{"id":22293,"date":"2025-01-07T00:00:20","date_gmt":"2025-01-07T06:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unk.com\/blog\/?p=22293"},"modified":"2025-11-30T10:46:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T16:46:10","slug":"why-treating-smokers-is-an-emergency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unk.com\/blog\/why-treating-smokers-is-an-emergency\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Treating Smokers is an Emergency"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends.”<\/em><\/p>\n

– William Shakespeare<\/p>\n

Sometimes we dive headlong into disaster – drive too fast on a wet night, place a ladder on uneven ground, dive into a tumultuous sea when the red flag is up.<\/p>\n

Other times we sleepwalk into oblivion. We forget that the clock is ticking and we don’t have infinite leeway to play with our fate.<\/p>\n

Therapists who help smokers stop<\/a> ask me sometimes (see below) how many sessions I might spend helping a smoker escape the tobacco trap.<\/p>\n

What I tell them, and you, is that we need to stop being leisurely when it comes to helping people quit smoking.<\/p>\n

As I write this I’m in France, in a house that was built in the year of the French Revolution: 1789. There is a picture of an axe on the outside of the house because this house belonged to a magistrate, and a travelling executioner used to stay here while he cut off heads in the local vicinity.<\/p>\n

Quite a thought, isn’t it! But it lends power, at least for me, to the following analogy, which I realise might seem a little crazy at first!<\/p>\n

The rescue (an analogy for therapists)<\/h3>\n

Imagine you have an innocent friend who’s been unjustly imprisoned in a dungeon and sentenced to death. Only they haven’t been told when<\/em> they’ll be killed.<\/p>\n

Now imagine you find a way to rescue them. Do you delay your rescue? Dilly-dally, drag your heels? Tell them you’ll be back next week and may need a few visits to get it done?<\/p>\n

What’s that you hear? The executioner already prowling about? Do you still try to reassure your friend that you can help them… but maybe not today?<\/p>\n

Once you’re in there with them, key in hand, the time to get them out is NOW.<\/p>\n

We also need to communicate this sense that NOW is the time to escape smoking to our clients.<\/p>\n

There’s one with your name on it<\/h3>\n

During both world wars there was a grim expression: “There’s a bullet with your name on it!” What this meant, of course, was that it was likely that you and a certain bullet would meet at some point – but you had no way of knowing ahead of time which<\/em> bullet it would be.<\/p>\n

That one bullet would look just like any other bullet. Maybe it hadn’t even been made yet. But that one ‘special’ bullet was there, waiting somewhere in the future, with ‘your name on it’.<\/p>\n

This is an idea I like to bear in mind when treating a smoker, and also communicate to<\/em> the smoker. We simply don’t know which cigarette is going to be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back. Which cigarette ‘has their name on it’. Which cigarette, on top of all the others, will tip their body over the edge.<\/p>\n

We need to relay to the smoker that the idea that ‘just one won’t hurt’ is a lie.<\/p>\n\n

Not ‘just one’ anymore<\/h3>\n

The tipping-point cigarette with their name on it might be:<\/p>\n