You may not realize it, but smoking affects your social life as well as your physical well being. How often have you avoided going places because they were non-smoking, or ducked out of a party at the height of the action to satisfy your nicotine cravings?

When you quit smoking, you can also increase your confidence, meet new people, and join new activities. An improved social life is just one more reason to quit smoking!

Gain confidence.

Smokers become addicted to the nicotine in cigarettes and tobacco. Cigarettes, cigars, and pipes all emit smoke that holds thousands of other chemicals, in addition to the nicotine. When a person’s body becomes addicted to nicotine, the chemical temporarily creates pleasant physical and mental effects, which keeps the smoker coming back time and again.

When you successfully quit smoking, you overcome this physical and mental addiction. Overcoming such a powerful addiction is no easy task. Once you’ve accomplished it, you’ll have more confidence to face other difficult tasks in your life, armed with the knowledge that you have succeeded at one of the most challenging hurdles many people encounter. If you can quit smoking, what is there that you can’t accomplish?

Meet others trying to quit.

Hopefully your family and friends will be supportive of your efforts to quit smoking. However, non one can truly empathize with you except someone that is going through the same trials and tribulations. Join an online or local community that offers support to people who are quitting smoking.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) offers phone counseling at 1-800-QUIT-NOW. WhyQuit offers discussion groups for both first-time quitters and ones that have tried before. WhyQuit focuses on abrupt nicotine cessation (as opposed to smoking cessation with a gradual decrease in nicotine intake).

Many forums are geared toward quitting with the aid of a specific medication. However, forums that are more general include:

American Lung Association’s Freedom from Smoking