abusive partners<\/a> to prison captors people (can) come to love what threatens their lives. But we all like to do things on our own terms.<\/p>\nI had to laugh the other day at a little boy I saw at the Marina. His mum was trying to persuade the little lad, clad in a life jacket he didn’t need, to lend it to another little fellow, who did need it.<\/p>\n
But he didn\u2019t want to lend it, and she gave up. But a moment after she turned away, didn’t the wee lad announce to his mate, “It’s too hot to wear this jacket. You can have it!”<\/p>\n
This little boy had just given a lovely demonstration of a principle we have to understand when we help people quit smoking.<\/p>\n
I’ll quit smoking – but only on my own terms!<\/h3>\n
Coming up with his own reason to give up the life jacket, rather than simply ‘doing what he was told’, instantly gave the little boy a sense of autonomy – something that’s vital to all of us. Each one of us wants to feel the independence of our decisions.<\/p>\n
Similarly, you can’t just tell someone to stop smoking. After all, smoking is built upon rebellion: the smoker rebels against the ‘crap day’, the missed opportunity, the graphically illustrated rotting lung scare story, the tetchy boss, the argumental spouse and the attempts of a well-meaning do-gooder (even if they\u2019re paying you) to get them to quit. And how do they rebel? By… having a cigarette.<\/p>\n
To help save someone from their own misdirected rebellion we need to allow even encourage the rebellion so it can be used to free them.<\/p>\n
3 questions that will enlist your smoker’s personal autonomy<\/h2>\n
Smokers know all the reasons why they ‘should’ quit, of course. And if they’ve showed up in your consulting room, at least some of these reasons are likely to have influenced them. But it is still vital that they find a personal reason to stop smoking that carries weight with them, that goes beyond just ‘being a good boy’ (or girl).<\/p>\n
To get past the ‘common sense health advice’, I often put questions like this:<\/p>\n