Dealing with slips and relapses

Slips

A slip is when you consciously or unconsciously have a cigarette or two after you have quit smoking. It is not uncommon for people who are trying to quit to have an occasional slip. Because smoking can be so automatic, you may not even be consciously aware that you've smoked until after you've finished.

Don't panic or heap guilt on yourself. A slip or two does not mean that you have failed. It only means that you continue to be vulnerable to starting to smoke again.

If you slip, the best thing to do is to keep it minor, and go back to quitting as soon as you can. Look at what triggered the failure and figure out how to handle it differently next time.

The most common reasons people slip include:

• Unable to cope with withdrawal
• Getting angry, upset or depressed
• Drinking alcohol
• Giving in to momentary urges.

Relapse

If you start to smoke more than half of what you did before you quit smoking, it may be time to regroup and start planning a new quit attempt. Don't feel discouraged. Many people make more than one attempt to stop smoking before they succeed.

Learning to stop smoking is like any other complex behaviour -- you may have to practice for a while before you reach your goal. As long as you learn something positive with each quit attempt, you will be further ahead than before you made the attempt. Relapse only becomes a negative thing if you let it get you down.