Most tobacco dependent individuals relapse several times before they achieve long-term, permanent tobacco recovery. Most have made multiple, serious and earnest attempts to quit smoking (or quit other forms of tobacco use).

This article is about tobacco relapse and may seem like an unusual place to start as a first article in a series. It may also seem to be a negative perspective from which to look. And that is exactly why I am choosing to start here. Tobacco relapse doesn’t have to be a negative experience. Indeed it can be a positive learning experience. A positive spin can be put on relapse by helping the tobacco dependent person to learn from relapses and therefore move one step closer towards tobacco recovery.

I specialize in working with tobacco dependent clients. Most of these individuals, by the time they reach my office, have experienced relapse several times. In their mind, they have failed…over and over and over. They often feel frustrated, confused and hopeless. I understand these feelings because in addition to being a counselor, I am recovering from tobacco dependence since 1995 after smoking 2 packs per day for over 25 years. It took me several serious quit attempts before I became permanently tobacco-free. While everyone’s experience is different, I know first-hand the frustration of quitting and relapsing…and quitting again…and relapsing again.

One of the most effective and important things I can do as a clinician is to help clients reframe relapses into positive learning experiences….to help him or her to shift perspective from failure to learning. A change in thinking and perspective leads to a change in attitude and behavior which leads to another quit attempt which can ultimately lead to permanent, long-term tobacco recovery.

In order to accomplish this, I developed a tool called “From Relapse To Recovery Worksheet ©”. The purpose of this worksheet is to help the client to look at each previous quit attempt and extract useful, important and helpful information. The worksheet provides a way to view previous quit attempts as positive, information-gathering learning experiences rather than failures. After all, who wants to rack up another failure in life!?

The six-question worksheet includes the following:

• When - (Month and year of quit attempt)
• How - (Method used to become tobacco-free, e.g., cut down, change brands, using nicotine replacement, counseling, etc.)
• How Long - (Identify number of hours, days, weeks, months of years of tobacco-free time during the quit attempt)
• Maintenance - (Identify tools, skills and methods used to stay tobacco-free during the quit attempt)
• Relapse - (Identify how he/she returned to tobacco use)
• Most Important - (Identify what he/she learned from the quit attempt)

Again, the purpose of the worksheet is to trigger thoughts, memories and ideas about what worked and what didn’t work with the quit attempt. It is a way to take the quit attempt and put it into the not-so-vicious cycle of Do-Evaluate-Adjust. We do something (attempt to quit), and then if it does not work out (relapse occurs), we evaluate what we did right and what we want to do differently next time, and then make adjustments and try it again. Then evaluate again, adjust again, etc.

It is especially important to identify what we do right, well and effectively. Too often we look at what we did "wrong" or what we want to do differently next time. That certainly is important. But it is important to identify what we did that was effective ~~ what helped us to move one step (even if it's a baby step…remember the movie What About Bob and baby steps!!??) closer to our goal.

Personally and professionally, I know that recovery from tobacco dependence is difficult to achieve but very very possible to achieve. I also know that tobacco recovery is one of the best things we can experience. Eventually, with continued attempts, continued trying, and a willingness to not give up, we recover. For a day. Then one finds that a week has passed, tobacco-free. And a month. A few months. Then a year. A few years. Then a decade. And so on. The sweet taste of tobacco recovery success. So much sweeter than the taste of a cigarette!

Corinne (Cory) Kalat is a tobacco dependence expert and therapist in private practice who specializes in working with the tobacco dependent client. Her office is in Westchester, Illinois (Chicago area) near the Oak Brook Shopping Center. To request a copy of the From Relapse To Recovery Worksheet ©, please contact Cory at crkalat@aol.com

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