I finally got that book so I know what it says. Basically he believes that all the physical symptoms are mostly in the smoker's head, that there is a physical addiction to the nicotine but that it's really not very strong and it leaves your system completely in three days, so that any sense of craving after that is purely psychological. He had been a three-to-five-pack a day smoker himself and after years of off and on struggle to quit one day just completely wanted to quit and did. He spends the book addressing the psychology of smoking, "why you really smoke" not why you think you do, so that by the time you've finished reading it you genuinely have no desire left to smoke and only anticipate a happy freedom. That's what makes stopping "easy," you aren't fighting yourself any more, you aren't fighting a craving because there is no craving there.
People I know who have quit cold turkey and never missed it seem to have arrived at that same frame of mind spontaneously. My brother is one. He smoked for a few years and one day just took a look at it and wondered why on earth he was doing something he really didn't like and made him feel so rotten and that was the end of it, never looked back.
My experience after twenty-seven years was similar. I had finally come to the point that I WANTED to quit without any of the residual desire for it that had made the other time I quit such a struggle. In my case it wasn't the bad experience or my health as it was for my brother, I was just sick of being the only smoker in a group of Christians, having to go outside to smoke alone, sick of the sense of slavery to it, sick of spending money on an addiction, and a whole collection of reasons of that sort. There wasn't one shred of desire to smoke left. For a few days I forcibly ejected any passing thought of smoking so fast it didn't have a chance to take root and after a week I had nothing but the great great relief of being free of it. It didn't take long before I didn't even have to eject the thought of it, it was just gone gone gone. I thought I'd struggle with missing the habitual pattern of smoking, the act of it, I didn't at all, strange but true. I thought I'd want a cigarette at the usual times, after eating, during a conversation, in a group etc., but I didn't, strange but true. Once I wanted to quit with all my willpower, then there wasn't any part of me that still wanted to smoke, there wasn't any willpower struggle of any sort at all, nothing to fight.
The book is different in some ways from what I expected, but I still think its point is to create that frame of mind in the reader so there is no desire to smoke left. You don't miss the old girlfriend at all. You KNOW she was bad for you and you're just relieved she's gone.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.