.

At the end of this step you are supposed to reach the point where you mark the time of each cigarette smoked - whether before lighting it or afterwards - with no more than one or two misses a day. Though it may sometimes help, you are not supposed to focus on each one of them. At this stage it is recommended to focus on about 50% of the cigarettes. In this step (and even afterwards), it is not mandatory that you adhere strictly to the 30 second period of focusing before lighting a cigarette.

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