Psychological Healing
in the Catholic Mystic Tradition

Stopping Smoking

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Introduction | Enslavement | Reasons for Stopping Smoking | Stopping Smoking through Faith and Prayer | Visualization and Prayer Technique | Coping with Cravings

 
OST SMOKERS started smoking during a stage of identity formation or crisis in which they felt psychologically empty within themselves and wanted some way to make themselves feel accepted by the world around them. For example, adolescents who feel angry at their parents’ hypocrisy and lack of true love can get caught in the illusion that if they start smoking then they, too, can be as powerful as the adults who mistreat them.

 
Enslavement

But once nicotine gets into your body, it enslaves you to a continuous need for it. Like a deadly parasite, nicotine takes over your body so that you value this deadly chemical more than anything else in life, more even than life itself. More even than God Himself.

So there you are, helpless and cowering in a cold doorway, damp with rain, desperately sucking the illusion of strength and power out of a reeking cigarette, thinking to yourself, in your bleak emptiness, “This is life?” And all the while you fear that, without smoking, life will be bleak and empty.

Well, there’s more to life than slavery to illusions.

Now, no one can argue that simply smoking one cigarette is a sin. Yet consider the following:

•	Smoking pollutes the environment with toxic smoke and poisons from millions and thousands of millions of discarded cigarette butts.
•	Smoking offends your neighbor with the stench of stale smoke that you carry on your body and with the poison of second-hand smoke that you force your neighbor to breathe.
•	Smoking scandalizes children with the bad example of a deadly habit.
•	Smoking afflicts your own body, the Temple of the Holy Spirit, with deadly poisons and life-threatening medical problems.
•	When you smoke a cigarette to make yourself “feel good,” you reject divine grace, the only source of goodness; thus you subordinate the desire for holiness to the desire for self-punishment.

And so, knowing all of this, and yet continuing to believe in cigarettes more than you believe in Christ, is a big mistake.

How often were you criticized and humiliated as a child by your parents? How often did you then condemn yourself for being worthless and inadequate? And how often do you reach for a cigarette out of unconscious anger as a secret wish to carry out that condemnation?  Isn’t it time to give yourself a break?

Reasons for Stopping Smoking

•	Stopping smoking will strengthen my heart, improve my breathing capacity, and bolster my circulatory system.
•	Stopping smoking will increase my immune response to colds, flu, and other diseases.
•	When I stop smoking I will be more productive in all that I do.
•	Stopping smoking will help me cut down on drinking.
•	As a non-smoker I will be setting a good example for children.
•	When I stop smoking I will breathe more easily and won’t have morning cough or phlegm.
•	When I stop smoking my senses of smell and taste will improve.
•	Stopping smoking will help lower my blood pressure.
•	When I stop smoking I will have more energy.
•	When I stop smoking I will feel more in command of my life.
•	When I stop smoking I will be part of an increasingly nonsmoking society.
•	Stopping smoking will help protect my unborn baby from Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) and decrease the risk of spontaneous abortion (miscarriage).
•	Stopping smoking will help protect the health of other persons from Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS).

Smoking Cessation Through Faith and Prayer

If you are addicted to any substance, you are declaring with your behavior that you “love” the addiction more than you love God, and so you will fail to love God as Christ commanded us: You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind (Matthew 22:37). But, if only you train yourself, through faith and prayer, to desire holiness more than you desire an addiction, any addiction can be overcome.

Stopping smoking, therefore, involves two things: overcoming the addiction to nicotine, and overcoming the habit of always reaching for a cigarette (either as a behavioral reward or as a means to relieve anxiety)—instead of reaching out to God in prayer.

To overcome the addiction to nicotine, you have three choices. You can gradually reduce the number of cigarettes that you smoke. Or you can use nicotine patches to put nicotine into your system (while you refrain from smoking) as you gradually reduce the dosage of the patches. Or you can just quit “cold turkey”—nicotine withdrawal is unpleasant, but short-lived.

To overcome the habit of constantly reaching for a cigarette, it will be necessary to teach yourself to act in new ways. This takes some conscious effort. The first step is to recognize, as it is happening, the urge to reach for a cigarette; the second step is to tell yourself to do something different. Some people will carry around a cinnamon stick, for example, and put it in their mouth in place of a cigarette.

While you are making all these changes, it can help greatly to use some sort of relaxation technique. For more information about relaxation techniques, see my webpages called Progressive Muscle Relaxation and Autogenics Training on A Guide to Psychology and its Practice. A relaxation CD (true to the Catholic faith) from the present website can help you experience relaxation as well. Audio CD: Guided Imagery Relaxation The Catholic Way

Moreover, the Catholic Church offers a centuries-old form of relaxation and emotional support: prayer. After all, what keeps you chained to your addiction? Fear. Fear that life will be bleak and empty without smoking. And what is the most effective way to overcome fear? To love—to be filled with all the fullness of God.

Accordingly, I offer below two ways to use prayer to help you stop smoking. The first way is best practiced at least two times a day (morning and night). The second way is a small card that you can print and carry with you; whenever you feel the urge to smoke a cigarette, pull out the card and say the prayer. By the time you have finished, the craving for a cigarette will have dissipated.

 
Visualization and Prayer Technique

In general, changing unwanted behavior comprises three basic steps:

1.	To know how ugly the behavior is and how much damage it causes to yourself and to others.
2.	To regret the damage caused by the behavior.
3.	To know the benefits of new and different behavior.

Note carefully, though, that in trying to overcome an addiction you will immediately encounter a frustrating paradox: thinking about the negative consequences of an addiction will only increase the desire for the addictive substance. So why does this happen? Well, the psychological defense at the core of any addiction is denial, so when contemplating any negative idea (such as getting cancer from smoking), your mind will crave the intense pleasure of the addiction as a way to override (i.e., deny) the frightening idea.

Therefore, even though it is important to know the negative consequences of the addiction, the fear of those consequences in itself won’t be nearly so much a motivation for overcoming the addiction as will be the hope of positive changes. Consequently, those positive changes need to be visualized very, very clearly.

So here is how to do it: practice the following procedure at least twice a day until you no longer need it.

First, enter a state of relaxation. Here, you can simply sit (or kneel) and pray quietly. This is important because the next two steps (if done properly) will arouse substantial anxiety, and you need to be able to reduce that anxiety again.

Second, create a negative mood state in which you visualize the harmful and disgusting effects of the unwanted behavior. Instead of defending your behavior—to yourself, to others, and to God—see the smoking addiction for what it is in all its gruesome reality. For example, smell the stench of the smoke on your clothes and body; see the stains on your fingers and teeth; notice your shortness of breath and coughing; visualize the poisons coating your lungs and other internal organs. After the intense negativity of this mood has been felt fully, reduce the anxiety with relaxation. Then pray the Hail Mary.

Third, contemplate how miserable and wretched your life will be if this behavior does not change. For example, see yourself wheezing for breath and dying of cancer. Imagine other persons around you encouraged in their own addictions because of your negative influence. Then, after the intense negativity of this mood has been felt fully, reduce the anxiety with relaxation, and pray the Hail Mary

Now come the most important steps.

Fourth, create a positive mood state in which you visualize the beneficial effects of new, healthy behavior. For example, see yourself as calm and confident as a non-smoker, relaxed and able to concentrate, free of frustration and tension, a positive influence on others. Remember here your reasons for wanting to stop smoking. Use your relaxation technique to enjoy a peaceful state of mind with a deep sense of hope for yourself and love for others. Pray the Hail Mary.

Fifth, reinforce your positive mood with positive statements of validation. Repeat the statements several times. Create your own, or select from the following examples.

•	When I trust in You, Lord, I do not need to soothe myself with cigarettes. Through Your grace, I am no longer a slave to impulses and addiction.
•	Lord, when grounded in prayer, I work calmly and confidently. Give me the grace to not let my self-confidence be bothered by small mistakes. In You I can overcome all obstacles with total confidence.
•	Give me the grace, Lord, to respect my own body as a temple of the Holy Spirit and to present myself to others with respect and dignity.
•	Give me the grace, Lord, to remain calm, relaxed, and composed in any situation.
•	Lord, let Your calmness and patience reflect through me to shine upon others as compassion and sensitive understanding.
•	You, Lord, give me an experience of peace and calm that cannot be threatened by anything outside myself. I thank you, Lord; I refuse to be jealous or envious, and I wish peace and good to all.
•	Lord, help me to remember that in You there are no “good ” days or “bad ” days; there is only love.

Sixth, conclude with a prayerful closure to the session. Recite the following prayers:

•	The Hail, Holy Queen (Salve Regina). HAIL, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy; hail, our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears. Turn then, most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us; and after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.   V. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God. R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. Amen.
•	The prayer to St. Michael the Archangel. SAINT Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle; be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray: and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the wicked spirits, who roam through the world, seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.
•	The following invocation, thrice repeated:   V. Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, R. Have mercy upon us.

 
Coping With Cravings

Copy the following prayer card, and whenever you feel a craving for a cigarette, pull out the card and say the prayers:

 

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