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sacrifice. It is fine if all smokers genuinely want to stop at one particular time. However, you
cannot force smokers to stop, and although all smokers secretly want to, until they are ready to do
so a pact just creates additional pressure, which increases their desire to smoke. This turns
them into secret smokers, which further increases the feeling
of dependency,
2 The 'Rotten apple' theory, or dependency on each other. Under the Willpower Method of
stopping, the smoker is undergoing a period of penance during which he waits for the urge to
smoke to go. If he gives in, there is a sense of failure. Under the Willpower Method one of the
participants is bound to give in sooner or later. The other participants now have the excuse they
have been waiting for. It's not their fault. They would have held out. It is just that Fred has let
them down. The truth is that most of them have already been cheating.
3 'Sharing the credit' is the reverse of the 'Rotten apple' theory. Here the loss of face due to failure
is not so bad when shared. There is a marvelous sense of achievement in stopping smoking.
When you are doing it alone the acclaim you receive from your friends, relatives and colleagues can
be a tremendous boost to help you over the first few days. When everybody is doing it at the same
time the credit has to be shared and the boost is consequently reduced.
Another classic example of false incentives is the bribe (e.g. the parent offering the teenager a sum of
money to abstain or the bet, 'I will give you £100 if I fail'). There was once an example in a TV
programme. A policeman trying to give up smoking put a £20 note in his cigarette packet. He had a
pact with himself. He could smoke again, but he had to set light first to the £20 note. This stopped
him for a few days, but eventually he burnt the note.
Stop kidding yourself. If the £50,000 that the average smoker spends in his life won't stop him, or
the one-in-two risk of horrendous diseases, or the lifetime of bad breath, mental and physical torture
and slavery or being despised by most of the population and despising yourself, a few phoney
incentives will not make the slightest bit of difference. They will only make the sacrifice appear worse.
Keep looking at the other side of the tug of war.
What is smoking doing for me? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
Why do I need to do it? YOU DON'T! YOU ARE ONLY PUN ISHING YOURSELF.
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32 The Easy Way to Stop
This chapter contains instructions about the easy way to stop smoking. Providing you follow the
instructions, you will find that stopping ranges from relatively easy to enjoyable! But remember the
definition of a brunette: 'a girl who didn't read the instructions on the bottle'. It is ridiculously easy
to stop smoking. All you have to do is two things.
1 Make the decision that you are never going to smoke again.
2 Don't rnope about it. Rejoice.
You are probably asking, 'Why the need for the rest of the book? Why couldn't you have said that in
the first place?' The answer is that you would at some time have moped about it, and consequently,
sooner or later, you would have changed your decision. You have probably already-done it many times
before.
As I have already said, the whole business of smoking is a subtle, sinister trap. The main problem
of stopping isn't the chemical addiction but the brainwashing, and it was necessary first to explode
the myths and delusions. Understand your enemy. Know his tactics, and you will easily defeat him.
I've spent most of my life trying to stop smoking and I've suffered weeks of black depression.
When I finally stopped I went from a hundred a day to zero without one bad moment. It was enjoyable
even during the withdrawal period, and I have never had the slightest pang since. On the
contrary, it is the most wonderful thing that has happened in my life.
I couldn't understand why it had been so easy and it took me a long time to find out the reason. It
was this. I knew for certain that I was never going to smoke again. During previous attempts, no
matter how determined I was, I was basically trying to stop smoking, hoping that if I could survive
long enough without a cigarette, the urge would eventually go. Of course it didn't go because I was
waiting for something to happen, and the more I moped about it, the more I wanted a cigarette, so
the craving never went.
My final attempt was different. Like all smokers nowadays, I had been giving the problem serious
thought. Up to then, whenever I failed, I had consoled myself with the thought that it would be easier
next time. It had never occurred to me that I would have to go on smoking the rest of my life. This
latter thought filled me with horror and started me thinking very deeply about the subject.
Instead of lighting up cigarettes subconsciously, I began to analyze my feelings as I was smoking
them. This confirmed what I already knew, I wasn't enjoying them, and they were filthy and
disgusting,
I started looking at non-smokers. Until then 1 had always regarded non-smokers as wishy-washy,
unsociable, finicky people. However, when I examined them they appeared, if anything, stronger and
more relaxed. They appeared to he able to cope with the stresses and strains of life, and they seemed
to enjoy social functions more than the smokers. They certainly had more sparkle and zest than
smokers.
I started talking to ex-smokers. Up to this point I had regarded ex-smokers as people who had
been forced to give up smoking for health and money reasons and who were always secretly longing for
a cigarette. A few did say,' You get the odd pangs, but they are so few and far between they aren't worth
bothering about.' But most said, 'Miss it? You must be joking. I have never felt better in my life.'
85
Talking to ex-smokers exploded another myth that 1 had always had in my mind. I had thought that
there was an inherent weakness in me. and it suddenly dawned on me that all smokers go through
this private nightmare. Basically I said to myself, 'Millions of people are stopping now and leading
perfectly happy lives. 1 didn't need to do it before I started, and I can remember having to work hard
to get used to the filthy things. So why do I need to do it now?' In any event I didn't enjoy smoking, I
hated the whole filthy ritual and I didn't want to spend the rest of my life being the slave of this
disgusting weed.
I then said to myself:  Allen, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT. YOU HAVE SMOKED
YOUR LAST CIGARETTE,'
I knew, right from that point, that I would never smoke again. I wasn't expecting it to be easy; in
fact, just the reverse. I fully believed that I was in for months of black depression and that I would
spend the rest of my life having the occasional pang. Instead it has been absolute bliss right from the
start.
It took me a long time to work out why it had been so easy and why this time I hadn't suffered those [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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