Thanks Joe. If I have a "wobble" then I might be in touch !
Hi David,Sorry if I'm being a bit dense here but are you saying that the cigarette helped you to produce better work?
Hi Amanda, You did exactly the right thing the last time by just knocking it on the head without dragging out the withdrawal NRT style. There are many different reactions when we stop and your three days of tears were simply because you felt you were missing out on the perceived pleasure or benefit that you thought the cigarette gave you. You discovered during your time off the smokes all the benefits of being a non smoker (which I don't have time to go into here) and that life is so much better without them. This time you know that all you are doing is stopping doing something that does nothing for you. Have fun.
Hi Kenneth, Good to know of your success. believe it or not according to the NHS and ASH only three per cent of smokers succeed in stopping without any intervention i.e. patches, counselling, etc. So, you must have amazing willpower. I would be interested to know how many you cut down to before stopping and if you would have made the jump if the other two had not.
One of the ways that I tried to cut down was by rolling my own and found myself rolling up ten or twenty rollies while watching TV the night before. LOL. Managed to kick it in the end without withdrawals or cravings from 40-a-day.
Kenneth has pretty well hit the nail on the head. One of the problems with smoking is there are people who are addicted to the nicotine, and there are people who have a habit (smoking after a meal, in a social setting etc.), and there are people who are both! Their needs and methods for quitting will be radically different. As a genetic epidemiologist working in oncology, this is a fascinating subject that I hope to study some day, but is too politically charged (big pharma + tobacco = ouch) and statistically challenging at the moment.
In the past I have tried to stop a number of times. I tried patches and as previously mentioned I ended up using the patches and also having a sly fag.!
Last year I stopped again, but this time I decided on the date and 'just stopped'. I spent 3 days crying for no reason and being grumpy and bad tempered. Once I managed to get past these 3 days it all seemed much easier. Being around other smokers didn't bother me at all, in fact it made me feel rather good, smug infact.!
Unfortunately, 6 months later,a 'so called' friend started visiting more often and I would go outside to keep her company while she smoked her cigarette and each time was offered one. "Go on nobody will know, it's only one"!! After a few weeks of this I caved in and took one. The worst mistake I could have made. Needless to say it didn't take long for me to start smoking regularly again.
I have now set myself another date, being next monday. I know I did it before for over 6 months so I know that this time I can quit forever. I think the worst time for me is when I get up. Instead of having my coffee, cigarette and watching the news I need to start moving and get busy straight away and not sit dwelling on it.!
Stopping smoking is an intensely personal crusade against an addiction on the one hand and a social habit on the other hand. I started at the tender age of 17 years old in the seventies when smoking tobacco went hand in hand with smoking other things. At that age I felt compelled to conform to what was expected by my peers and the smoking habit, long hair and flared trousers were the prerequisites for hanging out with cool people at gigs and festivals. These days social attitudes towards smoking and smokers have completely changed.
Over a period of months, I managed to cut down from 20 cigarettes per day or at least I had persuaded myself that I was smoking less. I started a new job on 12th December 1977 sharing an office with a smoker and a non smoker. By Christmas the two smokers had announced their intention to stop smoking as a New Year resolution. Three months later my colleague was having a quick smoke in the toilets which he thought nobody noticed whereas my resolve was firm – not only a matter of pride but I had also rediscovered the joys of long distance running.
I used to look forward to the second half in the morning to get a bigger "hit". EEuch!
"No withdrawals no symptoms" you hit the nail on the head Ruth Deborah. Recent researh shows that nicotine has a half life of eight hours, which means that the nicotine from the last cigarette is nearly completely flushed within the first day. So why are we told that we need three months supply of NRT? Looks like big pharma may have more influence than we know.
I used to smoke half a cigarette before going to sleep and actually got up in the morning TO SMOKE the other half. Then came that unusual morning:
I got up, went to the kitchen, took the butt of last night's ciggie from the ashtray ... stopped in midair, said (out loud):
"Comme tu est conne!"
Threw out the butt and never smoked again, nor felt like it. No withdrawal symptoms, nothing.
I still think this was rather unusual, but am very happy I could do it this way ... 17 years ago.
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We really aught to be more careful about claims about success rates. Claiming a success rate of 100% is misleading. When the NHS measures rates of success they look at one week, three months and one year (sometimes they will measure at six months). I have trawled the web to see if there was any other hypnotherapist claiming a 100% success rate and found none - no other kind of therapy claims that kind of success either. I did however, see a quote by Paul McKenna in an interview " In fact, we have a saying: anyone who says they’ve got a 100% success rate doesn’t have enough clients". The Allen Carr organisation is the biggest of it’s kind in the world claims 90% success rate based on their three month guarantee.
I stopped smoking forty years ago. I worked in an office of smokers and went from 20-a-day Marlboro to Disque Bleu … came into the office one day to find a petition on my desk signed by everyone asking me to stop smoking that French bull ‘merde’ cos they couldn’t stand the stink! So decided to stop … and reckoned that cold turkey was the way to go rather than cutting down. Never smoked again … did put on weight however as I discovered that doughnuts and biscuits are an excellent alternative to cigarettes! But it’s ultimately about willpower - you have one really rough week then it’s just easier from then on. I was surprised how much better and fitter I felt in a very short time, plus I could taste my food (sadly, mostly doughnuts and biscuits from then on …). Good luck.
Hello. So far - every person who has come to me to stop smoking has stopped smoking. Those are the facts.
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Congratulations and well done to those that have stopped. To justify your claim you can’t just ignore to my point; how long did they stop for? i.e. Did you survey at one month and six months and one year? Who verified the results; were the responders self reporting (bias) or was there a saliva test. Do you agree with your own industries quip that anyone who says they’ve got a 100% success rate doesn’t have enough clients or are you better than Paul McKenna? I wish you every success but it has to be said that the industry reported success rate is much less than 50%.
Now then Joe… seems to me you are getting unnecessarily aggressive…
let’s not turn this thread into a slanging match… or whatever… please…
And, just so everyone knows… I’m no goody two-shoes…I used to smoke as a teenager. … but gave up … just like that… when my mother caught me…
but, even now…I could very easily take the plunge…someone could tempt me with a St Moritz (my favourite) except that I swiftly came to realize how awful smokers smell… on their clothes, hair…breath… ugh…
Hi Stella, I certainly don’t want to be aggressive especially after what must be five years away from commenting on SFN. I have been involved in smoking cessation for nineteen years and my clinics saw over six thousand smokers during the nine years that I was a therapist with Allen Carr Easyway. I have always insisted on the highest professional ethics. I also qualified as a hypnotherapist (so I know what is possible) which I did not use because of the generally accepted poor success rate when compared to my other method. You may notice that I started this thread many years ago and have no intention of allowing it to turn into a slanging match and think James was right when he said “Ads under business listings only please”. If a claim of 100% success was made in advertising the claimants assertions would be subject to rigorous scrutiny and penalised if those claims were found to be untrue. If Alex does not want to respond here I invite him to continue the discussion by email. If he thinks I am being unfair then he can convince me otherwise there and I will retract all criticism here.
If you felt you should challenge his claims, it’s a pity you did not use a private message… or email
Ah well, spilt milk and all that…
The sun is shining and all is well with the world… isn’t it…
I didn’t know I could. Enjoy the sunshine. 
Hi Joe… if you click on a posters name (eg…my name that appears alongside my pic)
a tiny envelope will appear which should read “Message”… in the top RH corner… click on Message… and… away you go…
I have just snapped a photo of our neighbours… enjoying the sun…about 15 of them, all arrived to spend 15th August at the old family home…I am amazed to see the little toddlers (I used to play with)… have now grown into young men… and me… well I haven’t aged at all…