Allen Carr giving up smoking

Daily Life, Swiss News and General Topics
41
And the point of giving up alcohol is...

42
I've given up smoking lots of times. Nothing to it. Stupidly I start again the next day. I have tried hypnosis, patches, accupuncture, inhalators, chewing gum etc. etc. I started smoking when I was 12 and celebrated my 30th anniversary of smoking last year. I smoked throughout my pregnancy and I am one of those people who run to get off the plane to have a ciggy. I worked in a hospice nursing people with cancer - not necessarily caused by smoking I should add. Sometimes I think I would like to stop but don't have the will power to do it. I would like to live to see our daughter grow up. Looks like I'm going to be buying Mr Carr's bible.

43
I celebrated 2 years in August - I've just had my first trip back to the Uk since the smoking ban and it was heaven! typical that the ban came into effect after I left, i always maintained I'd have given up easier if i couldn't smoke in the pub, instead I stopped going out for the first 6 months when i gave up to ease temptation.

The downside of being an ex smoker is that I am now one of those awful irritating smug anti smoker types...

Oldhand - how are you doing with the quitting?

44
Do it ! And read it not once, not twice, but three times through. Smoke your way through it, while you read it. Don't attempt to stop before completing the book.

By the time you've finished I assure you, you will have had enough of them!

Oh - and don't wait 'til the 1st Jan - go ahead right now.

45
Pancreatitis, for example?

46
Almost one year now...

Gotta be honest though...there were situations where I smoked one or two, especially at carneval and on two especially shitfaced nights out. But all in all I'd say I've got it under control. Can only recommend that book to anyone who wants to give up...I did it and I didn't even plan to do it when I got the book

47
Well said Crumbs, I've had pancreatitis and is is not pleasant. People shouldn't need to justify their reasons for giving something up. Nobody would ask a crack addict why they were interested in quitting.

I am going to get the Alan Carr book. I won't wait until new year, I don't believe in new years resolutions.

48
I can't believe you felt it necessary to even write that!!

Whatever your reasons for giving up Fraser,I take my hat off to you,good on you and hope it all still goes well with you.

Ros

49
I can't find the book in english, can anyone help?

thanks

50
Amazon has it

51
What am I, Google?

Orell Füssli

52
So oldhand are you still smoke free?

53
Nope need to try again.

54
Thanks for being honest goodluck with trying again.

55

Hi Sutter - did you buy the book? I have a copy of EasyWay in English somewhere at home and a copy of the follow up / sequel "Only way to stop smoking permanently" which I'm currently re-reading (between smokin' tabs like) You're welcome to have the books from me.

I did manage to stop smoking (I mean stop, not "give up") for over a year and then started seeing a girlfriend that smokes - we ended together and smoking still. I know it sounds daft but I will be stopping again on 8th August when we go to the UK on holiday - I don't smoke in front of my children and I'll be with them almost 24hrs a day in the UK so I hope I can stop.

Cheers

56
I never thought a book could have such a powerful psychological effect on someone, but it certainly did for me.

I quit cold turkey a few years ago, but kept on relapsing for a month or so. Then I read the Carr book and it was like the nail in the coffin of my addiction. The key in all of it is that I wanted to quit and had been trying already. I know people who have read it and said that it didn't work for them, but it was obvious they never wanted to quit in the first place. It's a bit naive to think the book is going to do all the work for you.

57
Hi All

It's now been 4 years and 3 months since I was a smoker. It took me 3 years of on and off trying to quit before I managed it, and I became a bit of a bloater, putting on about 7 kg, but the thing that did it for me was 2 serious chest infections in 1 year, each accompanied by a chest X-ray. I also had a chest X-ray with my malaria about 18 months before. Each time I was absolutely bricking it and sweating bullets in the waiting room, wondering what I would do if the doc came in and said: "Mr Farrington, we need to discuss what we found in your X-ray..." There really is nothing like that kind of fear to motivate you. Perhaps in the UK they should specify that if you want to smoke and continue to use the NHS, you should have an annual chest X-ray as part of the deal. I suspect that would give much better results than the banning of cigarrettes in pubs etc. Has anyone noticed that pubs now smell very strongly of beer farts? At least the ciggies used to mask this.

On a practical point I started running three times a week before I quit. I was hopeless, my legs were very short (and still are), but at least the pain and effort took away the stress for a while. After a while I just went cold turkey. I stayed off alcohol too for 6 months, and yes everyone thought I'd started playing for the other side. In the UK it's easier to admit that you're wearing your wife's knickers than to ask for a non-alcoholic drink when someone's buying. Really stupid.

Cheers

Jim

58
Haha what you've just said about in England people think you've gone weired if you want to look after yourself really struck a chord with me.

Growing up I was constantly told "not to get above me station" and "why do you always have to be bloody different" Also I found if you worked a bit harder and didn't speak dialect to a foreigner you were a "snob"

Naturally I'm only talking about my own miniscule society.

59
I was on 40 a day and stopped when I lit up at work one day and noticed that the 4 slots in the ashtray were already take by other ciggies I had on the go.

Cold turkey pure - was actually quite easy, the only difficult part was not buying and remembering that I didn't need to go about hoarding 5 DM pieces (cig. machine at every corner in Germany).

Took me about 4 years before I could actually taste tobacco in second-hand smoke and around that time I used to wake up at night dreaming that I had smoked.

1993 I gave up, still have the last packet (Rothmans - bit of a bummer because they were just coming into mainstream sales in south Germany at that time)

Added advantage at the time was that I was getting mobbed at work - giving as good as I was getting mind you - and the look on the guys face when he realised that I was actually going to stick this through was priceless - because it was also the moment that he realised that he wasn't going to beat me.

60
I'm with you there. One of the saddest things about the UK is that being thick, a bloater and incredibly unhealthy is nothing to be ashamed of at all. If you manage to be all three at once whilst being incredibly colloquial with horizons about an inch wide, this will make you a legend in your own pub.

But I digress....

Cheers

Jim