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Around three days and eight hours ago I gave up smoking. A lifetime of faithful allegiance between me and lady nicotine met its violent end on Saturday morning as I dropped the final cigarette from my mouth and stamped its dying embers into the earth. From that moment, according to Allen Carr, I was free.
Of course it doesn't really work like that. This is a revenge tragedy, not The Shawshank Redemption. After years of dependency I finally came to terms with the fact that my life partner was trying to kill me, so, like any man with a shred of dignity, I got in there first, sending it under before it could do the same to me. Now, it's gone, and all I can think of are those smoky halcyon days of yonder, the early days of a love doomed to self destruct. This is, of course rubbish, but it seems increasingly hard to remember that.
My first thought after deciding to quit was that I'd take a visit to my GP and get a prescription for every giving up smoking aid there is. Then, armed with my Nicorette patches, gum and inhaler and stoked up on insanity inducing Champex pills, I would settle down to the long, dark night of withdrawal. This, of course, was a ridiculous plan, akin to a man stocking up on hard liquor and porn in preparation for his upcoming divorce. If you premeditate pain, then it will be exactly as bad, or worse, than you expect it to be.
In the end I decided the best course of action was to read Allen Carr's The Only Way to Stop Smoking Permanently. I had been told enough times by glowing ex-smokers how it had singly saved them from the sad fate of nicotine addiction, but I had always remained skeptical. I mean, I had read Jonathon Safron's terrifying Eating Animals and continued to eat battery chickens, so how was this book going to persuade me to give up the one thing I knew it would be impossible to live without?
The answer is, easily. Or relatively easily anyway. Carr's trick is to break down our illusions of smoking, and once the myths that surround cigarettes fall apart, so does our addiction. The result is not a battle of the wills, as both the smoking and non-smoking world would have us believe, but a struggle of faith. What do we believe, the advertised image of cigarettes as a pleasurable vice, or Carr's verdict that nicotine's only pleasure is an illusion, just the relief of the symptoms that it itself creates?
The answer is simple, of course, but coming to actually believe it isn't, at all. As any discerning shrink will tell you, our beliefs are shaped first and foremost by fear, hence the intricate realities carved out by paranoid schizophrenics, or the irrational racism adopted by countries falling into recession. Positive belief, formed by understanding and knowledge, is much harder to come by.
With smoking, the fear of giving up inevitably seems much more real than that of it killing you. I know what giving up will feel like; I go through it every time I'm stuck on a train for more than two hours, and it is rubbish. Dying on the other hand, I'm still getting my head around. When it comes down to it, us smokers are more likely to believe in the entirely irrational benefit of a carcinogenic drug, than the irrefutable certainty of death. That's got to be something to worry about.
Rationalizing with such a warped perspective seems at first like Alice trying to argue her way out of Wonderland; at every corner you meet a ridiculous yet defiant rebuttal. But, just as Alice can finally call out the queen of hearts as nothing but a playing card, and ignore her calls of 'off with her head!', so Carr reasons that, with sufficient understanding we can laugh at our addiction and smile out our cravings. When we stop believing in it, the addiction ceases to exist.
Since starting this article I have walked probably close to a mile in circles around my kitchen, eaten a bag of nuts and decimated the end of a biro. This addiction, when deprived of its need, truly reveals itself as a form of hyperactive madness. They say this is the hard bit, but resisting madness is easy when you can see it for what it is. When the cravings fade and the struggle of faith loses its obvious pointers, that's when things get tricky. Not that I will realise it at the time.
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Thats why I gave up on trying to quit smoking and just accepted the fact that Im basically a hopelessly addicted chainsmoker, have been a smoker since I was a teenager, and will probably always be a smoker.
That first cigarette after you havent had any in a while is absolutely wonderful. It really is. I know its wrong to say that, and its great that so many other people have the willpower to give up something they love and enjoy so much. But I don't think I ever appreciated just how much I really loved smoking until I tried to give it up, then came running back to my faithful friends, my cigarettes.
Whether that first cigarette in the morning, or smoking on the commute to work stuck in traffic, or a cigarette with a cup of coffee or tea, or a much needed morning or afternoon cigarette break at work, or another cigarette after a meal, or a cigarette while watching television or browsing the internet, or another cigarette just before bed, they all have meaning to me and make my day easier.
I really admire the people self-disciplined enough to deprive themselves of such pleasure in the name of health, because I know I would never have the strength to give them up myself.
Best wishes John at Allen Carr
Lastly - make sure that you get comfortable that you are going to think about cigarettes or smoking – even though you probably feel that you are thinking about them too much at the moment - but 'worrying about it' is the problem. This often when we mistakenly feel we are experiencing nicotine withdrawal. I'll explain…For starters - if you try not to think about it - you will think about it even more - if I say “WHATEVER YOU DO - YOU MUSTN'T THINK ABOUT A BANANA NOW" - you are almost certainly thinking about a banana!
It doesn't matter if you think about cigarettes - even if you think – “I WANT ONE" - it doesn't mean you do. Some people find this difficult to accept but it is true. Think about it for a moment….If you were arguing with a friend - at the height of the argument you might think - "I COULD KILL YOU NOW" - that doesn't mean you could kill them - it doesn't make you a bad person - it's just a thought. It's what you do with the thought that matters.
Continued...
I’d like you to expand on it also. For example, you could say “life as a smoker smells" which is true.... - but it is probably more accurate and truthful to say “life as a smoker – my body, my breath, my clothes, my home, my hair stank and made me feel dirty". It is important that you say what smelt, how did it smell, and how did it make you feel - all in the past tense because it is what you have escaped from. Do this with all the aspects of your life as a smoker. For example, you could say “it controlled my life, what I did, when I did it, and how I felt when I was doing it and that made me feel weak". Continued...
Maybe one day I will write my story of how I gave up smoking and invented my own very-simple-give-up-smoking-technique-that-costs-nothing.
I went from around 40 roll ups per day to being a non smoker in one weekend with Alan Carr's book "The Easyway To Stop Smoking,easy peasy lemon squeezy....no cravings,no psychological pain...nothing at all.
Good luck :)
I love that phrase! A smart woman told me to look at quitting as a gift to myself rather than a deprivation. Just that bit of re-framing made the difference. Congrats on your decision, and best of luck to you.