As the regulars here know, I quit smoking almost 20 months ago, on my first ever attempt to quit in over 30 years of smoking one to two packs a day. I quit with no planning whatsover. In fact, I had just returned from a midnight run to the store where I bought two packs of cigarettes. I took one puff of the first one, put it out because I had a scratchy throat from the flu, and I haven't taken a puff since. Although, I hadnt heard of Allen Carr until many months after I had quit, I've read his book and think he does a fantastic job blowing up smoking myths and laying out the trap of nicotine addiction. Specifically, nicotine addicts go through life feeling craves every hour or so and must smoke just to get back to to the feeling a non-smoker enjoys all the time. The problem is that smoking the next cigarette guarantees the withdrawal starts again shortly thereafter, requiring another dose of nicotine in a never-ending junky life. The irony is that, if we just stop smoking, in a few short weeks, the craving is gone permanently and we can live like normal people, never craving cigarettes again. I watched an Allen Carr DVD that really captured the feeling I had during my inititial withdrawal from nicotine. Instead of dreading the craves, I loved them. Each one made me stop and think how excited I was to be walking away from the ball n' chain of a nicotine junkie's life. I didn't hate the craves, I embraced them, drew motivation from kicking them in ass. I can't share that DVD, but I did find this YouTube video that I think captures, quite nicely, the mindset that I -- and I know many other quitters here -- used to gain their freedom. Finally understanding the whole junkie thing is the motivation that powered my quit, just like it did for this woman. Maybe it will help somebody else.
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