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5 PREVENTING RELAPSE

Most people who have a relapse have one within the first three months of quitting smoking. Although this may make you want to give up and think you are a failure, do not get discouraged by the small relapse. Remember that more often than not people who quit have to try several times before quitting for good. Although it is difficult to stop, there are some situations that make it much harder. Some things that make it easier to relapse include other smokers, drinking alcohol, mood swings or depression, and weight gain. However, if you do have a relapse, then be certain to learn from your mistakes. Ask yourself what worked last time and what didn't? Also what was the major factor that caused you to give into temptation?

MIND THE COMPANY YOU KEEP

Being around other people who smoke is one of the worst things you can do if you are trying to quit smoking. The smell and second hand smoke can cause your cravings to get more severe and the habit is difficult enough to kick without constantly having to avoid temptations. Having friends, family, or co workers who smoke around you will be one of the most difficult situations to deal with, but it is important that you keep far away from these people while they are smoking, during the time when you are trying to quit. Ask people to not smoke in your home or your vehicle, and be sure to get the smell of smoke out of these places before you quit as well. It may be annoying for your friends who smoke to have to do it outside, but your health and well being are well worth the sacrifice. You never know, you may inspire your friends and family to try to quit with you as support, which will benefit all of you.

SOCIAL DRINKING AND SMOKING

Drinking alcohol is another factor in causing a smoker who has quit to have a relapse. Although whether you should avoid alcohol altogether when trying to quit smoking differs regarding the amount and way you drank alcohol before you quit. If you never drink, well of course you don't have to worry.

However, if you were a social drinker there are precautions you should take to prevent relapse. Most social drinkers have a cigarette with there drink, so it may be difficult to go out and get a drink without relapsing and having a smoke. Even if you throw away all your cigarettes there will surely be someone there to offer you a smoke with your martini. Each time you do go out for a drink after you quit, be certain to remember you are a recovering addict and need to refrain from smoking at all. Even second hand smoke could cause you to relapse. Some people find it best to avoid drinking at all while quitting smoking and to very seldom drink after they quit unless a good friend is with you to help support and motivate you to not smoke.

THE STRESS FACTOR

Some people use smoking to regulate their moods and keep them feeling normal. This is a huge problem when attempting to quit for good and avoid a relapse. Many things from medication, to deep breathing, can all help elevate your mood and keep you from needing cigarettes to keep from mood swings and depression. If you have difficulties with depression then keep doing what your doctor suggests and tell them you will be quitting smoking soon. See if they have any suggestions for things to do to keep the mood problems from getting worse due to the nicotine withdrawal. It is also good to ask your friends and family from causing you undue stress during the first couple of weeks after quitting, which is when you are most likely to have a relapse.

WEIGHT GAIN AND QUITTING SMOKING

When you gain a little weight from quitting you might be tempted to start up again to lose it but there are many ways to lose the weight besides smoking. It is also a bad idea to try to lose the weight while in the middle of quitting. Try your best to worry about losing weight after you have a good handle on quitting. Not dieting is a good way to keep your focus strictly on quitting.

When you are trying to quit it is best to not take even one puff off a cigarette. Even taking one puff will inevitably lead to another and another until you are back at a pack a day. Think about what will be some of the most difficult times for you after quitting, and make a solid plan for how to handle them. It is always best to recognize the situations that may cause you to slip up and relapse, and either avoid them altogether or have a plan of action ready when going into the situations. Some of these times include parties, work, and at a bar. These times and places differ for everyone so talk to people who are there to support you about what is best for you.

FALLING OFF THE WAGON

Now you know how to prevent relapse but, what about when you do relapse as many people do several times before quitting for good. Well there are many ways to recover once you have a relapse, first of all do not beat yourself up about it. Everyone makes mistakes it is how we deal with the mistakes that will decide if we can get back up. Many of the people who slip up and have a smoke still end up quitting for good it just takes a good plan of action and learning from your mistakes. It is best to treat a slip up like a fire or another type of emergency and STOP immediately! Then immediately start to think where you were, who you were with, and exactly what you were doing when you had a slip up, so you can then plan what to do next time you are faced with this same situation.

You are now prepared for this situation next time it happens and are quite ready to quit again and hopefully this time for good. Although remember if you slip up, it is not the end of the world. Simply assess the situation that caused it and take care of a plan before quitting again.

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ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF HOME BREWING

As with any hobby, there are advantages and disadvantages. The same is true with the home brewing of beer. However, most people that choose to home brew their own beer or other beverages will tell you that the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

When thinking of the number one advantage to home brewing, what comes to mind is the thing that means the most to beer lovers: taste.

Drinking commercially brewed beer as opposed to home brewed beer is like eating food when you have a cold. The food just doesn't taste like it should. You're not getting the full flavor.

When you're drinking commercially brewed beer that has been canned, bottled, exposed to outside air and knocked around, it's not going to taste anywhere near as good as fresh beer. If you don't believe this, open up a bottle of beer from the store, sniff it, and then sniff your freshly brewed beer. You'll see there's no comparison. Suffice it to say, you may not want to ever go back to drinking store-bought beer. This is probably the main advantage to brewing your own beer at home.

HEALTH ADVANTAGES

Brewing your own beer gives you the advantage of a healthy beverage. You may be surprised to see beer being described as a "healthy" beverage, but it's healthy in the aspect that you know what's going into the beer and what's not. If you've ever looked at the ingredients on a bottle of beer or any beverage for that matter, you'll probably find that you don't recognize half the ingredients that are going into the product. Worse than that is the fact that you are consuming these unfamiliar ingredients.

By brewing your own beer, you're getting all-natural ingredients that are familiar to you. You're also not getting all the preservatives you get when you drink commercial beers, so you're getting a better quality, better tasting beer.

You'll be familiar with the malt, barley, hops or whatever other natural ingredients you put in your beer. In your quest for good home brewing recipes, you'll find there are many varieties you can try.

Regardless of which recipe you finally decide to stick with, you'll still know what goes in the beer. What you'll like also with making your own beer is that you can control the alcohol content that goes in the beer. You may like higher alcohol content while your wife enjoys a milder beer.

When you buy a six-pack of beer, you're forced to drink a certain alcohol content unless you want to buy another six-pack of lower or higher alcohol content. When you make your own brew, you can mix it up and make a variety to suit everyone.

BRAGGING RIGHTS

Let's not forget about the bragging rights. When you're done making your beer, you'll probably want to have a party or social gathering to show off your home brewing skills. It will give you a lot of pride to be able to say that you made it yourself. Your friends will be impressed with your culinary skills and want to learn all they can about home brewing.

Home brewed beer has a fresh, natural taste that you will never get with commercially brewed beer. Not only is it a natural and better tasting choice, but also it's also very cheap compared to what you'd pay in a supermarket or liquor store.

The ability to experiment with the recipe will continue to be a source of fun for you. You'll never get tired of trying different recipes and making different types of beer. Whether it's mild beer, high alcohol content, dark or light beer, you'll love experimenting until you find the perfect combination for your new favorite recipe and drink.

Another advantage to home brewing is that in addition to having a premium tasting beer, you'll also get it at an affordable cost. Once you have all you need for your beer-making venture, you'll be able to make beer for just a few pennies a beer. The cheapest type of commercial beer you buy is at least a dollar a bottle. You'll be amazed at how much beer you can brew with that same dollar. As cheaply as you can make this beer, it's a shame that you can't sell it!!

DISADVANTAGES

Now we'll get into the disadvantages of home brewing your own beer or beverages. As discussed earlier, there are not near as many disadvantages as there are advantages. Besides the mess you'll have, one disadvantage to making your own beer is the initial start-up costs.

If money and budget is a major concern for you, you may find it difficult to comfortably buy everything you need to make your own beer. You can typically expect to spend a few hundred dollars to get you started. The equipment you need will cost around $100 plus a large kettle, which may cost up to $50 or more.

Keeping in mind your store's prices for liquid and dry yeast, the entire list of ingredients to make a 5 gallon match can cost from $25 to $50. You'll also want to buy some sanitizers and bottles, which will cost from $10 to $20 for 24 bottles of 12-oz. size. The bottles, however, can be reused repeatedly with sufficient cleaning.

Although you may continue to use your kitchen equipment to save money, many people choose to purchase special equipment designed specifically for beer making. Although these costs may sound expensive for starting off, many of them are one-time costs. Not to mention, you'll get a lot of beer for the amount of money you've invested.

Another disadvantage of home brewing your own beer is that you'll love the taste so much you may find yourself drinking more than you used to and more than you should! Your neighbors may be over more often then normal as well just to get some of your great-tasting free (at least to them) beer!

Home brewing can also be very messy and time-consuming, especially until you fully get the hang of it. You may decide you want a special room for this process if you'll be doing it frequently.

VARIETIES OF HOME BREWING

While hearing the terms, 'home brew' makes us most often think of beer, we are definitely not limited to beer. Beer is usually the beverage that most people interested in home brewing begin with, mostly because it's the most popular. Another reason is that it's the fermented beverage that is most often consumed.

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AFTER PUBLISHING COMES MARKETING

Once you've uploaded your manuscript it only takes about 12 hours after you've hit the publish button for it to appear as an offering at the Kindle Store. But, you're not really done. You've just started to make the sale, and now you have to learn how to market your work to close the sales.

In times past, all you had to do was get a literary agent and they would get the publishing house. The publishing house would then do all the marketing for the book in order to make the sales. This doesn't happen anymore. They either want known authors who have an audience already or they want you to do your own marketing. This can be quite a hat switch from author to marketer, but it's pretty much expected even if you publish and ebook or get a publishing house to publish your book for you. You will still have to bear the brunt of doing most of the upfront marketing work.

The nice thing is though that you can build your audience for yourself and once your name is known, you can go anywhere and that audience will follow you. You will know how to generate more interest for your work and you won't be dependent on finding a literary agent or a publishing house that is willing to publish your work. In a lot of ways, it offers you a lot more creative freedom to see what the market will accept versus what a publisher may deem to be unmarketable. And, it doesn't cost too much in money, although it can take quite a bit of time to keep an active marketing campaign going.

Lucky for you, the Internet has made marketing online a very simple matter. You aren't going to be wasting any gas, you won't have to pay anyone unless you want to, and you can reach thousands, if not millions of readers, through very simple online marketing practices. Here, we will discuss some of the strategies to expose your work to more readers, not just the ones who go the Kindle bookstore already, and thus make more sales.

ONLINE INTERNET MARKETING

Believe it or not, you've already learned some online Internet marketing from this ebook. Once you started learning about keywords and how to get them, you've entered the world of Internet marketing. Those keywords can be used in multiple ways to help increase your exposure on the Internet, so keep them handy.

When we get into the subject of Internet marketing, it's inevitable that we need to discuss the many forums and areas on the Internet where people congregate to talk, learn, and publicize themselves. So, here we are going to categorize those Internet activities by the type of group that you might want to join in order to start getting the word out about your book. They may be blogging communities, social networking sites, discussion forums, and other types of media groups like YouTube or podcasters.

YOUR AUDIENCE MATTERS

However, before we get to these, let's take the time to examine the audience you are trying to attract. If your book is about toy trains, the groups that you want to access should have toy train enthusiasts and hobbyists in their ranks. No matter how large or popular a forum is, if they don't have the

audience you need to sell your book, then, they're simply not worth the effort. What is going to sell your ebook is to connect the audience demographic that likes your topic to the ebook on the Kindle Store. If the two don't match, the odds of a sale are very low. So, stick with those people you know will be interested in your topic to begin with.

PLACES YOU WANT TO JOIN TO MARKET YOUR EBOOK

BLOGGING COMMUNITIES

Many blogs offer places to comment on the posting. This affords you a great opportunity to find blogs associated with the topic of your ebook and then comment on the posting. At the end, you can add a link to your ebook URL. Just be careful how you do this, as no one wants to see a fluff comment on their blog with a link back to some merchandising. That's called spam. Instead, address the post thoughtfully and mention your ebook when it applies.

Now, if you want to do a number of these at one time, check out the keywords the blog is using and insert that into the search engine for the blogging community. That should pull up associated blogs also talking about the same topic. Now, add your comments there too.

You can even trade with bloggers to get some exposure to your ebook. You can contact the blogger and ask them if they would like a free copy of your ebook in exchange for a review, if they like the ebook. Obviously, if they don't like the ebook, you don't want them writing a negative review about it. So, this will help to spur sales from that bloggers audience too and give you an air of credibility because you've associated yourself with them.

SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

This is one of the most underutilized areas right now in marketing, so the field is much less competitive than other strategies. All you need to do is add some profiles to places like Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Digg, and, many, many more. In fact, there's so many of them and more coming out each day, that we won't be able to go over all of them. But, we'll give you a sampling of how to use some of the more popular ones to help you get started. This topic is so vast it would really pay for you to buy an ebook on this subject alone, and get started before everyone else saturates the market.

Twitter

This is one of the most unusual social networking sites in that they allow you to "tweet" people in messages of 140 characters or less throughout the day. People listen to these tweets and try to follow you around as your being active in your life. So, in a way it's like blogging, but in microbursts.

The whole idea behind twitter is that if something really interesting is happening in your life, your updates may end up getting a massive audience. People have generated a large audience through simply detailing how they are laid off and the process of leaving their job, being present during a newsworthy event, or simply having interesting personalities that make the day unusual.