Lifestyle Health Risk Self-Test for Denial

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Also available on our sponsored site, Winston Clinical Associates, - Winston-Salem, North Carolina USA

Health Risk Denial Self-Test
Smoking, Other Dependencies, Overeating/Excess Body Weight, and More
Important note: Although developed for those dependent on nicotine, this assessment potentially is of equal value to adults who no longer or never used it. Even if that's untrue, it still offers little-known valuable insights.

This test for the health-risking defensiveness commonly called 'denial' is a recent addition to this author's list of wellness-promoting assessments. Please keep in mind that no results of such testing tell absolute facts. They indicate important possibilities to consider.

Truthful Statements

Based on his 40 years of first-hand clinical health care experience and study done when hardly anyone else was doing something similar, the author of the program Nicotine Dependence Relief and Recovery is entirely convinced that the following statements are true. Please read all of them before going further.

  1. The addicting substance nicotine in cigarettes, dip and chew is a naturally occurring insecticide used to kill both insects and animals. Any poison at all is too much and no matter the source or how it's taken.
  2. People don't puff on cigarettes; they suck cigarettes. Puffing is blowing as in, "I'll huff and puff and blow your house down." Puffing seems more agreeable and so less health-risky than sucking (inhaling).
  3. Regular practice breathing the reverse of how people breathe when sucking cigarettes (butts) has a comforting effect that reverses their interest in smoking (dipping, chewing).
  4. Psychological stress contributes but is NOT the basic cause that makes people smoke or do more of it. If it was, they wouldn't smoke almost as much when the opposite of stressed . . . for example, out socializing with friends.
  5. What basically makes people smoke (dip, chew) is substance dependency consisting somewhat of a physical need that can cause craving nicotine but primarily a few false ideas they have and don't realize they do when those "nicotine notions" are thought and hurt them by blocking willpower.
  6. A common spice called whole clove has something non harmful in it that when regularly tasted reduces the craving for nicotine and any possible excess appetite.
  7. The portion of the human brain that helps make better decisions and avoids needless risks isn't sufficiently formed until we're in our mid 20's. It is another part of the brain and the ideas, nicotine notions, associated with it that keep people sucking, dipping, chewing insecticide (nicotine) and get them to go back to using it. That part is more "primitive" (much less directed by experience) and sometimes makes adults act more like teenagers. That is the basic reason hardly anyone begins (takes the very first drag, dip, chew) after the age of 25. The few who do almost never continue.
  8. Most of the simple and safe solution is to build and keep willpower by listening daily for at least three weeks to recorded "truthful suggestions" that weaken nicotine notions: in other words, move control to the more recently developed portion of the brain that helps avoid needless risks.
  9. It is important to avoid thinking of smoking as a habit . . . even as a bad habit. What people understandably confuse with and call "habit" is far more likely dependency and "conditioning" like training a dog so its mouth waters every time you ring a bell. Besides, most behaviors we call "habits" are good such as carrying car keys in the same place. Thinking of nicotine use as a habit makes smoking seem less important to get rid of and so weakens the desire or willpower needed to stay away from it.
  10. Adults unintentionally and unknowingly in a way hypnotize themselves into believing smoking (also dipping, chewing) helps by repeatedly telling themselves that it does help. Repeatedly saying "this helps" when doing a non hurtful substitute for smoking also has a powerful self-hypnotic effect.
  11. "Stopping" is NOT a meaningful measure of success. (A popular writer used to say that stopping smoking was very easy. It was so easy that he stopped every day.) Being unwilling to suck cigarettes (also dip, chew or another hurtful replacement) even when wanting to and without substituting anything unhealthy (eating junk food, for instance) is the measure of success that counts.
  12. Think about it as being and staying "free." Please don't "quit" smoking, dipping or chewing. "Quit" is a negative word nearly always said when someone is going to fail or lose. The word predicts and so promotes failing. Highschool athletic coaches put it this way, "Winners never quit and quitters never win!"
  13. To be successful staying free of nicotine, it's extremely important to avoid just as much as possible talking or discussions about smoking (dipping, chewing) and subjects related to it for at least the first three weeks after getting rid of cigarettes, dip or chew.
  14. It is the temporary increased potency of caffeine or using more of it, once free of nicotine, that more likely makes some people tense, irritable or have trouble sleeping. Since all or even nearly all folks don't have such reactions that says it is not the getting rid of smoking that causes the difficulty. Reducing the amount of caffeine used helps or takes care of it.
  15. The truth is that no one smokes enough cigarettes to do severe harm unless he or she is dependent on the drug nicotine. Drug dependency is the root cause of ongoing and occasional but heavier (binge) smoking and so contributes to getting deadly illnesses and hurting families. That says smokers deserve to be offered the rarely available help with the root cause of smoking and to be treated with respect.

Rate How Different or New and Believable to You

A. Now, please answer this question. Overall, how new to you or different from what you've seen and heard before, discovered and told by some other source, were those statements?

Lump together and average those statements on a scale from one (1) to seven (7) . . . with seven (7) being essentially new or different. You haven't seen or heard them originating from (uncovered and told by) someone other than the author of this test. A rating of one (1) means there's essentially no difference. You've seen or heard all of them. And they were discovered and said by another source. Of course, feel free to choose a number between one (1) and seven (7).

Choose a number:

Overall, Not Different / New to Me ... 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 5 ... 6 ... 7 ... Overall, Essentially Different / New to Me

Please, before going further type the number you choose here ___

B. Next do this rating of overall believability by choosing a number from 1 to 7. Feel free to choose a number between 1 and 7.

Overall, Not Believable to Me ... 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 5 ... 6 ... 7 ... Overall, Believable to Me

Before going further type the number you choose here ___

Answers to this test for the very dangerous health risk denial:

The 15 statements read and rated are new, different and believable. Ratings of 7 or 6 are the most likely accurate answers.

The higher the numbers you chose, the less of the denial you have that threatens helping to save the lives of other adults and protecting children.

Most respectfully, you could not have seen or heard anything close enough to the statements you rated and originating from another source. Given the real-world and specialized clinical experience, published insights and 40 years of study that went into those truthful statements they would be believable and highly so.

A rating of 5 or less implies defensiveness. One of the 15 truthful statements briefly introduced a teenager-like part of the human brain that starts, almost always before the age of 25, and keeps people smoking (dipping or chewing). And when they stop it causes them to relapse. It does that by denying the presence of present or potential risks to personal health. That part is more "primitive" (far less directed by what's learned from day-to-day experiences) and sometimes makes adults behave more like teens.

At a deep level of thinking the teen-like or primitive part is already dismissing the most useful elements of what the program that inspired this test for health risk denial teaches. That takes away much of its considerable potential to help make and keep adults and the children they influence healthier and happier.

A rating of 5 or less suggests you're telling yourself and don't realize it that using this website's information can't help. It cannot because you already know the more useful information here . . . when you don't.

Teenagers and the teen-like part of adults can easily and understandably confuse something different and new that makes sense for what they already knew. They subconsciously figure something such as, "What I just read (heard) is reasonable and probably accurate. That means it's not original and different from what I've been told. So few things are that I must've heard or read it some where else."

There is more. The terrific and teen-like element of adults often doesn't believe what other people found -- through learning gained from practical and applicable experience -- that's repeatedly proven to be true.

What's the point? If you already know or suspect these results probably apply, please avoid wasting this opportunity. Keep from allowing a terrific but less experienced portion of your mental capacity or personality get away with risking your health and happiness. Continue and learn as much as possible from what you find here and become unwilling to keep too much of the needless defensiveness: health risk denial.

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