Graham Alexander - How to Quit Smoking for Life: No Gum, Patches, Relapses or Electronics

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To my amazing brother and sister, I love youboth.

Quittingsmoking is not an easy thing to do.

Theres no doubt about how difficult a taskit is. Ask any smoker that has tried to quit and they will tell youhow difficult it is. It sometimes seems impossible to quit and manypeople get into the cycle of:

Deciding to quit

Quitting

Failing

Deciding to quit

Quitting

Failing

So the cycle continues for most smokers.

But if you ask anybody whos quit, theylltell you how glad they are that they did.

This still doesnt mean its easy. Anybodywho tells you quitting is easy probably hasnt done it themselves.I should know. I started smoking when I was in the boy scouts atthe age of 12 and tried to quit from my sixteenth birthday onwards.But still I kept smoking for 20 years before I finally managed tobe smoke free permanently!

I heard somewhere once that:

Id be inclined to agree with that.

This book has been written in the sincerehope that you too will manage to go smoke free and live a fuller,longer, healthier life.

It will detail:

My smoking story

How I Quit

The two types of addiction

The power of habit

Understanding what happens when you areaddicted

The importance of attitude

The ONLY five steps you need to work tobecome and remain smoke free.

I used to quit smoking several times everyyear. Id quit on New Years Eve every year and this would lastmaybe a day or two before Id start again.

Every time Id get sick and my glands wouldswell up, my throat was so sore that I felt like Id been eatingglass but still Id smoke. Id go outside and have a cigarette evenif the very act of standing up might make me dizzy. Id stillmanage to summon the strength to light up and inhale painfully andexhale painfully regardless of how shitty the smoke made my sinusesfeel.

When I got hit by a car and hospitalized forfive weeks with broken ribs, a broken leg and spinal injuries thatdidnt stop me either. Id force myself to get up out of bed andmake the journey out the building to smoke. Even though the veryact of breathing hurt my chest and ribs, Id still spark up andinhale. I was not alone in this desperate lunacy either. Otherpatients would be doing the same thing. Some in far worse medicalconditions than me would be there puffing away, all in obviousphysical pain.

My doctor would advise me, order me not tosmoke because of the need for my ribs to heal and for rest andshallow breathing, but Id ignore him all the same.

He wasnt a smoker.

I would quit when I was hung over, only tospark up again when my stomach stopped churning.

I would smoke at almost every opportunity.Id light up when I got off the bus, out the car, on the way to theshops, in the toilet cubicle etc.

When I used to smoke it seems that I used toplan my time around when I could have a cigarette. It all feelsquite pathetic really looking back.

I would inadvertently engineer excuses to goout and get something from the shops just so that I could have asmoke. I would judge how long something would take and be thinkingwhen I could have my next cigarette. I would smoke between classes(I was a teacher). In the ten minute break I would have AT LEASTone cigarette maybe more.

When wed go out to the pub for a drink Iwould find myself stood outside in the cold and rain of an Englishwinter. Id be alone having a cigarette as my friends and familywere all inside in the warm.

Id find myself talking to people I didntknow that were outcasts just like me because they were smokers andtheir friends were not.

Id panic if I looked in my pack and therewere only two cigarettes left. Id feel my heart start to race ifthe shops were shut and I had no cigarettes left to smoke.

When I ran out of cigarettes and the shopswere shut I would make new ones out of the butts of old ones in theash tray. Id have no problems about asking a stranger if he had asmoke if I had run out and didnt have the cash to get a pack ofcigarettes. I would go through the rubbish to find old cigarettesthat I could get another couple of puffs out of.

This demeaning activity was all down to thefact that I simply had to have that hit of nicotine and the other4,000 or so chemicals that were in a cigarette.

Id light up almost as soon as I woke up,sometimes I wouldnt even get out of bed. Id have at least twentya day, more if I was drinking, meeting friends or having coffee which was almost every day!

I would prioritize tobacco over other thingsincluding conversations with my girlfriend or my relatives

Id smoke last thing before I went tobed.

Id smoke in between courses of a meal, orId actually take a break from eating, have a smoke and thencontinue eating!

I tried everything:

Arabic hookah / shisha

Chewing tobacco

Rolling my own

Cigarettes

Cigarillos

A pipe

Cigars

Snuff

You name it and Id smoke it if it was madeof tobacco. I smoked Indonesian Kretek cigarettes, cherry cigars,vanilla cigars everything.

When I set myself a quitting date or when Iagreed to quit due to pressure from a loved one, I would tellmyself that its okay, Ill just have one cigarette as a reward fornot smoking for two days or three days or however long it was thatI had quit for.

Id get nagged by parents and my girlfriendto quit smoking only for me to say `Yeah yeah Ill do itlater.

When I had publically quit smoking to stopthe nagging Id plan ways of secretly having a cigarette. Idmanufacture reasons to go out, to buy something from the shop or goround to a friends house or go get something, just so that I couldhave a smoke.

Too ashamed to admit that my willpower wasalmost non-existent, Id sneak about smoking secretly out ofwindows, or if in a restaurant Id go to the bathroom and lockmyself in a cubicle to smoke. Id think myself astoundingly cleverat covering my tracks. Id have gum or strong smelling throatsweets in my pocket and deodorant or cologne in my bag. SometimesId even take my shirt off and stand in the cubicle naked from thewaist up so as to try and avoid smelling of cigarettes. Id wash myhands and my face with soap and try hard to cover up my tracks.This charade could last for days or even weeks until I would stopmaking the effort. Id realise eventually that I was not foolinganyone with my cunning bathroom trips.

I was quite comfortable lying to mygirlfriend about this, even though I knew it would upset her.

I needed to have a smoke. Surely she wouldhave to understand that!

I would agree to quitting event though Ididnt want to because I was being pressured to. Smoking wassomething that was as much a part of me as eating was, in fact ifgiven the choice between skipping a meal or going withoutcigarettes, I wouldnt eat.

Id see commercials on TV about people dyingdue to smoking related diseases. Theyd be hooked up to all sortsof machines in hospital just so that they could breathe. At timeslike these Id feel the weight of my girlfriends or my parentseyes on me and defiantly walk off and have a cigarette, immune tothe messages.