One important discipline to learn is toughness. When all goes wrong in our lives many people want to smoke. We need the toughness to just say no when events start to lead back to smoke. Work on your toughness everywhere. At work your boss is a jerk. A tough person does not let it ruin their day. At home someone yells at you. A tough person forgives and forgets. Your children act like monsters. A tough parent forgives them (after they discipline them) and treats them with love. Pray every day for toughness. When you are tempted to smoke it takes a lot of toughness to say no. Work on this and pray about it every day.
How to pray to fight addiction
The first thing you say when you pray is the Lord’s Prayer. Matthew 6:9-13 9 After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.10 Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 11 Give us this day our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. Verses 12 and 13 are key verses for addiction. 12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
Our debts, are our sins we have committed. It is wise to confess every sin we commit specifically to God. Yes He knows what you did. But we need to remind ourselves what we did so that we can remind ourselves about the destruction that is always caused by sin. To start to get help from God the key is to repent of our past sins and be determined to change. Now verse 13: And lead us not into temptation.
Key point #1 Pray sincerely every hour “God lead me not into temptation. This is a prayer God loves to answer. If you pray this prayer and also ask God where He wants to lead you, then you are really on to something.
Next you may want to spend 15 minutes praying to be filled with the love of Jesus Christ. We need to spend some time experiencing the Almighty God. He is real and he will answer some of your prayers positively. He loves to answer the prayer to be filled with love because God is love and he wants you to be filled with love the way he is filled with love.
The next question is, will he answer your prayer to quit your addiction? The answer is yes he will, but the question is, when will He do it. If you never ever look back at your addiction and if you have committed to God to never look back, he will answer your prayer today. For 99.9% of people, we want to look back. If you want to look back it will take a lot of prayer to straighten out your thinking until you no longer need to look back. If you still have a stash of smokes or other items that drive your addiction, you are leaving the door open to look back. Get rid of everything that triggers your addiction before you tell God you are done for good. Despite the fact that you probably won’t get an instant miracle you should still prayer several times a day asking God to help you. As you pray you will start to realize that other things lead directly to your addiction. Things like anger, frustration, hopelessness and your refusal to forgive others, etc…
Key point #2 It is important to ask God to help you know what emotions lead to your continued addiction. This is another type of prayer that God loves to answer.
Key point # 3 Have a list of what negative emotions trigger your addiction and pray several times a day that God will help you to start to control them. For example, after thinking and praying about it you realize that your anger problem often is a trigger to your addiction. Now you can attack your anger problem with prayer several times per day. Ask God to help you control your anger. Ask God to take your anger out of you. You don’t get mad because something goes wrong; you get mad because you have the anger in you. We have all known someone who remains cool in a situation where we would have blown a fuse. They remain cool because they are not filled with anger like most of us are. When you discover what emotions tend to trigger your addiction you then pray that God will help you to control these emotions. God will be steadily answering prayers to control your emotions as long as you stay clean. As you see God taking these negative emotions out of your life you will feel a great increase of faith. For me, I don’t get a ton of prayers answered in my life, but when I consistently prayer for God to take my anger away, He starts to take it away and I begin to have more control in all aspects of my life.
“If your hand offends you, cut it off“(Matt 5:30). What He is saying is to cut off the source of your addiction or sin. The source is not the event, it is what leads to the event. Examples of sources are: daydreaming about smoking, negative emotions, still hanging out with people who promote bad health or excess, moping around saying that you can’t do the one thing you love the most.
Hello – you are aware of the destruction, now put in the work to think about new things. Put forth effort to do new things. Be more aware of when you start to skate down a slippery path and be proud of yourself when you turn it around. Get mad at yourself when you say “those were the good old days – smoking after a meal.” Because with good health and new ways to think your life is going to be a great story a year from now because that is how you take the steel grip of addiction to the fire and start to melt it.
Read Proverbs 8
Continue to read the Purpose Driven Life
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
Pray “Father keep me from temptation”.
No matter what we have done today, yesterday or this month; we can still worship God! There is a Bible story about a man who had led such an evil life that he had 2000 demons living in him. But when he saw Jesus he worshipped Him. You may keep dropping the ball time and time again, so you think – Jesus wants nothing to do with me anymore. But you can still worship. I am not telling you that you get an automatic ticket to heaven because you worship God while still sinning all over the place. But I am telling you that you can still worship God, ask for forgiveness (again) and start over again. While you worship God ask Him to help you come up with a plan for change for today, this week and this month. If you develop the habit of worshipping God He will help you with your addiction. God loves to answer this type of prayer. So make a habit of worshipping God and then you can pray about your addiction with increasing confidence and faith.
Key Point: Write every prayer from this course on a 3 by 5 card and carry them with you wherever you go. Read and pray these prayers as often as you can (remember it is not the repetition that counts – you have to pray sincerely and urgently every time). We can only have the wrong output if we have the wrong input. We will predetermine in advance what our next action will be when we are tempted. If you pray enough your actions will begin to change. If you pray enough and your actions change enough you will never fall again.
- Pray: “Father, help me to quit my smoking addiction, and to learn how to think about other things instead of smoking and to learn what to do instead.”
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Thank you for reading day 16: The Free Stop Smoking Program.
Index
Day 1 Overcoming cravings
Day 2 Why can’t you quit
Day 3 Start a Journal
Day 4 Overcoming negative emotions
Day 5 You can’t increase your pleasure for the month by smoking
Day 6 Control your emotions and plan your day
Day 7 Learning how to worship God is a key to overcoming addiction
Day 8 Develop positive addictions
Day 9 How to get help from the Holy Spirit
Day 10 Have a list of coping statements
Day 11 Living water and how to live in God’s blessing
Day 12 Genesis can teach us about addiction
Day 13 Results of Adam and Eve’s actions
Day 14 Self control
Day 15 Self control
This is a reprint of an earlier article
How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally for free tip #1: Set a quit date.
Choose a date within the next week, so you have enough time to prepare without losing your motivation to quit.
How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally for free tip #2: For some one of the main reasons you smoke is because that is one of the few things that you feel like you have control over. It is your choice, it is your thing it is who you are. But this is a cruel lie. smoking is a force and it is a driving force. How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally for free tip #3: There are some addictions that we think we are controlling but those addictions are actually controlling us. Over time smoking causes a loss of control of many things.
So why do people somke after they have decided to quit? In most people there is a dueling of personalities. Your mind tells you that you have to stop smoking but your pleasure seeking flesh tells you that it will feel good.
Key Point #1 As long as you are ruled by the pleasure principle you will always struggle with addiction. The pleasure seeker is selfish, immature, demanding and short sited. How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally for free tip #4: In the long run, pleasure which is from an addiction always has a price to pay which is much higher than what you want to pay.
John Howard Prin in his book Secret Keeping notes that “Because temptations can come in so many forms (smoking, overeating, or surfing internet porn) these dueling tensions can be triggered continually. The average persons dual-mindedness results from listening to both opposing forces and acting according to one, then the other, then the first one again, then the second again… on and on in an endless tug-of-war.”
How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally for free tip #5: Instead of being ruled by the pleasure principle strive to be ruled by the moral principle. The moral principle is wise and rational and it leads to real long term joy instead of fake short term pleasure which leads to destruction. This principle believes that rules like that of your country or laws from the Bible are there to make your life better. When you follow this principle you willingly give up your solution of choice (smoking) in exchange for another activity. How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally for free tip #6: The reason you make this choice is because you now believe that choosing an alternative activity will give you the best life over the next 7 days and longer. So if you stay clean today and develop new activities you may have a hard day today but your week and your future will be better.
How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally for free tip #7: Always choose the Wisdom of staying clean today so that you can have a good life all week, instead of giving in to the short term pleasure and destruction of smoking for one day. R Over time staying clean is a lifestyle which is always better.
Smoking is an escape for many people. One can escape from tension, anger, lack of success, pain and many other things. How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally for free tip #8: We need to get rid of the escapist mindset because our one day of escape always ruins more than one day and it often ruins a whole week or longer. Along the same lines many have the philosophy that if it feels good do it. The problem is, that the feeling good of a few hours usually causes the feeling bad of a few days. Instead of having this damaging mindset, embrace finding your purpose, and living the right way which will lead to happiness over time.
How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally for free tip #9: John Howard Prin in his book Secret Keeping wrote about his past addicted behavior. He said “Drinking in private both elevated my joys and numbed my distress, a dual benefit. Looking back , these fundamentals of addiction gradually became habits:
1st: Resentment. I was reliving all my past hurts. Another 30 years would pass before I could face these resentments and get rid of their corrosive power.
2nd: Isolation. My drinking intensified when I spent time alone. Solitary time was to become the riskiest situation for me to be in.
3rd: Drama and crisis. Overreacting, partly learned from Mom’s open display of temper and partly do to my brains overly sensitive conditioning, ruled me.
4th: Exaggerated emotions became my way of responding to life.
5th: Delusional thinking. My choice of a high profile film career had alrealdy hatched a larger dream to make movies in Hollywood and-why stop there-To win an Oscar. Excessive boozing inflated these unrealistic expectations.
Unwittingly I fell into the trap of living for the outside in. Accountable to no one, losing my bearings, I cared little about my character development yet easily became a slave to the ambitious pride that had aroused me”.
How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally for free tip #10: We can see that being overly sensitive to emotional pain or failure is often a trigger to addiction. So first of all we need to be determined to be tougher and more emotionally ready for life’s constant problems. 2nd, negative emotions can lead us into addiction.
How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally for free tip #11: we need to always work on getting rid of anger and other negative emotions which are often hidden triggers. Lastly we need to avoid circumstances which lead to negative emotions (if posible). Good planning and flexible planning can help you avoid circumstances which will trigger you.
How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally for free tip #12: John Howard Prin also wrote “In time I learned that if my external motivation was strong enough, then my internal impulses could be curbed.”
For some people a great enough amount of pain or a change of thinking will cause them to change their behavior.
How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally for free tip #13: If what you think about has changed, then your internal impulses can be controlled.
This is key point #2. You need to think about the benefits of quitting more often than you think about the experience of smoking. How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally for free tip #14: Make a note to remind yourself to do this untill it becomes a daily habit.
How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally for free tip #15: You need to think more about the destruction smoking cause you than you think about the pleasure/pain relief it gives.
The remainder of this video will contain information which is only spiritual in nature. How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally for free tip #16: Addiction tells us that something we can do (indulging in smoking) can compensate for what is missing inside of us. It is a lie. Religion will tell you to quit smoking. To control the fire that burns inside of you. But I will tell you that you need to increase the passion in your life. Your life needs to surge with more passion for something then it ever has before. You were created to have a dramatic impact on this world. Most of you have never experienced the rush of knowing what God wants you to do.
How to stop smoking cigarettes naturally for free tip #17: Solutions” Dedicate your life to Christianity. Study the Bible and pray, pray, pray. Pray about everything but especially pray that God will take away your anger and any other negative emotions that may be a trigger for you. Obey the Bible down to every last word. Don’t look at sin and don’t even consider commiting any sin. Pray always about finding your purpose and be determined to live in the glory of Jesus Christ. He will fill what is missing in your life but you have to be intense about doing what He wants you to do. God wants you to find your purpose and He wants you to spread the Gospel. If you spend all of your free time in a dedicated way serving God, then you will have more passion and joy than you ever had.
Video’s 1 and 2 have a lot of information on finding your purpose and #2 has a lot of information on Christianity. And virtually all of the video’s have a lot of help on overcoming addiction. Try to watch one each day and keep watching them over and over untill you form new habits.