They stopped smoking and it changed everything

Found breath and freedom! The pleasure and gesture that comforted! When there is no more smoke
screen between oneself and reality, the personality is transformed.

Géraldine no longer smokes for a year. "I really liked smoking, I miss the cigarette all the time, I forbid
myself to plunge again, because it was really hard to stop, I think I will miss the cigarette all my life. Who
will keep herself from dying. "

"A heavy smoker who has been arrested remains a smoker," confirms Professor Gilbert Lagrue, who
heads the tobacco control clinic at the Albert-Chenevier Hospital in Créteil, and is likely to re-offend six
months or fifteen years later. Retain the memory of the relief provided by cigarettes, of pleasure. The
former smoker most often lives in the nostalgia of tobacco.

A war, a fight, a merciless struggle ... All the former smokers say: they have made an enormous effort of
will to stop the cigarette. But once the victory is achieved, weaning is completed and the body is again
educated to live without tobacco, most find that their personality has also reorganized ... around the
lack.

To resist to the temptation

Ex-smokers all recognize their fragility in the face of tobacco. Nostalgic of their former pleasure, not all
impose an absolute stop. For some, there is an ambivalence. No one possesses any more cigarettes or
lighter, but some of them leap, compose, to preserve a little of the prohibited sensation. Olivier stopped
for three years: "I run a bar, so I am always surrounded by smokers, sometimes I pull a taffe, but my
head turns, so I breathe the smoke of others. 'I smoke by proxy.' Antoine has been a non-smoker for a
year now: "I want a cigarette every day, but now I only smoke exceptional things: cigars or firecrackers,
so when I go to a party, The slightest wheeler of joints, and as soon as I attend a wedding, I run behind
all the amateurs of chair bars. "

Others, to resist temptation, manifest an absolute intolerance. They lay a wall between them and the
blue scrolls. After twenty years spent smoking two bundles a day, Gerard can no longer stand the
smoke: "It keeps me from breathing, choking me." At the office, he banned smokers from engaging in
their vice. He admits to being very tough, "whereas I used to smoke everywhere, all the time and I was
embarrassing others," he smiled. This is probably the only possible attitude. "Those who become
ayatollahs of tobacco-free life never relapse," says Gilbert Lagrue. "It's a very effective protection
system."
For others, tobacco is so associated with the other pleasures that the cessation of cigarette is coupled
with the renunciation of all that accompanied this addiction, lest the sensations are called one another.
"By stopping smoking," says Patricia, "I stopped everything: alcohol, parties, and food, for fear of
compensating and getting fat." In fact, I stopped breathing. An attitude that signals a complete locking,
an absolute control of his life. All block to not let go. Because, finally, all share the same obsession: to
plunge again. And all, or nearly all, experienced repeated failure and the implicit recognition that
tobacco was stronger than them. It is rare indeed that a heavy smoker abandons tobacco the first time.
In general, it is after three or four abortive attempts that he tears out his independence.

Learn how to recompose your time

Why is it so hard to stop? The addiction is physiological, so our body claims its dose. But this explanation
is not enough. "For some heavy smokers, tobacco addiction is psychologically fragile," explains Gilbert
Lagrue. "We take our nicotine dose as we use self-medication to get better."

"The cigarette is a formidable" balancer ", a sedative, says Odile Lesourne, a psychoanalyst, who says
that tobacco does not eliminate the problem, and when you stop smoking you often find yourself in a
state of depression that tobacco masks. "

For this reason, most anti-tobacco consultations offer psychological support to weaning candidates.
Some associate the patch method, for example, with taking antidepressants. The first few months are
often the most painful. The void may seem abysmal. More smoke screen between oneself and reality.
Without tobacco, it remains to confront life as it is, with its empty and full, without more resources than
those that one possesses oneself. The end of tobacco sounds a bit like the end of illusions. "I stopped
because I was afraid of dying," says geraldine. But I lost a crutch. I found myself confronted with my
fears in general. I had the feeling that I had to manage everything without any help, to take everything
in the face. The rush precipitated my work on myself and I began an analysis at that time. I was 35 years
old. For me, it was time to take stock, to question me about my place. Stopping smoking was part of a
process of general change in my life. It was the most symbolic way of signifying a break. "A support, a
crutch, a help ... Cigarette is a gesture that comforts, an activity - take his pack, take it out, light it - in the
Cigarette gives a rhythm to life Without tobacco, you have to recompose your time. "Today, I dream
less, insists Antoine. Deprived of cigarette breaks - well known to all smokers - I take care more, my time
is more linear. And I flee a little emptiness that refers me to the urge to smoke. "" Cigarette helped me
think, to work, continues Antoine ... Without her, I became more "laborious". I work more seriously,
more rigorously, I document myself more, I dig ... and I do not wait for enlightenment. "

Discover other flavors of pleasure

Irene and Gerard stopped together. He smoked two bundles a day, she was a late smoker, who was
grilling her daily bundle. Gérard was saturated with cigarettes, which is what forged his determination.
Irene held out for Gerard not to start again. And then, a little bit of pride pushed them, each on their
own, not to break in front of the other. Then they found substitutes. "For several years, we ran, swam,"
they say. "We needed to let off steam." Gérard, in particular, replaced the cigarette by physical
activities: walking, gardening, etc. Irene, she compensated by the food.

A classic syndrome: most former smokers declare eating and drinking more, as if they had to resort to
other forms of pleasure, gentleness, or simply find other ways to reassure themselves or calm down.
"Before, when I felt that I was going to get out of my hinges, I was lighting a cigarette," Géraldine says.
"Today, when the exasperation wins me, I breathe deeply. I went out to get my pack of cigarettes, I
managed to regain my spirits, I reproduce a movement, but it is aimless, it is much less effective.

Often, ex-smokers find that certain traits of their character have changed. "Life without tobacco has
made me more serious, less playful, less cheerful," says Patricia. "I lost a little of my carefree, but I have
gained in confidence, I no longer need a cigarette for Go to people, calm my nerves, face difficulties. "
For her part, Catherine acknowledged that abstinence had led her to a more pronounced slope of her
personality: "The cigarette allowed me to take in the aggressiveness of others, the bad blows of fate.
Feeling constantly febrile, I feel much calmer, more relaxed, but also more determined. "Curiously, I
discovered that some of the pleasures I thought were related to cigarettes, such as listening to music or
sharing a meal with friends, were not at all, Has taken on more relief and flavor, perhaps because I feel
more free. "

A certainty, the memory of tobacco fades over time. Life reorganizes and savors its victory. No former
smoker deliberately refuses to take up the cigarette and again suffer from this addiction. "Stop smoking,
brought me closer to the others," says Geraldine. "Before, I walked away every quarter of an hour from
my children to go and smoke my cigarette. I no longer need to shorten them because the urge to
tobacco pains me. " Tobacco separates smokers from non-smokers. And the latter are more and more
numerous ...

Smoking: four good reasons to quit smoking

Life with the Lungs

All former smokers agree: stopping smoking is hard, but you really win.

Most of the cigarette smokers are horrified by the smell of cold tobacco smoked by their smokers, their
breath, their clothes, their ashtrays ...

On the other hand, everyone is ecstatic about their taste and smell found.
Stopping the tobacco lightens the complexion and makes the hair brighter, more toned.

Forgot the shortness of breath after climbing the stairs! After a few weeks, the former smokers regain a
real physical tonus. As a result, they often resume a sporting activity.