Quit Smoking With Aversion Therapy

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The difference between a smoker and somebody who doesn’t smoke is this:

When a smoker thinks about smoking, he thinks cigarettes good. Want one now. Ugh. And at the same time he feels pleasurable sensations in his body that let him know that cigarettes are desirable.

Someone who doesn’t smoke also doesn’t think about smoking very often. If he does, the internal dialogue is something like cigarettes are disgusting. How can a person do that to themselves? He feels sensations of disgust in his body.

Obviously, if you want to quit smoking for good, something has to happen to change the mental associations. You have to switch to the non-smokers viewpoint or you won’t be successful.

There are many therapies for accomplishing this switch. One that you don’t hear much about any more is aversion therapy. It was all the rage in the second half of the last century, but its fallen out of favor now. It is still around and it still works, but you hear more about pills and patches nowadays.

The premise of aversion therapy to quit smoking is that, if you attach massive pain to a behavior people will stop doing it. The body itself rebels and won’t let the behavior persist.

My father took part in an aversion therapy to quit smoking program that the Canadian army offered.

Participants starting the program found themselves in a large room with lots of big folding tables. All the tables had a couple of big ashtrays, lighters and several packs of cigarettes for each soldier. The sergeant in charge told them that if they were going to smoke they’d damned well learn to smoke the army way, by the numbers. Here’s how it went.

Open your first pack now

Withdraw cigarette now

On my command, light your cigarette.

Light your cigarette now

Smoke on my command, starting now

inhale

exhale

inhale

exhale

inhale

exhale

inhale

exhale

Extinguish your cigarette

Loop back to step two and continue.

There was no attempt at ventilation in the room. They didn’t have time to flick ashes so they fell all over them. They had to smoke ten cigarettes, then they got a break. Men puked and passed out. The training went on for a week. Most of the participants did, indeed, stop smoking.

My Father didn’t. He had a really stubborn streak and hated authority. He just decided that nobody was going to tell him whether he could smoke or not. Even though he got deathly ill and hated the whole experience with every bone in his body, he still kept smoking. Years later, he quit successfully cold turkey..

The reason my Dad resisted the therapy is that one of his core values (not being pushed around) had gotten tied to smoking. Smoke nazis really drove him nuts and he would often do things just to get in their faces. I honestly think that he kept smoking far longer than he wanted to, simply because he wanted the decision to quit to be his alone rather than forced on him.

Aversion therapy is still available, and it still works at least as well as competing therapies. It isn’t pleasant, but neither is a fitness boot camp, and they seem to be getting more popular everyday. Personally, its not for me. But if you’re a bit of a masochist it may be the route for you. Something to consider, anyway.