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He said, 'Allen, I will never smoke again.'
About a year later there was another phone call. 'Allen, I had a small cigar at Christmas, and now
I'm back on forty cigarettes a day.'
I said, 'Do you remember when you first phoned? You hated it so much you were going to pay me
£1,000 if you could stop for a week,'
'I remember. Haven't I been stupid?'
'Do you remember you promised me you would never smoke again?'
'I know. I'm a fool.'
It's like finding someone up to his neck in a bog and about to go under. You help pull him out. He is
grateful to you and then, six months later, dives straight back into the bog.
Ironically, when this man attended a subsequent session he said,' Can you believe it? I offered to pay
my son £1,000 if he hadn't smoked by his twenty-first birthday. I paid up. He's now twenty-two and
puffing away like a chimney. I can't believe he could be so stupid.'
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I said, 'I don't see how you can call him stupid. At least he avoided the trap for twenty-two years,
and he doesn't know the misery he's in for. You knew it as well as anyone and survived only a year.'
If re-reading EASYWAY doesn't help, read ONLY WAY or contact your nearest EASYWAY
clinic. Smokers who find it easy to stop and start again pose a special problem. However, when you get
free PLEASE, PLEASE, DON'T MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE. Smokers believe that such
people start again because they are still hooked and are missing the cigarette. In fact, they find
stopping so easy that they lose their fear of smoking. They think. 'I can have an odd cigarette. Even
if
1 do get hooked again, I'll find it easy to stop again.'
I'm afraid it just doesn't work that way. It's easy to stop smoking, but It's impossible to try to
control the addiction. The one thing that is essential to becoming a non-smoker is not to smoke.
The other category of smokers that causes me frustration is those who are just too frightened to make
the attempt to stop or, when they do, find it a great struggle. The main difficulties appear to be the
following.
1 Fear of failure. There is no disgrace in failure, but not to try is plain stupidity. Look at it this way
- you're hiding from nothing. The worst thing that can happen is that you fail, in which case you
are no worse off than you are now. Just think how wonderful it would be to succeed. If you don't
make the attempt, you have already guaranteed failure.
2 Fear of panic and of being miserable. Don't worry about it. Just think: what awful thing could
happen to you if you never smoked another cigarette? Absolutely none. Terrible things will
happen if you do. In any case, the panic is caused by cigarettes and will soon be gone. The
greatest gain is to be rid of that fear. Do you really believe that smokers are prepared to have
their arms and legs removed for the pleasure they get from smoking? If you find yourself feeling
panicky, deep breathing will help. If you are with other people and they are getting you down,
go away from them. Escape to the garage or an empty office or wherever.
If you feel like crying, don't be ashamed. Crying is nature's way of relieving tension. No one has
ever had a good cry without feeling better afterwards. One of the awful things we do to young boys
is to teach them not to cry. You see them trying to fight the tears back, but watch the jaw grinding
away. As Britons, we teach ourselves to keep a stiff upper lip, not to show any emotions. We
are meant to show emotions, not to try to bottle them up inside us. Scream or shout or have a
tantrum. Kick a cardboard box or filing cabinet. Regard your struggle as a boxing match that
you cannot lose.
No one can stop time. Every moment that passes that little monster inside you is dying. Enjoy
your inevitable victory.
3 Not following the instructions. Incredibly, some smokers say to me, 'Your method just didn't work
for me.' They then describe how they ignored not only one instruction but practically all of
them, (For clarification I will summarize these in the check list at the end of the chapter.)
4 Misunderstanding instructions. The chief problems appear to be these.
.
(a) 'I can't stop thinking about smoking.' Of course you can't, and if you try, you will create a phobia
and be miserable. It's like trying to get to sleep at night; the more you try, the harder it becomes, 1
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think about smoking 90 per cent of my life. It's what you are thinking that's important. If you are
thinking, 'Oh, I'd love a cigarette,' or 'When will I be free?' you'll be miserable. If you are thinking,
'YIPPEE! I am free!' you'll be happy.
(b) 'When will the little physical monster die?' The nicotine leaves your body very rapidly. But it is
impossible to tell when your body will cease to suffer from the slight physical sensation of nicotine
withdrawal. That empty, insecure feeling is identical to normal hunger, depression or stress. All
the cigarette does is to increase the level of it. This is why smokers who stop by using the
Willpower Method are never quite sure whether they've kicked it. Even after the body has ceased to
suffer from nicotine withdrawal, if they suffer normal hunger or stress, their brain is still saying,
'That means you want a cigarette.' The point is you don't have to wait for the nicotine craving to go; it is
so slight that we don't even know it's there. We know it only as feeling 'I want a cigarette.' When you
leave the dentist after the final session, do you wait for your jaw to stop aching? Of course you don't.
You get on with your life. Even though your jaw's still aching, you are elated.
(c) Waiting for the moment of revelation. If you wait for it, you are just causing another phobia, i once
stopped for three weeks on the Willpower Method. I met an old school friend and ex-smoker. He
said, 'How are you getting on?'
I said, 'I've survived three weeks.'
He said, 'What do you mean, you've survived three weeks?'
I said, 'I've gone three weeks without a cigarette.'
He said, 'What are you going to do? Survive the rest of your life? What are you waiting for? You've
done it. You're a non-smoker.'
I thought. 'He's absolutely right. What am I waiting for?' Unfortunately, because I didn't fully
understand the nature of the trap at that time, I was soon back in it, but the point was noted. You
become a non-smoker when you extinguish your last cigarette. The important thing is to be a happy
non-smoker from the start.
(d)'I am still craving cigarettes.' Then you are being very stupid. How can you claim, 'I want to be a
non-smoker,' and then say, 'I want a cigarette'? That's a contradiction. If you say, 'I want a
cigarette,' you are saying, 'I want to be a smoker.' Non-smokers don't want to smoke cigarettes. You
already know what you really want to be, so stop punishing yourself.
(f) 'I've opted out of life.' Why? All you have to do is stop choking yourself. You don't have to stop
living. Look, it's as simply as this. For the next few days you'll have a slight trauma in your life. Your
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