Quit Smoking_4371

Five years ago when I was 27, I found out how to quit smoking successfully. I had no cravings, no weight gain and no mood swings. I used no substitutes, socialized just as much as I ever had before and had no problem hanging out with my smoking friends.
It was one of the easiest things I have ever done. Five years later I am still happily smoke free and never for the slightest instant do I EVER have the smallest craving.
I had tried to quit smoking many times before during my almost thirteen years of slavery. I thought I knew how to quit smoking, I just thought that I couldn't do it. I thought that I must be weak willed, or perhaps it was just that I 'enjoyed' smoking so much that I couldn't envision life as a non-smoker.
Before any attempt to quit smoking I always made lists of all the reasons I shouldn't smoke: It was killing me, it made me cough, I was more susceptible to colds and flu and they tended to last longer, I had no energy for exercise, it was eating up far too large a slice of cash, it stank. On the other side, I would weigh up the benefits of giving up smoking: I would have more energy, more money; I would exercise, smell nicer and live longer.
For my first attempt to quit smoking I was 19 years old. I had already been smoking for five years and I was going at it quite heavily. I had a very stressful job and had my own office so I could smoke freely. Many times my first pack was empty by lunchtime and I already had a nasty nicotine headache.
After investigating the various help available to smokers, I decided on the patch. After a month I caved in and went back to smoking. My month long attempt to quit smoking had left me poorer than before, as my course of patches cost a heap more than the cigarettes.
For the next 7 years I made a few attempts to quit smoking. Some lasted a few days, some a few weeks; one attempt lasted as long as eighteen months, but all were doomed to failure.
So many times as I smoked myself sick I thought: why am I doing this? Why? Why don't I stop, once and for all?
I tried to cut down on many occasions. When I worked in a non-smoking office, I didn't smoke until I left in the evenings. I thought this must mean I was in control; maybe I didn't NEED to quit smoking. Maybe I could just be one of those 'happy smokers' who smoke five cigarettes a day and never overdo it! As seems to be the case with most smokers, this happened sometimes and didn't happen other times. A few days of five ciggies a day would be followed by a weekend of two packs a day.
So how did I go from being unable to quit smoking, to happily smoke free instantly? I read Allen Carr's book "The Easy Way to Stop Smoking." In this book Allen Carr, who previously maintained a 100 fag a day habit, dispels all your illusions about why you smoke, and in the process reveals one of the biggest and most horrific confidence tricks in history.
Once you've seen through it, why would you continue to fall for it?
Smokers do not smoke for the reasons they shouldn't. I didn't smoke because I wanted lung cancer, or low energy, or bad breath. I smoked because I believed I was getting something out of it. I thought it was giving me some measure of genuine enjoyment or pleasure.
I used all the excuses that are common from every smoker, 'I choose to smoke, I enjoy it!' 'I could quit if I wanted to, but the problem is that I don't WANT to', 'I just love the feeling of the smoke going into my lungs' or 'I think it's the hand to mouth thing, if I'm not smoking I don't know what to do with my hands!' or 'It relaxes me.' There are many more.
There is only one reason people smoke: nicotine addiction. Remove the nicotine and you remove the addiction. Nicotine is the most addictive drug on the planet. As Carr points out, we wouldn't say to a cocaine addict, you must enjoy sniffing so much that it has become a habit, why don't you inject it instead? Then you can focus on breaking the 'habit' of sniffing it.
As ludicrous as this is, this is exactly what Nicotine Replacement Therapy, in the form of patches, inhalers and gums aims to do! The entire notion of NRT is bizarre as Nicotine is not being replaced, it is being administered and there is no therapy!
All NRT serves to accomplish is to keep the smoker hooked on the very thing he is trying to come off! This results in enormous profits for the pharmaceutical companies.
The way smoking traps us is that from the moment we extinguish the cigarette the nicotine levels in the blood start to drop.
Around two hours later they will have dropped to the level that starts to send signals to the brain that more is required. The smoker feels a slightly empty, insecure feeling, almost indistinguishable from hunger, that only translates to them as 'I need or want a cigarette'.
When they take that first drag, the nicotine levels are restored and they get that 'AH' feeling, which they then interpret as pleasure. However, again in Carr terms, this is no more pleasurable than wearing a tight pair of shoes all day so that you can experience the pleasure of taking them off.
Nicotine CREATES the void; there was no void before. As the body builds up immunity, the void becomes harder and harder to fill, which is why you gradually require more and more.
As a smoker you are constantly walking a tight rope between too little nicotine: feeling empty and insecure, and too much: getting a nicotine headache, sore throat, nicotine hangover, etc. The smoker spends his life trying to feel the same way that A NON-SMOKER FEELS ALL THE TIME!
So if its just nicotine addiction then why on earth do people go back to smoking after six months, a year, five years, even ten years of being smoke free? Why did it happen to me after eighteen months?
Because I still believed that it was something pleasurable that I had GIVEN UP! I believed that stopping smoking had involved some genuine sacrifice. If I was around other smokers I envied them, never realizing how much they envied me!
As long as you believe you are being deprived of something that was a true pleasure, you have to use will power to stop yourself from doing it. Will power is finite. It eventually runs out.
Once the brainwashing becomes clear and you truly understand that there is no sacrifice; there is nothing TO give up, you are free.
The moment I extinguished that last cigarette I was free. I went out with a smoking friend the next day. I didn't envy her that cigarette in the slightest. She couldn't believe it. She kept asking me if I wanted a drag, I couldn't imagine why I had EVER wanted a drag. And it's been that way ever since.
I had a pack of herbal cigarettes once. I honestly could not GIVE these things away. All those stories about how its all about the smoke going into the lungs, or the hand to mouth motion, or the habit, kind of blew out of the water there.
Of course the excuse was that the herbal cigarettes didn't taste nice. I guess that's because ordinary cigarettes are so delicious. Funny then how when we smoke one brand of cigarettes and it runs out, we seem to have no problem smoking a friend's brand that we dislike. So I guess taste isn't really that important. I like the taste of watermelon, but I don't need to go out in the middle of the night to a late night garage in search of watermelon.
The problem with smoking is that it seems only Allen Carr and those who have read his books or attended his clinics actually understand the smoking trap. Both smokers and non-smokers have no understanding of it whatsoever, which is why well-meaning non-smokers propagate the same myths that keep the smokers hooked.
Of course non-smokers imagine that there must be something in it, smokers MUST be getting some genuine pleasure or crutch from it. Why else would they do it?
Whether you are a smoker or a non-smoker I implore you to read Carr's last book "The Nicotine Conspiracy".
It is absolutely gripping. Carr discusses 23 years of trying to get his message out to as many people as possible, and the enormous amount of obstacles the 'Big 3' - Government, the established medical profession, and the media have placed in his path. This is because his quit smoking method is so easy it requires no will power and most importantly NO MEDICATION! This makes him a mortal enemy of big business.
I can vouch for his method to quit smoking wholeheartedly. As can several people close to me who also quit smoking very easily and successfully after years of addiction using Easyway. There are millions upon millions worldwide who have quit smoking successfully using this method. It does not require any will power. This is not a false claim. As Carr points out, it doesn't take willpower to cross the street.
The most frustrating thing I have come up against with people close to me, is the refusal to even read the book! They are actually scared that if they read the book, that will mean they HAVE to quit smoking. Well no one can make you do anything. But I can promise you that when you do read it, you will kick yourself seven ways to Sunday for being such a blind idiot. And even if you don't do it for your own sake, do it for those you love. If you don't understand the nicotine trap, how will you prevent your children from falling into it?
So go on, it's free, read the book. And if you're a smoker, read both books, or get the DVD's, CD's or attend a clinic, whatever. My sister attended a clinic and she highly recommends it. The clinics only take a day and you can smoke freely while you listen, argue and rail against what's being said to you; but at the end of it, you'll put out your last cigarette and rejoice.
Come over to the land of the free, it's wonderful here.
The first-second combination allows for easy maneuvering and nice "zippy" moves on the streets. If you're expecting the slouched-over,ED Hardy Earrings, "lone,Jordan 9, unloved and apathetic biker" riding position that many cruisers offer, you're going to be disappointed. The best position on this bike is a standard straight up and down, nearly cop-like. It's comfortable, gives you tons of visibility - you're eye-to-eye with drivers in all but the tallest SUVs. Friends that see me on the road say that I look better on this bike than the others that I've ridden - time to have a chat with the wife and see if she likes white or black.The controls have a nice "retro" look, but they are most definitely modern. Italian bike owners will be familiar with this layout. The clutch is butter smooth, allows for a lot of feathering and never gives a hint of any wooden or binary grabbiness. The instruments all have a slightly retro character, and this is also attractive, down to the speedometer that reads about 10% optimistic.
Looks like Guzzi had some left over parts from my old one, as they read almost identically. Brakes took a little getting used to. I'm more of a "front braker" person, so I usually apply the fronts and then ease the back brake in for a settling effect. Turns out that the Guzzi Linked brakes work well for this, although I adjusted my technique slightly to just use the front brake lever to peel off speed, and the rear lever to get down to business. For those of you unfamiliar,Wholesale Paneral watch, the linked brakes on equipped Moto Guzzi bikes operate the left front disc in conjunction with the rear disc. The front brake lever operates only the front right Brembo.The combination is both effective and safe. Hard to high-side a bike with linked brakes when used correctly,Supra shoes low, since you can modulate the speed of both wheels with the rear lever.