Putting Down the Cigarettes
For the week you decide to stop smoking. It sets a date with witnesses, gets real help from a pharmacist, plans the three hardest cigarettes of the day, clears what is within reach, and treats one lapse as one cigarette rather than a return.
Smoking · Habits · Resilience · 9 items · whenever you need it
The checklist
- Pick the date and tell two people — a date with witnesses is a different kind of plan.
- Ask the pharmacist what to use — patches and gum beat willpower on its own.
- Name the three hardest cigarettes of your day — those are the ones to plan for first.
- Clear the car, the lighters and the ashtray — the first week is decided by what is in reach.
- Decide what your hands will do instead — a toothpick, a pen, a walk to the end of the block.
- Change the route that goes past the store — a habit lives in a place as much as a craving.
- Put the money somewhere you can see it — a jar on the counter argues better than arithmetic.
- Treat one cigarette as one cigarette — a lapse is not the start of smoking again.
- Call 1-800-QUIT-NOW when it gets loud — the free coaching line is there for exactly this.
Use this checklist Free account: tick items off and keep each day's record.
How to use it
Run through it whenever you need it, honestly and without scoring yourself. A checklist is a way of noticing, not a test: an item you cannot tick is information about the day, not a verdict on you. Over a few weeks the pattern of what gets ticked and what does not says more than any single pass.
With a free Theraglee account the checklist remembers each pass, so you can look back. Without one, you can still read it here and keep your own copy.