HOW TO STOP SMOKING

I started smoking at the age of 14. I guess it was more acceptable back then. We even had a smoking area in the high school. Smoking was allowed publicly, pretty much everywhere; banks, restaurants, offices, airports, heck even on airplanes, to name a few!

I live in Massachusetts and the smoking bans went into place in 2004. From there, smoking started becoming more and more sociallably unacceptable. Even stepping outside a restaurant to have a smoke sometimes made you feel like a misfit!

Smoking is an addiction and a VERY powerful one. If you have never smoked, you would not be able to relate. I think from the time I was twenty one, I tried at least once a year to quit using one method or another. Never successfully for a long period of time. My friends and family would say I was an avid smoker. I smoked a pack to a pack and half of cigarettes per day.

• Some of the methods I tried (some more than once);
• hypnotism
• nicorette gum
• nicorette patch
• cold turkey
• Generic for Chantix

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Fast forward to 2010. I was out with my husband and ran into some old friends unexpectedly. They didn’t live far from where we were, so they drove home to get me a book they read to quit smoking. I accepted the book and thanked them; thinking to myself that it was a long shot! A very long shot! I vowed I wouldn’t read the book until I was in the right frame of mind to quit (which was never, in my mind). We were going on vacation in the beginning of March, so I set a date for the end of March.

I think I started reading the book on March 26, 2010 and even copied a few pages and handed them to my husband and my brother (who by the way both fell on the floor laughing when I told them I was quitting smoking by reading a book)! This book totally changed the way I thought about quitting. My usual thoughts were always of dread that I would never be able to smoke again. The book changed the dread into excitement!

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I deliberately set the date for finishing reading the book and quitting smoking to a Monday. That way I could get through the weekend and start fresh on a work day. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a walk in the park. I would re-read certain excerpts from the book to get through. My mind set was different this time. I counted the days and then the weeks and then the months; and heck, I finally got to counting the years! Now, I have it marked on my calendar because in my head, I have stopped counting! Cigarettes no longer control my thoughts. I have my life back!

Congratulations to all that have conquered this addiction! To those of you who are still trying GOOD LUCK! Try this book, “The Easy Way To Stop Smoking” by Allen Carr, it is relatively inexpensive compared to other nicorette aides that “just feed the nicotine monster”!

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