A Shout-Out for H.A.L.T.

[Kate18]

Who first coined the H.A.L.T. acronym? In the past three days, I've gained a whole new respect for using it to rescue sanity from the clutch of addictive thinking.

If I have it right, when a person feels s/he is in the grips of longing for nicotine, it may not be nicotine, but something else. Wires get crossed.

It could be Hunger, Anger/Annoyance, Loneliness, or Tired. 

 

I don't know how many times in the past few days I've "HALTed." Each time, well most of the time, I reached a satisfactory conclusion that I needed something else, not a nicotine fix. Although the nicotine fix would have been nice, too, were it not destructive, expensive, and pointless.

 

I used to reach for a cigarette when I was hungry. When I've HALTed, the solution I come up with most often is to eat a piece of fruit because I sense my blood sugar is low.

Once, identifying lonely,  I reached out to my son (a young man with a family of his own). He and I are close. He doesn't know I smoke, so I didn't talk about smoking, just used a brief interaction to supplant nicotine craving.

 

HALT is so simple, yet so powerful. Stressor --> few deep breaths to gain calm --> ask the H.A.L.T. questions and be open to the answers --> focus on the best response and take action

 

Anyone else have success using this method? Do you use it often?

[Rozuki]

I use this often - maybe that is why I gained so much weight when I quit...always went for a piece of dark chocolate! Been trying to just drink water lately!! It does work well when you are doing battle with a crave because you need to think and it gets your mind off the crave..... 

[jillar]

Great post Kate and yes I've used it too

[Paul723]

The nicotine addiction is in the part of your brain that would normally give you rewards for taking care of yourself.  Eat some food - reward for taking care of hungry.  In from the rain - reward for not being wet.  Get some sleep - reward for not being tired.  Nicotine hijacks this part of your brain so it mostly functions like:  Smoke cigarette - reward no panic inducing adrenaline dump.  You are retraining your brain to work properly.  It's a healing process, so it takes time and effort.  You'll see plenty of posts that discuss rewarding yourself often early in a quit to correct what nicotine has messed up.