OMNINOGGIN

I would like to admit to the public that I was a smoker for 2 long years. As a blogger & coder, I was very vulnerable because I often hit writer’s/coder’s block. Now that I am an experienced ex-smoker, I would like to tell the world that smoking is not a choice or a habit. It’s an addiction. Nobody smokes their first cigarette thinking that they will continue to smoke for the rest of their life. I remember smoking my first cigarette because I wanted to be cool in front of some people. I thought that there was no way one cigarette would get me addicted. I then thought that two would not get me addicted. Then three, four, five… slowly but surely, I became a 5 sticks per day smoker. The nicotine trap is so subtle that if you are not always carefully paying attention to it, then you would continue to burn your life away.

I started my attempts at quitting after 1 year of smoking. I spent another year attempting to quit by repeatedly trying the popular quitting methods (counseling, nicotine substitution, cold turkey, shock therapy), but none of them worked. After 2 or 3 weeks, my cravings would take hold of me and I was forced to go back to square one.

After I thought all hope was lost, a friend of mine (Peter) recommended Allan Carr’s book, “The Easy Way to Stop Smoking“. He said that the book takes a whole different approach to quitting. The author gives simple instructions on how to quit AND one of the instructions is: continue to smoke until you finish reading the book! I was not ready to believe that a book can help me quit, but I bought the book anyway because $15 is chump change compared to how much the other methods (except for cold turkey) cost.

I stopped smoking just a little before I finished reading the book. To date, I have had no dire craving since my quit date. I even drank with a bunch of smokers a couple of times and did not feel the urge to light one up. Even after going through the quitting process and looking back, I still do not know how it works. It just does! I would recommend this book to anybody that is serious about quitting. It’s the best $15 I have ever spent in my life.

Here is some more information on Fox News.

Also, free quit smoking advice by Allan Carr.