Coffee and Cigarettes-The Infamous Couple

Is your coffee routine the thing that gets you up and going in the morning?

And anytime that you tried to stop smoking cold turkey, is coffee the thing that you miss the most?

My name is Rita Black and I am a clinical hypnotherapist, a smoking cessation specialist and the creator of Smokefree123, which is an online stop smoking hypnotherapy program. But I'm also a former pack and a half a day smoker.

My Morning Coffee and Cigs Were Everything

I remember smoking it up in the morning with my cup of joe. And that was my big morning event that got me out of bed and got me going for the day. And I just thought that I never could stop smoking cold turkey because of the relationship I had with coffee and cigarettes. But I'm here to tell you I've been a happy, healthy non-smoker for over 23 years and I love coffee more than ever as a non-smoker. And you can too.

I just want to cover a few mistakes that people make when they try to quit smoking regarding coffee and their morning routine. And I want to start to help you consciously uncouple coffee from cigarettes.

Mistake #1 That Is Made When People Try to Stop Smoking

Let's talk about one of the biggest mistakes that people make when they try to quit smoking cold turkey. In my LA practice, people come to see me all the time to stop smoking. I've helped over 10,000 people to quit smoking using my stop smoking hypnotherapy program, Smokefree123.

When people will come in, I hear the following all the time. They'll say, "Okay Rita, I'm going to quit smoking. So should I stop drinking coffee?" And I'm like, "Huh, why would you do that? You know, do you want to stop?" They'll say, "No, I love coffee". Okay, well then why would you do that? Because, well, smoking and coffee go together.

That's Not the Whole Picture

Well, they do and they don't. Let me explain. When we become a non-smoker, we can actually begin enjoying our coffee as a non-smoker. But the big mistake that people make is that they think that they're a smoker trying not to smoke, and they're trying to drink their coffee without the cigarettes.

So when we present that information, as in, I'm trying to drink my coffee without the cigarette, that is telling the brain there's a negative thing going on. There is a bummer going on because we're sadly sitting here with our coffee and something else should be going on.

What's Actually Going On

The interesting thing is that for a lot of people, and this might not be you, but for a lot of people what will happen, is the routine is they'll sit down with a cup of coffee, they'll grab a cigarette, they light the cigarette, and then they'll get on their phone. Then the brain quickly moves on from the cigarette to whatever you're doing, whether it's getting on the phone and reading the news or watching the news, or even just hanging out and staring at your garden. Or in the bathroom or whatever your mind moves on from the cigarette pretty much onto the next thing. 

Often, in our morning routine, it's a routine. It's the repetition of a pattern that we'll sit down, we'll have the coffee, we'll have the phone, we'll have a cigarette, and we'll do something. You know, we might smoke two or three cigarettes, we might only smoke one, but we do that thing and then we get onto the next thing.

And often our time surrounding our coffee in the morning is the time that we take to sit and reflect, think about the day, kind of get our thoughts organized around work or what we're going to do for the day, get back to people on social media, or look at the news. It's a time for our mind to wake up.

Mistake #2 When We Talk About Stopping Smoking as a Coffee Drinker

A lot of times what people do, which is big mistake number two, is they'll take away all of that time with their coffee, their cigarettes and their phone because of the cigarettes. Let's say you smoke two cigarettes, it takes a certain amount of time, and you just sit there and chill out and give yourself permission to wake up.

What happens is when people take away their cigarettes, they take away that time. And so they'll just get up, they'll have their coffee, they'll go and do something like clean up the kitchen. They'll straighten up, they'll get dressed and they'll just get going. And then they start to miss that time in the morning.

The key is, they think they're missing the cigarettes, but what they're really missing is that time where they grant themselves permission to just chill out and enjoy waking up and enjoying bringing in a new day.

You Don't Have to Give Up That Special Time of Day

It's a special time that we spend with ourselves in the morning around our cup of coffee. I am a non-smoker. I wake up in the morning, I have some time to chill and wake up. I grant myself permission to sort through my phone messages, look at the news, you know, I'll take 10 or even 20 minutes before my kids get going for the day. That's my time around my coffee.

And here's the other thing- coffee as a non-smoker tastes fantastic! And that's because you can taste all the wonderful subtleties of the coffee. When we're smoking it up, our taste buds become damaged and we aren't even really enjoying that cup of coffee like it really needs to be revelled in and enjoyed. So you can absolutely enjoy your coffee as a non-smoker. In fact, I'd like to suggest you will most likely enjoy it even more.

But You Have to Believe It

But first of all, you just need to believe that you can become a non-smoker. So here is my suggestion. If you'd like to stop smoking, I have an excellent free video for you, that removes the mental roadblocks that keep you smoking. You can access that here. So cheers to you, a cup of joe, as a non-smoker. I know you can do it. I believe in you.

Have a fantastic, wonderful day and enjoy just smelling the coffee.