How to Deal With Stress and Anger When Quitting Smoking (Lessons Learned)
By far one of the absolute worst things about quitting smoking is all the anger, anxiety, stress and tension that comes when we’re first trying to get rid of the physical and mental addiction to our once-favourite form of poison.
We find ourselves tearing our hair out, being bad tempered, shouting, and in worst-case scenarios even taking it out on friends and loved ones.
In fact, so many of us have used this worst-case scenario as what we believed to be a perfectly logical and rational excuse to keep on smoking.
The idea in our heads goes something like this:
If we quit, there’d be every chance we’d act like assholes to those we love. So you see, we just had to keep smoking to protect our friends and loved ones from the worst parts of ourselves.
Let’s bust that silly little myth right away, shall we?
In my experience, and the experience of other ex-smokers I’ve spoken to, the asshole phase of any quit attempt is just that:
It’s a phase.
It doesn’t last.
Before you know it, you’ll start feeling like yourself again. Better than yourself, in fact, because you’ll be fitter, happier, and healthier.
