Will Power--------hoooah !

January 18th, 2007, 09:39 AM

Will power.

Yeah right.

Every plan based on Will Power is a plan to fail.

You think God is a Myth ?

Add Will Power to that list of Myths that need continual Debunking.

Think about it.

Will Power implies that you have the strength to say NO continually all day, day after day.

Only a Good Salesman can hear NO day after day until he hears that ONE YES.

But the average mortal ?

No way.

So how does one change a bad habit ?

Let me tell you a secret.

It's not Will Power.

January 18th, 2007, 09:59 AM

I don't know if you were ever a smoker Jim but quitting smoking requires, or can require gargantuan will power. I quit smoking about twenty years ago and the battle is still fresh in my mind. I enjoyed smoking and tobacco must be at least as addicting as heroin. Have I mistaken will power for something else?

January 18th, 2007, 10:01 AM

I have definately read that nictine, weight for weight is one of the most addictive substances in the world.

Will power does exist but it's bloody hard (impossible for some) to conjure up.

January 18th, 2007, 10:44 AM

That is absolutely right. I haven't smoked for twenty years and I still get a twinge when I see someone light up with a cup of coffee in the morning. A tiny part of me wants to run over, beat that person up, and grab that person's cigarette and take a nice, slow, drag.....I'm only kidding....I think...

January 18th, 2007, 10:46 AM

lol juan i think we should keep a syringe of sedative around just in case

January 18th, 2007, 10:51 AM

I don't know if you were ever a smoker Jim but quitting smoking requires, or can require gargantuan will power. I quit smoking about twenty years ago and the battle is still fresh in my mind. I enjoyed smoking and tobacco must be at least as addicting as heroin. Have I mistaken will power for something else?
-------------------------------------------#juan-------------------------------------------------------------

Oh yeah I was a smoker. I quit July 12, so it's been 6 months of a better way for me.
I added changing my eating habits and stepped up weight lifting and swimming 1/2 mile each day,
which wasn't too hard since I've swum laps most of my life even during the smoking, although
much less than now.

Excercising makes me NOT want to smoke. And eating fruits and vegetables makes me feel better
avoiding the inevitable bio-rythmn downturn from eating bad foods.

You're right, #juan, about describing what most smokers and former smokers know. Once
you've tasted the Apple, you're done for the rest of your life. A little part of the brain remembers
that pleasure. That pick-me-up. The Brain will ruin its body for that immediate pleasure --- which is
why the Buddhists say our heads drag our bodies along.

It wasn't and still isn't will power for me.

Will power means you're constantly setting yourself up for failure by position.

The positition you put yourself in: That of having to say NO all the time, day after day,
temptation after temptation. How long will that marathon be successful ? How long
can you resist ?

You don't put yourself in situations of temptation. This is hard for a smoker to do since
he's learned over time to tie smoking to almost every activity (s)he does.

Rather it be this.

You enjoy your new habits, something you look forward to.
This way of thinking is much more powerful since we tend to do what pleasures us, and
avoid pain. And will power means a very big negative: embracing withdrawal and
denying ourselves pleasure.

Semantics ?

I think it's more than semantics.

In my case hypnosis resets the internal programming, most of which was very negative
in all of us.

January 18th, 2007, 11:46 AM

The way you did it was the right way. I suffered, and fretted, and farted around, and I must have quit smoking at least twenty five times in three months. Finally, the biggest motivation to stay stopped is that my wife would shoot me through the head if I ever started again, and I would deserve it.

The worst thing for me was that part of the habit was if I had a cup of coffee or a drink in one hand, I had to have a cigarette in the other. A lot of adjustment was needed. The common quit smoking aids didn't seem to work for me. The patch might have worked if I put it over my mouth. What did work was quitting for an hour at a time, and repeating it over, and over...ad nausium..(sp)

January 18th, 2007, 11:47 AM

my father (who is not normal) smoked probably 40 a day for 45 years, then one day decided to stop, and did. Same with booze. Hard to imagine

shame the damage is already done

January 18th, 2007, 01:49 PM

What I like about the hypnosis was its calming effect, making any urge just a dim twinge,
not something like Juan alluded to which is so damn funny it was true when I tried to
quit in other ways.

January 18th, 2007, 02:02 PM

I also found another trick in the beginning right after the hypnosis.
Push ups. Chin ups.

Talk about a rush after doing 50 in a set !

Gives you the same rush and better than your first cigarette of the day.

That isn't will power.

It's doing things you like to do, instead of living a will power life of denial which
is destined to fail --- for most people.

January 18th, 2007, 02:03 PM

chin ups...lol... i remember there was a time i could do 3. now i can't do any

January 19th, 2007, 10:17 AM

Replacing the cigarette rush with an equal or greater rush from the pushups and chinups
was important.

But while I was a smoker I would have never read any of this trash in this thread.
While smoking I couldn't stand to hear this crap.

You can't tell a smoker a damn thing, and you shouldn't.

Only if they're interested.

Only then.

January 20th, 2007, 01:14 PM

rofl
I quit smoking without any aids (patches, counselling, gum, etc,). I have a cousin did the same thing: decided to quit, so we just quit. Right now I have the willpower to go make another cup of tea for me. Having the willpower to do something is simply wanting badly enough to do it. We have the ability of judgement and the ability of decision to act on the judgement.
So much for that "no such thing as willpower" idea; better try a new hypothesis.

January 20th, 2007, 02:09 PM

L.G.

Some people, like yourself, apparently have no trouble quitting while I had a bastard of a time. Does that mean you had more will power, or was I afficted with a greater addiction? We know that nicotine addiction is a real chemical dependency and that our bodies affect chemical changes to fight it.

http://whyquit.com/whyquit/LinksAAddiction.html

January 20th, 2007, 02:18 PM

Bastards, now I got to go have a smoke.

January 20th, 2007, 02:26 PM

Well, a while back I said that when smokes go up to a buck a pack I was gonna do something. What I did was simply keep cutting back. By the time I thought I should just quit, I was smoking an average of about 4 twisties a day. A pouch of tobacco would cost me about $14 and a pad of papers was a buck and a quarter, and would last about 17 or 18 days. So I just quit. My cousin smoked about a pack a day til he just stopped dead. I had no problem fighting urges and apparently neither did my cousin.

January 20th, 2007, 02:28 PM

Quit visiting this thread, then. lol
Poor Beav.

January 22nd, 2007, 08:33 AM

LOL L.Gilbert, the myth of will power lives on.

You just might be an exceptional case.

Most people can't insist on denying themselves a pleasure day after day.

But you can program yourself, a form of self hypnosis, to be more relaxed
and thus look forward to other things. It then becomes a semantics issue if you still
call that will power.

Will power, to me, is living a life of denying yourself something and that is a plan to fail
for most people.

(As an aside, I might want to add that CUTTING BACK is something I wouldn't do to my
worst enemy. This hideous idea, innocent in its intent, actually causes slow Chinese torture
of withdrawal.)