Chapter 5

VI. SPECIAL PROJECTS (cont.)

(second section - for advanced focusers only)

The third step - the beginning of the real struggle

In the second, step you started reconnaissance activities and a guerrilla warfare against your smoking. This third step starts the real fight. So, do not start it before you have reached the target of the previous step. At the beginning of this step, the preliminary focusing before lighting a cigarette is supposed to take the whole 30 seconds - mainly dedicated to the vicinity of the vocal cords.

After focusing for about half a minute on the sensations and feelings that precede the smoking of the cigarette, light it and pay concentrated attention to the first and second inhalations of smoke. It is a good tactic to try to discern the minute variations occurring in various sensations related to smoking - during the waiting period, the inhalations of smoke from a cigarette, the short period after each inhalation and that after finishing the cigarette. It is also worth comparing those of different cigarettes.

Those who wish to use the sensate focusing technique in order to stop smoking, are advised to hold the cigarettes smoked, from now on, in the opposite hand to that usually used. Breaking this aspect of the smoking habit is the easiest. It brings quick results, it makes the cessation of smoking easier, and it decreases its "mission impossible aspect". Undermining this part of the trash-programs responsible for the smoking habit can be a most suitable prelude to changing all the other trash-programs involved.

Whether you are using the focusing technique in order to rid yourself of the whole habit, or only intending to use it to restrict the amount of cigarettes smoked, do not refrain from smoking the cigarette you have focused on. Even if the urge has faded, do not refrain from taking in the first few inhalations.

A premature victory on a few cigarettes, before the habit of focusing on the urge to smoke is solidified, may hinder the weaning-off process. If you refrain from smoking cigarettes too early, you may find that each time it becomes harder and harder to focus on the wish to smoke.

However, if the focusing "killed" the urge to smoke a certain cigarette completely, you are not to be punished by a forced smoke, a few token puffs of the cigarette will neutralize the trash-programs involved. Afterwards, you can extinguish it without being afraid that it will hinder the focusing habit you are in the process of building.

After a week or two, or even more if needed, when the addition of the prolonged focusing after marking down the time has been consolidated (applied routinely to 90% of the cigarettes or more), it is time for the real assault on the smoking habit.

The fourth step - the real struggle itself

The target of this step is to start breaking the habit of casually yielding to the smoking urge. It is mainly intended for those who really want to restrict the amount of cigarettes smoked or even get rid of the whole habit. It is better to refrain from starting before the criterion of 90% of the previous step has been consolidated.

The novelty of this step is the lengthening of the waiting period between the emergence of the urge to smoke a cigarette and the lighting up. The mission is to delay lighting the cigarette till the minutes indicated on your watch are multiplications of five. At this stage, the most important part is the focusing on the felt sensations emerging during the waiting period (averaging two and a half minutes), whether they are related to the urge to smoke or not.

You will know that you have already graduated from this step, when you have succeeded a few days in a row, in restricting the lighting of 90% of the cigarettes till the legitimate time arrives.

The fifth step - the branching of restrictors and abolitionists

In this step, the schedule splits into two patterns - a special one for those who are on the weaning-off program, and another for those who only want to restrict smoking.

For the restrictors: If you have already reached in the previous step a stable amount of cigarettes smoked you feel content with, you can start to gradually lift the restriction against smoking whenever you want, and the need to mark down the time of the cigarettes.

However, in order to keep from regressing to the starting point, continue to pay attention to the daily amount smoked, and each time you remember and can spare a minute, pay attention to the beginning of the cigarette smoked. It is also a good policy to defer the lighting of a few cigarettes a week, in order to keep the habit in shape against a time when you might slip back to smoking a larger number of cigarettes.

If this happens, the renewal of the waiting periods in combination with the dedication of attention efforts to the sensations during them, will bring you back to your goal. If you have not reached your goal during the previous step, join those who strive to stop smoking completely for as long as needed.

For the abolitionists: After about a month of gradually intensifying the struggle against the habit of smoking impulsively, now is the time for the long and decisive step. The following are two sub steps for harnessing the habit before stopping it altogether.

1. Put the target of the third step higher and try to delay the lighting of each cigarette to the times when the minutes are multiplications of ten. When the 90% goal is reached and consolidated, continue to the following sub step.
2. Gradually, in small increments, push the target higher and higher - each time the previous goal is achieved. At first, wait with each cigarette till the minutes are multiplications of fifteen, then twenty, and then thirty. Afterwards wait with each cigarette three quarters of an hour then try to restrict the smoking to full hours only.

In both sub steps, whenever you fail to adhere to the restriction with one cigarette try to compensate on the following one. If a temporary regression occurs, just go back for awhile to the previous target before pushing it up again.

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