The Blog of G

Back at the start of May 2010, I stopped smoking. About a week later, on her birthday, Elly did as well. We’re both off them a year now and I’m still so amazed and proud of Elly for stopping on her birthday of all days, a great gift to give yourself sweetie

We were both surprised at how easy we found it, after all its a really hard thing to do, isn’t it? All the cravings for the drug you’re no longer giving your system, all the habit times, when you had one no matter what and in less than a week we both just stopped. No patches, no gum, no magic pill, just stopped and haven’t really thought of them since.

Having been an addict for more than 17 years and tried and failed on numerous occasions to quit, I’m so grateful to a man who wrote a book and fought a crusade against the tobacco industry and even after his death from lung cancer he is still helping people like me to stop.

That man was Allen Carr and the book he wrote was called “the easy way to stop smoking”. I listened to the audio book version and Elly read the dead tree version and we both stopped.

We weren’t able to quit but now we have stopped and that’s the secret to this. Don’t think about quitting, just stop. The book goes to great lengths to explain the difference and outline how to keep your mindset right so do read it.

Allen Carr’s easy way workshops are also an option and offer a far better success rate of 90% versus the 10% of nicotine replacement therapy (an ironic name for patches, gum, inhalers etc which actually contain nicotine and are every bit as addictive) for roughly the same cost.

Now my only question is why does our government spend so much on quit smoking campaigns and even helps with the cost of NRT yet there is no financial support if you choose to take the Allen Carr seminars or read his book. Wouldn’t it make more sense to support the method with the highest success rate?

In Ireland we spend ridiculous amounts of money every year on quit smoking campaigns that simply don’t work. That could be used to give people who want to stop a spot on an Alan Carr workshop! That’s a workshop with a 90% success rate and a money back guarantee, shame our government isn’t progressive enough to think beyond the publicity stunt that was the smoking ban and see the benefits this would have not only to the people and business of this country but also to the health service.