The more cynical people amongst us think that nicotine patches are not supposed to actually help you stop smoking, rather make you keep attempting to stop.
That way the evil corporations who produce the patches and gum (and who may also be in the tobacco industry) see an ever growing market of 'attempters' to drain money from.
It is very unlikely that you'll succeed with these things. The stats show this.
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Good luck man. I'd recommend re-reading at least the last part of Carr's book as a refresher.
Just remember, once you realise that you're not giving up anything, you won't want to smoke.
Take the addiction withdrawals head on. Enjoy them. See them as progress towards quitting. Realise that they are not painful or anything bad like that. They will stop happening sooner than you think.
I started reading Mr Carr's book and halfway through the first chapter I was bored into a coma. I thought "if just stop NOW can I stop reading this thing? PLEASE?" Worked like a charm, six years off the darts now :up:
All the best to Kev and everyone else getting off the dhurry bus :up:
For the record I tried gum & patches on separate occasions - what I found was that they made it much easier for me to re-start smoking by keeping my nicotine up and not letting me withdraw properly. Obviously it might not be like that for everyone, but everyone I know who has quit cigarettes had a similar experience. Myself and the others who quit permanently all ended up going cold turkey and dealing with the discomfort, after repeated attempts at "cutting down" with nicotine aids.
I wouldn't be surprised if some tobacco giants own significant stock in the companies that produce gum & patches
Nice work. I agree that Carr does repeat himself a bit, but I suppose that's part of his way of hammering his thoughts home.
I can't say I really enjoyed reading the book, apart from knowing it was bringing me closer to not smoking.
Still, it did the job.
Nb - The big man died of lung cancer not so long ago. The irony.
Some guys before here said that stopping smoking is best thing you can do for your health, actually best thing is not even starting smoking! I dont realise how people DON'T UNDERSTAND what smoking makes to them! Cancers, bad habit, bad smell, alot of money spent etc. I guess people just don't think on consequences.
I think it's mostly because he decided to spin out a simple one-line message to fill a book. Note that the pages are very thick, too. :rolleyes:
I've been rubbish at giving up smoking today. Lots of phone calls and an ever-growing to-do list screwed me over. One guy needs me to work the weekend too, he needs this job by Monday and I can't let him down, so I'm going to try again on Monday.
All that stuff Allen Carr says about will power not being required is bollocks. Well-intended bollocks, but bollocks nonetheless.
The will-power part is the decision to stop. Once you make the decision, it's not that hard.
I know it sounds like spin and bullshit, and I used to have exactly the same opinions on smoking as you appear to: That stopping will involve pain and anguish, and require superhuman amounts of willpower. It's not true. You just need to change the way you think.
In the last few weeks that I smoked, I deeply analysed my smoking habits. I thought about what was going through my brain while I smoked (and while I didn't). It's something that smokers don't really think about much. Smoking becomes such a subconscious thing. Smokers accept smoking as their lot and not ever take a step back and think about what they're doing and why.
I got a very good understanding of the mechanics of my addiction and the resulting habits, and that made them so much easier to break. What Carr's book did for me, is get that train of thought happening. The book is certainly not a magic pill that made me quit, but it got me thinking in a different way.
I agree with you - it does make for decent conditioning, at least for someone thoughtful enough to think about what they're doing when they smoke. Strangely, when I smoke while I'm reading his book I notice how horrible cigarettes taste. Otherwise I don't.
I know that my smoking addiction is bullshit, and I know I've got no good reason to be doing it other than to pointlessly perpetuate it. I really do honestly accept all that and it makes perfect sense, but when it comes to the crunch:
I'm sitting here with a shitload of stuff to do, I've got weird anxiety feelings in all my joints (that stuff about no noticeable physical symptoms of withdrawal is a load of shit), I've practically got tunnel vision (even my pupils are tiny), I don't feel like I can commit to actually starting on any of them because I'm not "ready", I behave like a complete loon on the phone and in public, I feel constipated after a couple of days, I'm getting very little sleep because of the weird itchy feeling in my joints - it all adds up. And that's without touching on the constant "I NEED A FAG!" thought in my mind that only goes away for periods of 20 minutes or so.
It's not a piss-easy thing to do. It just isn't. Regardless of how encouraging Mr Carr's words are or how much sense most of his book makes.
I can relate to all of these things, and this is how I overcame them.
Tunnel vision or feeling 'out of it' - While there is nicotine in your bloodstream but it isn't getting any more, your body won't feel right. This will last 3 days, and is the toughest part. I literally went to bed after my third day of not smoking and woke up on the fourth day a different person. My mind was clear and my symptoms had gone. This was the biggest revelation in my 'quitting' experience. My body and mind felt immeasurably better from then on.
Behaving like a total loon / anxiety /constantly thinking about smoking - All I can say about this is that when you understand and confront withdrawal pangs, you will realise that they are not actually painful or bad, and that they only last a few seconds. I took to tackling pangs as a game. A competition against the addiction. I actually enjoyed confronting and beating them. Your brain will eventually reject them as reflex, and they stop happening sooner than you think. I can say that I thought about nothing but smoking for the first week or so that I stopped. The key was that I didn't want to smoke any more. My mind was now so full of negative thoughts about smoking that soon, my mind moved on to other thoughts.
Constipation - I was constipated for about the first week after stopping. I had no idea that smoking affected your digestive system until I stopped. I've heard vets and biologists say that you can tell a lot about the health of an animal by looking at it's shit. Let me just say that I now realise how unhealthy I was a few months ago. My shits are now works of art that should be bottled and put on display somewhere. If constipation becomes bothersome, I would guess that there are tablets you can take.
Work I would consider my job as highly stressful and extremely busy. I manage an IT support team, and have to deal with a constant stream of urgent issues. I have people making demands of me all day every day. That's what my job is. I stopped smoking on a Monday night, and worked all the way through the first 3 days. The fact that I was busy at work made this part a lot easier. I basically realised that I didn't have time to dwell on 'not smoking' and got on with things. I found I had a lot more time to think about things at night when I wasn't at work.
Having a lot of work on is not a barrier to stopping. I'd imagine if you tried to quit on holidays (when you tend to laze around a lot more) would be harder.
Carr may not have been 100% right in saying that there are no withdrawal symptoms, but he is right in saying that this period can actually be enjoyable.
Was quitting easy? It depends on how you look at it really. I would say that it was a challenging goal that was extremely enjoyable and satisfying to achieve. And one that was not nearly as hard as I thought it would be.
If constipation becomes bothersome, I would guess that there are tablets you can take.