If it's of any intrest here i'll let people know how i got on in England.
Wish me luck!
P.S They do hold these clinics here in Switzerland but i thought i'd have more chance of succeeding in my own language.
I was just wondering if anyone on the forum has given up smoking, or knows someone who has with the Allen Carr method? I've started reading the book and i'm beginning to see where it's going. I logged onto the website and decided to try one of his clinics. I'm so desperate to give up smoking i'll give anything a try.
Hi Oldhand,
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. After years of on -off smoking, saying that I had given up but then always having a sneaky puff when I was out, a friend bought me Alan Carr Easy Way as a present. I seriously didn't think it would help me to stop - but it did and 5 years on I haven't has so much as a drag.
Recommended it to friends and so far we have 6 succcess stories.
All I can say is, if you want to stop then carry on reading the book until the end, don't stop half way through because you don't think it is having an effect - you may be surprised!
Good luck
Hi Oldhand,
I wish you the best of luck, as a non-smoker I think anyone who gives it a good attempt deserves a medal .
Let us know how you go
Thanks Heide and Muze, i must say i didn't expect the support of a non-smoker! I was always under the impression that they looked upon us "silly" smokers with contempt, so that has really warmed the cockles of my heart. Not that your support meant any less Heidi. After all these years i'm so sick of my habit i just want to be free of it. I feel a Queen song breaking out. No i'll just go to bed and read another chapter and hope i'll be on my way out of this fear, destruction, smelly way of living.
Hi Oldhand
Just want to also wish you luck, I gave up smoking last August without any aid but I had been trying on and off for over 3 years and it eventually kicked in last August, I smoked my last one and didn't buy anymore. If you can kick it you will feel fantastic, I am so happy to be now a non smoker and I rarely get cravings, the worst time is when I have had a few drinks!!!
One bit of advice for you giving up is change the habits you do that associate with smoking for about 6 months, I stopped going to my local pub for 6 months, I had discovered that I could go all day and a few days at a time without a cigarette but as soon as I was in the pub in a social situation with drink in had I wanted a cigarette and i lost all willpower. It was a difficult thing to do as I missed out on my social life but it was worth it to be a non smoker. It has also meant that I drink a lot less than I used to as drinking and smoking went hand in hand for me.
Anyway good luck
Nicky
Some tips that helped me quit:
1) You must want to quit 100% - this is the only totally effective, long-term way to stop smoking
2) Set targets - like cut down to 5 a day by Friday and then to 0 the Friday after
3) Don't attempt to quit of Christmas, holidays, times of particular stress, etc.
4) Tell everyone you know you are quiting - this will add to your motivation as they encourage you and it commits you stopping
5) Tell any one you know who still smokes to never offer you a cigarette on pain of death
6) Change your daily routines: if you usually have a cigarette with a coffee, don't have a coffee - have tea or water instead. Break all the habits and times when you usually smoked.
7) Exercise more - you will feel fitter anyway and have more energy and the general feeling of well-being needs a channel
8) You will eat more as you can taste food again and your body can absorb more nutrients from your food again, so weight gain can be expected. But with exercise and healthy eating this can be minimised long-term
9) Use a 'crutch' - like sugar-free gum to chew when you really feel like a smoke
10) If you fall at the first hurdle (or the 2nd or 3rd) - like buying a pack or taking a cigarette offered to you on a night out - don't despair. Next day throw the pack away and start again. It's worth it.
Be strong and kick the weed. You'll live longer, smell a 1000 times better, have more money, avoid many illnesses (heart etc) and feel mentally and physically great!
I know you can do it...
Well thanks, i'm struggling. I haven't smoked since Saturday but do feel a little deprived. It was nice being a non-smoker at the airport coming back! He He i didn't have to worry about the last fag.
Well done Oldhand, stick at it.
Congrats on the non-smoking!!
I quit just over a year ago with Zyban tablets - it was the only thing that worked for me. Just remember that you'll have cravings for a long time, probably, but just because you crave that doesn't mean you have to give into them!!
One thing that has kept me away from it is the thought of things like airports. I don't want to be a slave to an addiction, getting all jittery at the end of a long overseas flight, searching out the first place I can light up (which in some cases is outside) after the flight. Things like that have kept me a happier non-smoker.
I wish you good luck too Oldhand. I am a non-smoker but really appreciate it when smokers make an effort to kick the habit and even more when they succeed at it. And don't forget that many people that stop smoking start bing eating to make up for the lack of nicotine. If that happens to you, definitely begin to an exercise routine. You don't necessarily have to go to the gym but begin to do some walking or jogging.
By the way, my uncle stopped smoking using hypnosis and a couple of friends of mine using a nicotine patch.
Carr's method is the best. I stopped inhaling tobacco after 30 years of enjoyment. It still surprises me that life, and in particular my life, is possible without this nasty addiction.
If I had to give one tip to help quit it would be that you realise that a tobacco pang usually only lasts five or ten minutes - get through that and you'll be ok until the next one. The frequency of these reduces over time...
And if I had one warning to give it would be that once a smoker, always a smoker...and a cigarette, even years later, represents a first link in the chain that will drag you down into nicotine slavery again.
Better Oldhand than Deadhand.
I second that one strongly. I once quit for about 5 or so years - only to take it up again when I was divorcing my ex.
I approach cigarettes like an alcoholic does booze. Just one puff will set me right back into addictionland. I don't want to be an active addict, so I avoid that first puff.
I dont believe it! today is a week since i gave up smoking after the first 3 days things are so much easier, i still think of ciggies but not about smoking one. My lungs are already feeling better. I was in the pub last night and although it did seem strange having a beer without a cig it didn't spoil my night.
Thanks for the encouragement
CONGRATULATIONS MATE!! Keep up the good work. It only gets better.
Yeah well done!
Definitely up the excercise if you had not had a chance to do much before. It will make you feel so much better, regardless of being a smoker or not, and if you manage to stay the same weight as you are now, you won't feel pissed off about the ciggies not keeping you slim anymore
I'd just like to underline this point. It's so easy to think that "just one" will be OK. It won't. Don't be tempted to smoke anything, i.e. no cigars, no water pipes, nada. Just say no.
I also gave up thanks to Allen Carr's book. A year later, during frustrating times, I started again and it was twice as hard to give up the second time. Cracked it in the end but I never want to do that again.
Well done for getting so far - you've already through the hardest part.
=DM=
I stopped smoking last week, along with a colleague of mine. So far so good, although I slipped over the weekend adn had 5 ciggies
But I keep an Excel sheet with stats in, and sadly this morning I had to reinitialise the date to today. But this Excel sheet keeps stats, all based on time and cigarettes not smoked. For example, at 6:_ a day, how much money not spent on fags, how many fags not smoked, the length of those fags end to end, the volume of fags, the weight in tobacco, the weight in tar, etc, etc.
It's amazing to see the stats climb (use the new() function for live updates )
Now that my smoking GF has left for the week, I'm certain I can last at least the week.
Kudos to Oldhand for doing so well.
I just want to reinforce what people have said about not ever being tempted to have just the one. There is no such thing as I learnt by having given up and then thinking that I could have the odd one here and there. It's much harder the second time around, and I had thought that doing it the first time around was one of the hardest things I had ever done. (then I started learning German whilst living in Switzerland and realised it wasn't )
Tut tut. So you stopped again yesterday, then? Cheating is cheating, so if you're fair to yourself, then you'll zero all of those statistics and start again.
=DM=
did you read the rest of the post, especially the part that said '... and sadly this morning I had to reinitialise the date to today. '