how to quit smoking ebook

8/14/2019 How to Quit Smoking eBook

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Mark Whalen


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Published by

Copyright1997 by Mark Whalen

All rights reservedincluding the right of reproduction

in whole or in part in any form.

First PresMark Edition 1997

PresMark and the colophon are

trademarks of PresMark Publishing Co.

Printed in the United States of America

Book jacket design by Mark Whalen

Editorial proofing by Don Brennecke (Thanks, Don!)

ISBN 0-9679047-1-4

The slanderous reference to the heads of tobacco companies

is absolutely intentional and stated so as to invite civil suit.

In the words of Duke Nukem, Come get some!

The Original Complaint in the lawsuit of the heirs of

David McLean, the Marlboro Man reprinted from public record.


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How to Quit Smoking Without Willpower or Struggle

iii

Dedicated to:

My wife, Sharon.

Thanks for quitting smoking.

My sister, Claudia.

You show me unconditional love(and quit smoking.).

My daughter, Michelle

Youve become a real woman.

I hope you can use this!

My grandson, Preston.

My partner in business, my friend in life.

I hope you never need this!

And to the memory of my father and mother,

Bernard C. Yunck, 1922-1979

Sorry you quit too late!

Rest in Peace, ol man.

Dorothy E. Baranska, 1924-1967

And please let him, mom.


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Prologue

I will not bore you with all the reasons that smoking cigarettes, or using

tobacco in any form, is a self-destructive, suicidal behavior. The simple fact

that you are reading this means that you already know this and are either

hooked and now know you must to release yourself from the deadly grip, or

you have a loved one who needs this information. Either way, you must

know by now that roughly eight times as many Americans die from tobacco

related disease each and every year as did in all America's eleven years in-

volvement in Viet Nam combined; twenty times the number of deaths

caused by drunken drivers each year; and about twenty-five times the num-

ber of American deaths by AIDS. (343,000 total deaths by AIDS as of

7/1/96 vs. approx. 8,000,000 deaths by tobacco during the same time period.

The deaths by tobacco do not count deaths by tobacco related fires, norheart, blood, and lung disease deaths exacerbated by tobacco use, but not

attributed to it on the death certificates.)

But knowing this has not caused more than a minor movement away from

use of the deadly plant by the general public at large. In fact, many thou-

sands of American children are, as this is being written, smoking their first

cigarette, the first of perhaps hundreds of thousands to come over their

shortened lifetimes.

This book does not dwell upon the evils of smoking, nor how to stop the

general promotion and legal sale of the most lethal drug (far more deadlythan heroin or cocaine) in the world. What it focuses upon is the way out,

the way to disassociate oneself from the need for, and attraction to, tobacco.

In fact, the method for behavior modification found here is not exclusive to

tobacco, but can be used for the cessation of virtually any habit or addiction

in any form. The problem is not in the substance, but in the "habit" of using

it. For without the habit, the addiction, tobacco has no power of its own. It is

as harmless and insignificant as any simple garden variety weed. It is the

internal subconscious perception we hold about the drug that makes it so

dangerous. What is illustrated herein is a method by which one may changethat perception permanently, without "fighting the urge" or going "cold tur-

key".

Smoking is a habit. Habits are created by repetitious behavior, and are

built, assembled if you will, over a period of time. If we were computers,

and I strongly believe that we are indeed the most sophisticated computers

conceivable, then our habits would be called our "programs". Removing a


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program from a computer is a simple mechanical process. Removing a habit

from a human being is not nearly as simple, but is still a mechanical process.

Each requires a course of steps which, taken one at a time in sequence, with

care and commitment, will achieve the desired result. But when I say com-

mitment, I do not mean commitment to resistance to the habit, nor any fa-natical ordeal wherein you are required to perform any dynamic or difficult

behaviors. Actually, the process is not nearly as arduous as installing the

habit (learning to smoke). When one learns to smoke, one must overcome

the bodys natural resistance to breathing a toxic substance, with only the

ardent desire to overcome the bodys own safeguards to keep the process

going. However, reversing the habit, although perhaps a bit more complex,

moves one towardthe body and its needs, not away from it. Therefore end-

ing the habit will feel more natural and is actually easier, and far less pain-

ful, than starting it.

So the first place to start is with the simple, direct question: Do you truly

wantto quit smoking? The next question must be: Are you ready to begin to

do it now? If the answers to both these questions is yes, then read on, and

just do what the book tells you to do. It will work. I know because I used

this method to release myself from sixteen years of addiction to tobacco,

and no longer have any desire for cigarettes. I tried willpower three times

before designing this system. Each time lasted from only days to about a

week. Each time I discovered that I could not break the habit simply by

denying it. By just telling myself no, when my body and mind were craving,

was ridiculous. Even when I succeeded in not doing the behavior, it was stilloccupying a good deal of my conscious thoughts. I found myself short-

tempered, biting my nails, and was quasi-hungry all the time. But once I re-

alized that I must workwith my body and brain, not againstthem, I knew I

was moving in the right direction.

If you desire to end your enslavement to a product you no longer wish to

purchase, use, or allow to diminish the quality of your life, then use this lit-

tle book as the key to your doorway out. The method does work. It will

work for anyone who sincerely wants to use it. All that is needed is your at-

tention. Although I have stated that you can quit without willpower, youmust, of course, be prepared to do the simple behaviors of the process,

which do not include resisting smoking. In fact, you are encouraged to

smoke each and every time you want to. This system is not designed to get

you to stop smoking, but to stop wanting to. Once you no longer have any

desire to smoke, you will never feel the need to learn the habit again. Be-

ing around others who are smoking will not cause you to crave a cigarette.


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Also, you wont be able to just pick up a cigarette and return to the old

habit. There will be no residual habit left in you. You will be as if you never

were a smoker unless, of course, you have already done permanent damage.

But even then, permanent scars tend to shrink and fade over time. Eventu-

ally your full breathing capacity and your natural ability to fully taste foodwill return. You will not have an unnatural craving for food, nor any other

substitute. You will find that you sleep better, and awake much easier,

needing far less time in bed to achieve the rest you need. Your teeth will be

cleaner, and your breath and body will smell much better, needing less de-

odorant. Once you have stopped ingesting small, steady doses of the six-

teen(!) toxic (literally poisonous, deadly,) chemicals found in the smoke of

cigarettes up toseveral hundred times a day, (each puff being a dose), you

will find the general quality of your lifegreatly improved!

And for me, the sense of pride and accomplishment was tremendous. My

self-respect grew immeasurably once I was certain I had defeated the evil

weed once and for all time. I did it, and you can too. Just take the simple

steps found here, and your result will be the same as mine. I dont smoke,

and I have no desire to. I simply feel sorry for those who dont want to use

tobacco, but still feel compelled to anyway.


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Chapter 1How Much?

The first step toward dismantling your habit, for thats exactly what weregoing to do, is to get a good look at it. Always, when someone asks me for

help to stop smoking, the first thing I do is ask them how much they smoke.

The answer almost invariably is, Oh, a pack to a pack and a half a day.

This is a typical encapsulated description of a habit. A pack is a unit of one.

(A habit is a series of integrated, interdependent behaviors, performed in se-

quence, thought of as a unit of one, such as driving or golfing. Both

these habitual behaviors require dozens of individual behaviors.) So this

person is telling me that they smoke about one to one and a half units a day,

knowing that I will understand that they are talking about twenty to thirty

cigarettes a day. But what they dont consciously get is that I am under-

standing that they are smoking about ten hits per cigarette, and so therefore

to my mind, they are telling me that they are smoking two to three hundred

times a day. Each and every time you place a cigarette between your lips

and draw smoke into your lungs, that is an individual act of smoking.

This first step in the process is a simple one, and will tell you immediately

if you are lying to yourself about whether or not you are truly ready to stop

smoking now. If you are willing to just look at your habit, then you are

likely ready to first alter, then discard it. But you must know precisely what

it is you are directing your subconscious to do. The details are important.Step One is to count your cigarettes. The way this first step is performed is

this. Get a short pencil, no longer than one of your cigarettes. Also get a

business card with a clean back. Any piece of paper will do, but it should be

at least as stiff as a regular business card, and slightly smaller than the size

of the pack. Then, when you first open your next pack and remove that first

cigarette, place a mark on the back of the card, next to a letter representing

the day of the week. Then slide the card between the plastic and the pack,

and put the pencil into the spot where the cigarette was. Then, each time

you have another cigarette, take the card out, pencil a mark on it, and justput it back. At the end of a full seven day week, you will know exactly what

your habit has been, and is likely to be in the future, if you dont do some-

thing about it now!

However, simply putting this much attention on the habit can tend to make

it shrink all by itself. Historically, Ive noticed that many of those pack a

day smokers start their week smoking fifteen to twenty-five a day. But by


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the end of the week, that seems in many cases to drop off to six to ten. They

report that theyre still smoking all they want, but they started dropping off

the few extras that theyd rather pass on than count. Amazing. I dont say

this will definitely happen to you, and if it doesnt, that has no bearing upon

how long the process will be. First, it will take as long as it takes,period!There is no timetable upon this work. A time-table puts pressure on you, and

this is not a pressure-type process.

Second, it will not be difficult. The only seriously hard part of quitting

smoking is resisting the urge to have a cigarette. You will never be required

to do this. You will be able to smoke each and every time you are certain

you want to. In fact, you are encouraged to smoke each cigarette you want.

It is counter-productive to the method to resist the habit. This shall be a

gentle, organic process of letting go. Not a violent overthrow.

So begin Week One by counting your habit, and finding out just how

many cigarettes you are smoking. It is said that the wise man knows well his

enemy. This is an enemy we are going to kill with kindness. But that first

step is to know him.

Dont bother to read on now, until you can answer this question precisely:

Exactly how many cigarettes did you smoke in the last seven days? And do

not just remember when you bought the last carton and subtract what you

have left. That would be an estimate. You need an exact figure.

Also, the counting does more for your brain than just giving you the num-

ber. This first step must not be short-cutted! You must, for this process to

work well, count each one separately as they are smoked and record them.Then move on to Chapter Two.


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NOTE: If it is too much of a struggle to get yourself to

count how many cigarettes you smoke for seven days in

a row, please dont bother to read on.

IF YOU CANT EVEN TAKE A CLOSE LOOK AT

YOUR HABIT, YOURE NOT TRULY READY TO

QUIT IT YET.

But please pass this book on to someone else who may

need it and be better able to use it.

Be sure to get it back when you really are ready!


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?


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Chapter 2Why?

Now that you know just how much you smoke, you need to know why yousmoke. Im certain you have vague memories of starting, probably in your

teens, and who your friends and role models were back then. But the entire

details of why you smoke are far more complex than just a casual decision,

made by a post- (or even pre-) pubescent, that just happened to stick.

There are two categories that I believe contain all the reasons one would

begin to smoke. One category is General Reasons, and the items there apply

to generally all smokers. The second is Personal Reasons. These details are

particular to your habit, and although the overall reasons will be found in

the General category, just how they apply to you we shall call Personal.

When you think about it seriously and objectively, you must come to the

conclusion that no one in their right mind would ever pick up a leaf of to-

bacco, wrap it in paper, put a match to the end, and draw the smoke into

their lungs as many as two, three, four hundred times a day without some

other pressures, reasons, outcomes being sought. The resultant feeling of

that act cannot stand alone as the sole reason for smoking. If there was in-

deed any real pleasure from smoking, you would have felt it the very first

time. You would have gotten a sense of well-being and satisfaction once

that first cigarette was finished. But what do you remember feeling? You

felt like coughing, probably did a lot, right away. You felt a pain in yourthroat, especially right at the back. And after you inhaled the first few puffs,

you began to feel nauseous and dizzy, didnt you? DIDNT YOU? Sure you

did. It was not a pleasant experience, strictly physically speaking. But there

was something there for you, or you wouldnt have tried it. The cigarette

was a means to an end. Smoking was a painful thing you had to go through

to get to where you wanted to go, or at least thought you wanted to.

In the General Reasons category, we find that television was, before the

ads were banned from the media, one of the greatest influences on us baby

boomers. We saw all of our heroes posing with them, smoking them, evenadvertising them in commercials. John Wayne foolishly hawked Camels to

two decades of his fellow Americans, only to pay the ultimate price that the

Camel charges to ride him. I know it is today somewhat of a humiliating ex-

perience to admit that a lot of why I smoked for sixteen years was because

the television told me to. But it is unfortunately true. Is it true for you too?


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Second, and often even more powerful, was peer pressure. You had

friends who were smoking, and the cigarettes seem to make them seem

older, more in control of their lives. More like your parents. Cigarettes

seemed to be a right of passage in the fifties and sixties. I still frequently see

that famous poster pose of James Dean, holding that cigarette. You and yourfriends likely wanted to be that type, or his girlfriend. You smoked because

that was the price of adulthood, or as near to it as you could get at the time.

Bottom line, just about everybody was doing it.

One other horrible general reason for starting smoking, but still valid, is

that smoking is fun. Fun with fire. Fun watching the smoke rise. Hearing the

crackle of burning tobacco as you draw in the smoke. Choosing your brand.

Identifying with someone else with whom you share that choice of brand.

Are you a Marlboro Man? Have you come a long way, baby? Ever use the

Thinking Mans Filter? For someone in their formative years, buying and

using a product powerful enough, if mismanaged, to burn down the house,

the neighborhood, an entire forest; powerful enough to kill a person if they

used it too much, is fun.

Your own Personal Reasons you will have to determine for yourself. I can,

however, give you a guide and some questions to ask yourself, which will

help you to remember, or learn for the first time, why you personally de-

cided to begin to smoke, and why you still do.

In my case, the deciding factor was a boy named Dennis. Actually,

Dennis mother, and the way she handled Dennis smoking. Dennis was

nearly two years older than me (than all of us ninth graders in our little cir-cle of about five). But Denny had lost a year of school during a bout with

polio. So at fifteen, he was the oldest, strongest, and most aggressive of us,

and therefore the leader of our pack. Dennis smoked. He smoked in front of

his mother. His mother even bought him his cigarettes. Once I heard her say

that if she didnt buy them for him, hed just steal hers, or worse, someone

elses. And of course she was right. She had no control over Dennis. He

was, in that relationship, in full control. Dennys mother was an attractive,

intelligent woman. To me she always seemed kind and sweet. Her only ma-

jor apparent flaw was that she let her fifteen year old son completely controlhis own life and much of hers as well. Because of this he was the hero of us

neighborhood boys. He got away with everything. He did what he wanted,

whenever he wanted. He went wherever he wanted whenever he wanted. I

believe that the only reason he kept going to school and kept some social

consciousness was so that hed still have us, his friends, to run with, to

bully, and to admire him. And admire him we did. When Denny started


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smoking, we all started smoking. When Denny started smoking in front of

his mother, we all started smoking in front of his mother. (There are many

other vices that he led all of us into back then, but the smoking is all I care

to speak of here.)

But smoking in front of our own parents was something quite different. Idesperately envied Dennys control over his mother, and I suspected that

when he started smoking in front of her, they both knew that hed crossed a

threshold. I believe it signaled to both of them that he was no longer her lit-

tle Denny, but a young man. I wanted so badly to cross that threshold with

my own mother, and smoking seemed the best way available. But in order

to do that, I first had to learn how to smoke, so that when I pulled out that

first cigarette in front of her and began, there would be no hesitation, no

turning back She would see that I was not only going to smoke, but had al-

ready mastered it. So one evening when I knew no one would be home for

some time, I got out a cigarette, a Marlboro, and lit it. About half way

through it, as I began to get nauseous and dizzy, I began to have second

thoughts. Then I asked myself the critical question. Did I really want to be

a smoker? Did I really want to do this? I hesitated...but the answer came.

Yes, I did. In that instant, with that simple, direct, positive answer to my

own question, I became a smoker.

In almost every case where Ive helped others end their smoking habit,

theyve had a similar story, a similar cigarette, and almost invariably, the

exact same question and answer. In that instant I, they, you, became a

smoker, whether or not you were smoking. Whether or not you had your lastcigarette a few minutes before, or several years before. As long as that pro-

gram is running inside you, you are, and will continue to be, a smoker.

Why? Because you decided to be. That decision must to be remade with the

same commitment and passion that you originally made it. That question

must be asked again, but with a different answer. In fact, it must be asked

with even more commitment and passion, because you have reinforced that

mistaken decision for how many years? How many packs? How many ciga-

rettes? How many drags?Hundreds of thousands? Each and every one bol-

stered that seriously poor decision made so long ago!Another Personal Reason might be that you were not breast fed. By an in-

formal survey I took over a period of over two decades, Ive discovered that

most smokers were not breast fed, and most nonsmokers were. This was not

a hard and fast statistic, but was apparently valid more than 80% of the time.

Do you know if you were breast fed? If you dont, can you ask your mother,

or someone else who might know? It is important only in that when it comes


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time to ask yourself critical questions before you light up your cigarette, you

will need to know whether asking yourself if it is really a cigarette or a nip-

ple you are craving should be one of those questions.

Diet control is one of the more effective, albeit self-destructive, personal

reasons to smoke. There is no doubt that smoking a cigarette will quell anappetite to some degree. This is not, of course, the reason that when you re-

sist smoking, you begin to crave something with which you will have to

deal, if you use this process properly. Never, I repeat, NEVER resist the

temptation to smoke by putting food into your mouth instead. Not if you

want this system to work. Whenever you want a cigarette, get one and

smoke it. This method will lead you to a state of mind wherein you will

simply lose the desire to smoke, and the craving for it will come less and

less frequently, until it eventually goes away. You can smoke all you want.

But ultimately you will become like me; you just wont want to.Ever!

So whatever your personal reason to begin was, whomever was your

greatest influence upon you to start, before you light up your next butt, ask

yourself these questions.

1. At what exact point in time did I decide to become a smoker?2. Who did I want to be like, and why?3. Do I still want to be a smoker?4. Do I still want to be like my influential person?5. Am I using cigarettes to stop myself from eating?6. Am I just looking for something to do with my hands?7. Am I just looking for security and pacification (mothers nipple)?Then, go ahead and light up. Realize what you are doing, how much you

are doing it, and why you started doing it. As simple as this seems, knowing

this information will take you a giant step toward yourlast cigarette. And

after that cigarette, you will never want to smoke another one again. Hard to

believe, isnt it? Hard to remember a time when you didnt want to smoke,

didnt even think about it. You can get back there, and you will, if you just

do what this little book says to do. And, again, smoke all you want, all youreally want, while youre getting there.


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Most regular smokers in theMost regular smokers in theMost regular smokers in theMost regular smokers in theUnited States, about 8 out ofUnited States, about 8 out ofUnited States, about 8 out ofUnited States, about 8 out of

10, begin to smoke when they10, begin to smoke when they10, begin to smoke when they10, begin to smoke when they

are younger than 18in otherare younger than 18in otherare younger than 18in otherare younger than 18in otherwords, when they are children.words, when they are children.words, when they are children.words, when they are children.


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Chapter 3Wouldnt You Rather Switch Than Fight?

When I said that you can quit smoking without struggle or willpower, of

course I did not mean that it will happen without any energy or effort on

your part. Your willingness to exert effort was tested in Chapter One, when

you counted your habit for a week. If you didnt count, but are just reading

on anyway, go ahead and read. But dont expect that anything as simple as

just reading a little book like this without using the information as in-

structed will have any formidable effect upon an ingrained habit that you are

perpetually reinforcing as often as several hundred times a day. Aint gonna

happen. No, it will take some effort on your part. Not the kind of effort toquit cold turkey, or anything like it. But moderate effort and time will be re-

quired for this to work.

Your next step, now that you know how much you have been smoking, is

to ask yourself what brand of cigarettes you dislike smoking most. Camels

unfiltered? Newport menthols? Virginia Slims? Whatever they may be,

make them the next pack you buy. What? you ask. Buy cigarettes I hate?

Yes. And while were talking about it, dont you hate them all? Buying a

pack you know you hate doesnt take any willpower. Certainly not of the

type it takes, with a habit like yours, not to smoke at all. It simply takes the

decision to quit and the commitment to use this method to do it. Since

youve already demonstrated to yourself, (or you wouldnt need this infor-

mation) that you cannot or will not quit all at once, then you must quit little

by little. And that first little is quitting your favorite brand. Certainly

thats going to take a lot of that little bit of pleasure you think you are

getting from smoking away from you. Thats the whole idea. Once all the

pleasure, conscious and subconscious, are gone, you will no longer have

any desire at all to smoke. That is where were headed. If you want that,

then just do what this book says. If you dont, then close this book right here

and now, and light up a smoke. This is not being written for you. I am writ-ing for those who are saying to themselves right now, Yeah, I guess it

really is time, maybe even way past! This book can and will give you a

step by step, easy as pie way out. All you have to do is use it.

So the next time you belly up to the counter, or pull that lever on the ma-

chine, start disrupting your habit by buying a brand you DO NOT LIKE!


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This will bring to your conscious mind something your body has been

trying to tell you since day one. You really dont like doing this, and want to

stop. Wont it be easier to quit a brand you already hate? Of course, a funny

thing will happen after the first few packs. You may start to enjoy that brand. Or, at the very least, get used to it. Crazy, isnt it? But yes, your

body will attempt to accommodate you, and assume you want it to convert

your habit to this brand. So it will. Then the first time you realize that youre

getting used to that brand, choose another one you dislike. And neverbuy a

carton all at once again. One pack at a time.But I can save money, you say. I

must ask, whats more important to save? The few dollars, or your life? And

when youre getting ready to buy that pack, make certain that you are down

to your last few in the old pack. Dont buy ahead. Unless, of course, youll

be where you cant get any more when you need them. I always want you to

have a cigarette there when you want one. Then calculate, by using the in-

formation you got about your habit from counting, to estimate just how

many packs youll need, and buy no more than that.

Now that youve decided to change brands, start watching for ad-

vertisements in newspapers, magazines, and billboards for cigarettes. Espe-

cially watch for two particular ones; the one promoting your old brand, and

the one for the crap you are now smoking. Each of these ads are designed to

appeal to a certain demographic. Once you dissect them a bit, its fairly easy

to tell to whom they are marketing each brand. Marlboro obviously is being

sold to cowboys. Well, there arent that many cowboys around these days,but the cowboy influence is in all of our countrys blue collar workers. The

entire construction and factory working labor force are, by and large, the

modern day cowboys, who perhaps identify with that lonesome stranger on

that horse. (In fact, that lonesome stranger, the original Marlboro Man,

died of lung cancer in 1995. His heirs are now suing the tobacco company.

See the reference section at the end of this book to understand just how he,

and you, have been lied to, manipulated, and physically destroyed by them.)

And Virginia Slims? How about slim virgins, (or those who want to be,

but are neither)? Think I am stretching here? No way. What do you want tobet that more Republicans smoke Winstons than do Democrats? Why? Be-

cause Winstons taste good, like a cigarette should! And we all know that

Republicans want everything to be the way it should. So look for your

two little ads. Did you fit well into the demographic of your old brand? Do

you feel wrong for your new one, because the ads for the new brand are


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talking to someone else? Obviously, if youre a construction worker, and

youve decided to switch to Virginia Slims, then you will not only not fit

into the demographic, but will likely take some heavy flak from your lunch

bucket buddies.If you want to end your cigarette nightmare and you are committed to us-

ing this method, which will be the easiest you will find, then you can and

willchange brands...as many times as you have to.

But dont forget to bring along that little pencil and business card for the

week. Were still counting. You need to continue to count this way until you

can count the cigarettes youve smoked in a week on one hand. Youll be

surprised. It wont take that long.

Now go ahead and light up (if you arent smoking already.) I know you

want one, and of course, with this method, you can smoke all you want. But

enjoy the last few in this pack of your brand. Then switch! If you have a

whole carton, or part of a carton, give them away, sell them, or (Oh, no! Not

that, never!) throw them away!

Once you have begun to follow these instructions, you will realize that you

are indeed in the process of ending your tobacco habit. Tell yourself so,

clearly and out loud with commitment and passion, I am ending my smok-

ing habit. This may sound silly, and perhaps it is, but tell it directly to the

cigarette in your hand. Tell it to the pack. Tell it to your loved ones and

friends. Tell it to yourself often.It is the truth. Let it be and make it so.

Cigarettes are more addicCigarettes are more addicCigarettes are more addicCigarettes are more addictivetivetivetive

than heroin or cocaine.than heroin or cocaine.than heroin or cocaine.than heroin or cocaine.


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Chapter 4The Mantra

For those of you who dont know what a mantra is, the Tenth Edition ofWebsters Collegiate Dictionary states: ...mystical formula of invocation or

incantation.... In the sixties and early seventies, the term mantra became

popular being the name for an East Indian technique for bringing a person

from one state of mind into another, simply by repeating a phrase to oneself.

Today I believe the popular term is an affirmation. I call it a mini-self-

hypnotic. What its called doesnt matter. What matters is that you have one,

and use it.

Mine, as I developed this process, became this: Each and every cigarette I

smoke brings me closerand closerto that very last one. And after that last

one, I will never want to smoke again. I repeated this out loud with almost

each cigarette I smoked, often several times, and directly to the cigarette in

my hand. Further, when I bought the packs, I would say it to myself out

loud, substituting the word pack for cigarette.

You may choose to use this mantra, or make up your own. It doesnt mat-

ter, as long as you have one, and that it makes a statement referring to the

ultimate end of your habit. The importance of this is so that you are con-

stantly reminded that you are in a conscious state of change, and heading in

a new direction. Your body always responds to your thoughts, words, and

actions. But it does so slowly and methodically. You must keep reminding itthat change is taking place. You must state your goal and reinforce it. You

must constantly remind it that you are in control, and are making the deci-

sions. You built your habit, now you are dismantling it. When you started

smoking, Im certain you said to yourself often, Hey, Im a smoker now.

When someone offered you a cigarette, you probably hesitated just slightly

for your brain to change tracks from, Im not a smoker, to yes, Im a smoker

now, before you accepted the offer. Now its time to reverse that affirma-

tion. This will take a little conscious effort, but the whole process is just

that, small degrees of conscious effort resulting in the total termination ofyour desire to ever smoke again.

By the way, my mantra was completed at 10:00 p.m. on Sunday, January

2, 1979, in a beer bar in Reseda, California. I got through three drags from a

Winstons cigarette, my last old brand of choice, and started to cough. My

throat hurt, and I started to get dizzy and nauseous. It had been perhaps a

week or more since Id tried to smoke. I looked at the cigarette in my hand,


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then at my image in the bar mirror. Then I said to the cigarette, There you

are, you little bastard! You are the last cigarette I will ever want to smoke.

I put it out, and I have never smoked a whole cigarette again.

However, not long ago, when I was pretty soused on beer and all my bar-

pool buddies were puffing away while playing the game, something Iddone exactly the same way as they were for over a decade so long ago, I

picked a lit one up from an ashtray and took a hit, just out of drunken curi-

osity. It had been seventeen years since that last one. I took just one hit, in-

haled it, and the room started spinning immediately. My speech started to

slur and I began to lose my balance. Right then I realized that most of the

coordination Id always thought, back in my youth, that I was losing be-

cause of drinking, I was actually losing because of the intake of poison from

the pack or more of cigarettes Id smoked when out drinking. Then I real-

ized why now, when I lay down after drinking, the room doesnt spin any-

more. I realized why it is now so much easier to get up and go to work after

a night of drinking. (Still not easy, but much easier!) It is because it wasnt

actually all that alcohol that was messing me up so badly. It was from the

poisons in the cigarettes!

Other changes I noticed were the smell of my breath, armpits, and feet.

Even my underwear doesnt smell like it did in the old days. Now that the

toxins are no longer oozing out of my skin through my sweat glands, I am a

much cleaner person. I need far less sleep, and I find that my moods are far

more stable. My teeth are even whiter.

But perhaps the biggest lift I got from losing that habit is my self-respect. Ihave heard, been told, and read that cigarettes are more addictive than her-

oin or cocaine. Whether or not this is true, I cant say. But I can say that I

walked away from a big one. Slowly and carefully, but away. I did it this

way, andyou can too. If you really, truly want to.


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Lung cancer is the leading cause ofLung cancer is the leading cause ofLung cancer is the leading cause ofLung cancer is the leading cause of

cancer deaths in the United States, withcancer deaths in the United States, withcancer deaths in the United States, withcancer deaths in the United States, withabout 170,000 new cases being diaabout 170,000 new cases being diaabout 170,000 new cases being diaabout 170,000 new cases being diagggg----

nosed each year.nosed each year.nosed each year.nosed each year.

A renowned team of researchA renowned team of researchA renowned team of researchA renowned team of researchers hasers hasers hasers has

found a direct and undisputed sciefound a direct and undisputed sciefound a direct and undisputed sciefound a direct and undisputed sciennnn----tific link between cigarette smoktific link between cigarette smoktific link between cigarette smoktific link between cigarette smoking anding anding anding and

termtermtermtermiiiinal lung cancer!nal lung cancer!nal lung cancer!nal lung cancer!


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Chapter 5The Pose

What originally attracted me most to smoking was the look. It lookedcool. James Dean, John Wayne, Liz Taylor, Clark Gable, Tracy and Hep-

burn, Bogart and Becall, they all looked so cool, mature, and sophisticatedwhen they smoked. I suppose that the look of literally breathing fire was ex-

citing on some purely primal level also. When my little friend Dennis theMenace started blowing smoke rings and then taking a long drag, letting the

smoke curl out of his mouth and inhaling it through his nose as it came was--well, I just hadto be able to do that. I actually do remember sitting at one of

our little teen parties in my motorcycle jacket and Brylcreemed ducktailhaircut, (remember the song? Brylcreem, a little dabll do ya. Brylcreem,

you look so debonair!) looking just like an extra from the movie Greaseand doing the inhale through the nose trick. All well and good for pubescent

imaging, and the rights of passage, but I was killing myself to look cool! Is

that crazy or what? But you know whats even crazier? You likely have

some stories like mine about people, places, and reasons. But they have longbeen just history. Those people, those days, those motives are long gone and

all but forgotten. But you arestillkilling yourself!How do you look when you smoke? You probably do it so naturally by

now that you dont even notice how you look. Its part of you. Its just what

you do so many times a day, without thinking any more than, Think Illhave a smoke. Once its lit, you dont think about it again until its time toput it out. Your mind races with other things like what youve just been do-

ing, or what you plan to do next. But as you drag deeply on the small papertube between your fingers, and suck real poison, toxic chemicals, death, into

your body, where it permeates every facet of your entire cardio-vascular

system, doing damage everywhere it reaches, your mind is off thinkingabout other far more trivial matters. Youre simply not paying attention.

So this step in the process is called posing. For the next week, duringevery cigarette you smoke, and then as frequently as you can get yourself to

do it, really pay attention to how you look while you smoke. How do youhold it? In the classic way, between your index and middle finger, between

the second and third knuckles? Do you crook your elbow and keep the ciga-

rette close to your mouth between drags, or do you let your arm hang, and

act as though it almost wasnt even really there? Do you sometimes hold itin the corner of your mouth, and talk around it?


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Now, when youve noticed how you are doing it, look around yourself andsee if anyone is noticing how youre smoking. Then, start trying out some

poses. Hold the thing differently. Hold it in your other hand. Hold it between

your thumb and index finger, like you might a roach. Hold it away from

your body, as though you didnt want the smell of it to get into your clothes(sorry...too late). Hold it like there is a big wind coming up, and you dont

want to let the butt go out. Just play with your style of smoking cigarettes.Now start looking at other peoples style of smoking. Do they seem aware

of what theyre doing? Do they seem like theyre getting any joy, real pleas-

ure, or satisfaction from it? Are you any more (or less) attracted to them be-cause they are smoking? Or maybe how theyre smoking? Or because of thebrand theyre smoking? Me neither.

The goal of this facet of the process is to heighten your awareness of thisone aspect of your smoking that you no longer need, or even pay attention

to, but that is still part of the habit you have. A small part of why youstarted to smoke was probably because of the way you looked when you did

it. Having read this thus far means to me that you are likely an adult whossmoked enough to know theres nothing of what those huge billboards

showing beautiful, happy people promising youll have and be and get, ifyoull just commit suicide this one little way a few hundred times a day.

Now you no longer need to satisfy your image, do you? You can let thatpart go by becoming hyper-aware of how you look while you are smoking.

The more attention you pay to this aspect of the habit, the more you will

likely become uncomfortable. You see, as you begin to look for that mostnatural pose for yourself by paying attention, you will find that there is no

way to lookcoolwhile you are committing suicide. The very best you canhope for is do it in the least conspicuous place, because you see, in the nine-

ties no mature person will ever look up to you and admire you by seeing

how coolyou are smoking. But there are a growing number of us who see

you doing it and simply feel sad for you. Do you really wantto have strang-ers feeling sorry for you, just based upon this one little behavior of yours?

This one minor character defect? Hey, if youre with a whole party of smok-ers, you can all light up and pretend that its not even a defect. That its still

the cool thingto be doing. Or is it time to grow up!?!


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Each yearEach yearEach yearEach year400,000400,000400,000400,000deaths indeaths indeaths indeaths in

the United States are attrithe United States are attrithe United States are attrithe United States are attribbbb----

uted to cigarette smoking.uted to cigarette smoking.uted to cigarette smoking.uted to cigarette smoking.


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Chapter 6Face the Enemy

Hopefully, by the time you read this chapter, youll have messed aroundwith The Pose a bit, and decided that the best way to appear to otherswhen you smoke is not to be seen at all. I mean avoid letting anyone see yousmoke when at all possible. Smoke alone. Just you and your habit. Gosomewhere quiet outside and light up that awful brand you bought and holdthe cigarette out in front of your eyes and say your mantra. If you like mine,use it. But you have to believe it, whatever it is. So I encourage you to come

up with one that will serve the same purpose as mine, but in your own words.And then use it. Say it directly to the cigarette, as if it can hearyou. Speakto the tobacco company people through it. Pretend they have a little micro-phone bug inside there, listening. Tell them what youre thinking. Tell themyou want to stop. Tell them to let you go. Tell them you are now in the proc-ess of stopping, whether they like it or not. Make it clearto yourself that thecigarette (or cigar or pipe or chew or whatever form) you are using is notwelcome, and that you are rejecting it. Put as much passion and power intoyour words and feelings as you can muster. If you are alone, who cares how

you sound? Only one person...you do.But beyond the critical you, who may be saying, What a fool I sound

like doing this, there is another ear deep inside of you, listening. That earbelongs to the part of your body and brain thats running the habit. It is slowand lumbering and seems hard of hearing because its doing as youve pro-grammed it over and over to do. But it is listening. When your oral rejectionsreach its ear with thepassion, intensity, and commitment that did your origi-nal commands to begin the habit had, it will start listening very well. Youcant just thinkit and get the same quality of results. Saying it out loud puts

the message into your brain and body in a physical way through auditorybrain channels that simple silent thought cannot.We always tend to pay more attention to what we hear out loud than to

what we only think, even if it is we who are saying it to ourselves. Althoughthere are those who think that talking out loud to oneself in an indication of


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being crazy, I believe in this case it is one of the tools you must use to stopbeing crazy.

So come face to face with your enemy. Hold it in your fingers and reallylookat it. Talk to it. Smoke it all you want. Burn it up. Keep thinking about itevery second that its in your hand. It is the enemy. It is here to kill you. It

will kill you slowly and painfully. Along the way, it will diminish the qual-

ity of your life by bits and pieces. It will shorten your breath, color yourteeth, dull your senses, deaden your taste buds, make it much harder to wakeup each morning, alienate your non-smoker friends, and poison your immunesystem. And it will keep taking your valuable, hard earned money everyday while it does all this. What, seven or eight hundred bucks a year?

Now that you know how much you smoke, calculate how much a year youhave been paying for that privilege. What if you had put all your cigarettemoney into a jar, starting on any January 1st in your smoking history. Howmuch better could you have made that next Christmas for yourself and aloved one with that money? (Just not smoking is all by itself a gift, if yourloved one is a non-smoker.)

When you smoke, as I have said so many times in this little book already,you are committing suicide. This is perhaps the most personal act one cancommit. Be certain to make it personal. No longer be casual about it. Itsyour life were talking about here. Its quality and length will grow or dimin-

ish in direct proportion to what you do right now,today.


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Chapter 7Other Reasons

Although you may believe your habit is a mandatory pack a day, more or

less, and by mandatory I mean your addiction to nicotine and the rest of the

chemical content, it is not. Mostof your habit is behavioral. That is to say

that it has nothing to do with chemical addiction. Thats right. Your nicotine

habit, I have found in even the heaviest smokers, is only about four ciga-

rettes a day, if smoked thoroughly. Four. One mid-morning, one mid-day,

one early evening, and one more before bed will give your nicotine habit all

the drug it needs. The rest of the cigarettes you smoke are largely simply be-

havior habit. That means you smoke them for a variety of other reasonshaving nothing to do with the cigarette. Here is a partial list of some of

those reasons.

BECAUSE:

1. It gives yousomething to do with your hands.2. It gives you a reason to take a breakfrom whatever you are doing.3. Youvejust finishedsomething (i.e. Sex, food, a task).4. Someone offeredit to you.5. This is the time when most people do it.6. It helps you think.7. Youve just seen an adfor them.8. Youre hungry.9. You feel momentarily insecure andsubconsciouslycrave mothers nip-

ple (terminal thumb sucking).

Recognize any of them? Any more that you can think of? Lets go over

these, one by one.

First: It gives you something to do with your hands. This is a bigone.Perhaps half your habit is this. You pick one out of the pack and stick it into

your mouthjust to have something to do. And every time youve done that

behavior, you have reinforced the habit that says, whenever my hands have

nothing to do, and I am at some sort of pause in my life, I should reach for a

cigarette. You have trained yourselffor this response to occasional physi-


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cal inaction. You usually dont even think past where are my smokes? But

let me ask you this. When you find yourself in that same position, would

you ever considertaking out a small sharp knife and start cutting on your-

self? Maybe nick a vein in your wrist and letting out a little blood? Orwalking over to a wall and start beating your head against it? Not real hard,

but five, seven, twelve good little bangs to the brain box? How about pull-

ing out a little canister of cyanide gas and taking a few whiffs? Of course

not. But honestly, any of those behaviors are no less foolish or self-

destructive than the smoke youre pulling into your lungs, just to pass the

time and keep your hands busy. Think about that. You have trained yourself

to have your hands and mouth start killing yourself at each and every op-

portunity that theyre not busy doing something else. Crazy? Of course!Am

I wrong? You know Im not.

Reason Two. It gives you a reason to take a break... This one has been

programmed into your brain since you were born. You have always heard of

the smoke break. It has always been a long time ritual among adults.

Whether or not you remember it, somewhere in your childhood you thought

to yourself that you wanted to be more adult, and therefore need smoke

breaks yourself, which in a crazy but logical way, supported your maturity.

Just look at all the people you see standing around the steps of an office

building at 10:00 a.m. these days, puffing away during their morning break,

usually with a cup of coffee in the other hand. This is a tough one for those

who work in environments wherein they cant smoke until their breaks, be-cause it coincides with the real chemical need for the nicotine. So the need

for a cigarette gives you a reason to break, and the breakgives you a rea-

son and the opportunity to smoke. The most harmful part of this is that those

of you who are taking that smoke break usually are taking it together, and

socializing while doing it. The insidious thing about this seemingly pleasant

social contact is that it emphatically reinforces and socializes the smoking.

If everyone is doing it, can it be that bad? Absolutely!

Heres a brutal (and perhaps tasteless) analogy. The Jews marched into

those showers and their painful, horrible deaths in Hitlers death camps inpartbecause they believed that a shower would be beneficial and good for

them. But in another part, because everyone else like them was doing it.

Have you ever smelled ammonia gas? Sure you have. It is strong and repug-

nant. I must believe that on their way into those showers, many of those

poor victims smelled the Cyclon B, which Im told smells like ammonia,


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questioned it briefly to themselves, and denied the meaning. After all, eve-

ryone else around them was walking right in. If everyone is doing it, can it

be so wrong? You know that answer as well as they did the second those

showerheads started spitting the poison.Now, think about this again. About 400,000 Americans a year die from the

use of tobacco. Thats four million a decade. Hitler was accused of killing

six million Jews. He is considered to be perhaps one of the worst, certainly

the most publicized, villain in modern history. R.J. Reynolds, Philip Morris,

the American, Lorillard, Brown & Williamson, Liggett & Myers and the rest

of the tobacco Companies have killed over twice that number in America

alone. Its been five decades since WW2. Even discounting the number of

tobacco related deaths by half as of 1946, and escalating the number on a

direct line until 1996, we still come up with about fifteen million tobacco

related premature deaths. The figures worldwide are not known, but I be-

lieve, having been to Southeast Asia and having seen how much harder to-

bacco is pushed on those people, and how many more per capita seem to be

smoking cigarettes (all American brands), that tobacco and those who sell it

have killed perhaps ten times more people than the Nazis. But right now,

today, they pay lobbyists and politicians millions of dollars to prevent Con-

gress from making any new laws to stop tobacco companies from continu-

ing to do so.1 If you saw any of the recent Congressional hearings on the

tobacco industry, you may have seen the heads of all the tobacco manufac-

turers swear, under oath to God, that they honestly believe that nicotine isnot an addictive substance.2 Since you are reading this, you are most likely

a smokerwhoknows what a lie this is. They are lying to Congress, to God

(in whom they obviously do not believe), and to you, while they are artifi-

cially injecting supplemental doses of nicotine into cigarettes, beyond what

is naturally found in tobacco. Why would they do that? These are the people

you are supporting with your money, at the cost of your health, so that they

can reap financial rewards you and I can only imagine.3

Next reason. Youve just finished something. So here, the cigarette is

sort of a reward. Its a bit like the ad for beer, And now, its Miller time.Except your body and brain are reading, And now, itsKILLER time.


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Does it make any sense at all to finish a project youre pleased with, or an

experience youve enjoyed greatly (sex?), and then immediately reward

yourself with a little death? Oh, that was great, dear. Im panting so hardthat my lungs are wide open, and my blood is pounding through my heart at

over a hundred beats a second. Guess its time to suck in a little poison.

Want some?

Reason Number Four. This ones really silly, and yet a biggie. Someone

offers you a cigarette, soyou take it and smoke it. Especially if its your own

favorite brand. And if it is not your brand, you usually say, No thanks. Ive

got some, and pull out a cigarette of your own. Then you smoke one that

you may not have smoked, had not that other cigarette been offered. Theres

a small variety of reasons for accepting an offered cigarette that have noth-

ing to do with smoking. First is that it is considered impolite to refuse a gift.

To turn down an offer from a friend is, or seems so, a rejection of that

friendship. Almost always, when a cigarette is offered, it is not only the gift

of the cigarette, but an offer to smoke together. That person is almost always

lighting up one for themselves when they make the offer. This leads to an

attached reason; camaraderie. If you turn them down, you seem to be saying,

No, I dont want to smoke with you, even though you know I like to

smoke. Therefore, I dont like you. By taking out a cigarette of your own,

you change this message by seeming to say, Ill save you the gift by refus-

ing it, and smoke with you anyway, which is what you really wanted, wasntit?

Another reason you will smoke an offered cigarette is that if you hand

someone something, almost anything, they will usually simply take it with-

out thought. Ask yourself this. If it was a gun the person was offering, and

their intention was to share a one fast round of Russian Roulette,

would...ah... thats too silly to finish this sentence.

Next reason. This is the time when most people do it. Your internal

clock regulates almost all of your daily behaviors. Eating, bathroom func-

tions, sleep. When you go to sleep at the exact same fixed time every nightand get up at the exact same fixed time every morning, dont you begin toget sleepy at that time of night, and dont you wake up often just before the

alarm goes off? That is because you have conditioned (set) your internal

clock to trigger those feelings by building a habit. Why youve chosen the

times you ritually smoke is because those are the times youve seen your


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role models for smoking doing it. Most likely, one or both of your parents or

primary caregivers were smokers. Growing up, you consciously and sub-

consciously watched their behaviors and, like it or not, began to model

them. Heres something I have proven to myself. You can too, if you havethe combinations of audacity, stupidity, and need for proof of your own.

Stand in any small public place where others are gathered and stare up at the

ceiling or sky with curiosity. Walk around and examine the whole area

slowly and carefully. Before long, most of the people in the area with you

will begin to look up also.

As soon as a few are looking up, probably soon all will look up, if only for

an instant. Its simple human nature. Its called peer pressure. Often you

smoke simply because your internal clock tells you its time to. Not because

you are craving nicotine. Not because you are addicted to anything. It is

simply because your internal alarm clock says it is time. And you originally

set your internal clock by how others have set theirs.

Reason six; It helps you think. This reason is not only ridiculous, it is, in

a small way, true. But it doesnt have to be. It is ridiculous because the

physiology of the human body and brain do not, I repeat, DO NOTfunction

better while poison is being ingested into the system. That is like saying that

your car runs better when you pour a little sand into the carburetor.

But it can be true also. If you are battling the urge to smoke while you are

trying to contemplate and evaluate a problem, situation, or challenge, much

of your mental energy is being robbed and distracted away from your goal.So smoking alleviates the nagging craving, and therefore you can actually

think better. Not better than if you werent smoking and didnt even think

about it. No way. Just better than if you are fighting the urge at the same

time.

Also, the true fuel of the brain is oxygen. This can only be brought to the

brain by way of the blood, which picks up its load in its pass through the

lungs. It is a physiological fact that the deeper one breaths, the more oxygen

per ounce of blood is loaded into the system. So, ironically, the deep

breathing of the smoke also brings more oxygen into your brain along withit. Therefore, if you are a smoker whose belief is that smoking helps you

think, and like most smokers, you tend to be a shallow breather in general,

then by resisting smoking while trying to study anything with continued

shallow breathing, you will have more difficulty with the process than if you

just smoked, breathed deeply, and stopped thinking about the cigarettes. But


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if you have no urge to smoke, and simply do a little deep breathing exercise,

your thinking will be far more superior to any thinking you can do while

sucking poisonat the same time. Im certain this can be proven by clinical

testing, but I can only say thatI know I am much sharper and quicker men-tally now than I ever was when I was puffing twenty to thirty cigarettes a

day.

Youve just seen an ad for them. Yes, those ads are compelling. Very

compelling. In fact, they are the most compelling ads of all advertising,

other than liquor ads. Why? Because these ads are filled with subliminal

messages. Thats right. There are tiny, and some not so tiny, messages em-

bedded within the printed ad that are attaching the product to your primary

emotions. Often, the word sex is embedded into a cigarette ad hundreds of

times. Many have images of nude people, or just more often cartoonish im-

ages of naked genitalia, embedded throughout the ad. There are often the

images of dogs and cats embedded, to attach your natural love of animals to

the cigarettes. For a detailed and enlightening study of this practice, I

strongly recommend to you to read a book called, Subliminal Seduction

by Wilson B. Key. In it he states that most people tend to believe that after

subliminal ad testing by the Coca Cola Company many years ago, laws were

enacted to prevent subliminal advertising. As the story goes, Coca Cola did

many tests on movie goers by flashing Have a Coke! messages into cer-

tain films at intervals long enough to be recorded by the brain, but not so

slow as to be seen by the conscious mind (1/30th of a second every second).The test was to see if sales of Coke went up significantly during those films

in theaters where they tested. Sales did indeed increase, dramatically. Still,

after thirty-some attempts to enact laws to regulate the practice, there has

been not one law put on the books anywhere to prevent this tactic in adver-

tising.

Years ago I had a smoker friend who disbelieved Mr. Keys claims, but

eventually came to me with an ad for Newport cigarettes, wherein the word

sex was so clearly embedded that it was easily visibly to the naked eye.

Shortly after, he began to use this process to terminate his habit. To myknowledge, he has never returned to any desire for cigarettes. For him, be-

ing manipulated this way was apparently even more painful to his ego than

the knowledge of the damage the cigarettes were doing to his body. Seem-

ingly, his indignation at feeling like a manipulated fool was a greater moti-

vator to end his habit than any other.


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The next time you see a cigarette ad in a magazine or on a billboard, ask

yourself what the messages is, if the message is true, and where the embeds

may be. This alone will dull your manipulated, fabricated craving to simply,

mindlessly light up. Number eight, Because youre hungry. Yes, this is a valid reason to

smoke. If you are truly experiencing hunger, a dose of toxic poison will take

the edge off. Definitely. But wouldnt you be better off eating a Fibar or

chewing a piece of gum? Or even sitting down to a meal? Tell you what. If

every time you get hungry and want to smoke a cigarette in place of food,

why dont you light the match and instead of holding it to the tip of the ciga-

rette, hold it to the tip of your tongue! Of course Im just being silly here,

but if you did build that habit, youd not only stop smoking very quickly,

but probably lose some weight along the way. And for certain youd be do-

ing less damage to yourself.

Heres the last reason I am offering, although I may not have listed all

your personal reasons. Nipple sublimation. Oral gratification.

When I first realized that for me, ending my cigarette addiction was going

to be an intellectual challenge, because I could in no way defeat it simply by

physical resistance, for several years (as I said in Chapter 2), I began asking

other smokers questions about how, why, when, where, etc. they started

smoking. One of the questions was, Were you mostly breast or bottle fed as

an infant? Of those who knew for certain, I believe that over 80% of those

who smoked were not breast fed, and over 80% of those who did not smoke,were. I saw, and still see, a correlation. I believe that often, in moments of

tension and/or anxiety, we would all love to revert to a moment when we

were cradled into mothers arms, gently sucking on her nipples for warmth

and sustenance. When we first lost that ability, we began to suck our

thumbs. When we lost that ability, it went to candy, suckers, sweets. Then,

for most of smoking Americans, at about fourteen to sixteen years old, we

saw a way to get that some of that feeling and at the same time, appear

even more mature. For many of us, there was something vaguely familiar

about that first suck from that first cigarette, wasnt there?People have many reasons to smoke. Some even smoke because of the

warning label on the side of the pack. They see themselves as living dan-

gerously. Out on the edge. A rebel. What they really are issuicidal. Those

are the ones who say, Ya gotta die someday anyway. What do I care if its

at seventy-five or eighty-five? These are deeply emotionally dissatisfied


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folk, who have far greater problems in their lives than smoking. You are not

likely one of these people, because they will not even pick this book up and

start reading, forget getting this far into it.

Now, having seen that you have many more facets to your habit than sim-ple chemical addiction, you know why the patches and the gums dont al-

ways work, and rarely permanently work. One can easily suspend the

chemical addiction, but patches and gum dont even begin to address these

other issues, which are by far the larger part of the habit.

In 1988, approximatelyIn 1988, approximatelyIn 1988, approximatelyIn 1988, approximately

twenty-five hundred infanttwenty-five hundred infanttwenty-five hundred infanttwenty-five hundred infant

deaths were attributed to mdeaths were attributed to mdeaths were attributed to mdeaths were attributed to maaaa----terterterternal smonal smonal smonal smokkkking.ing.ing.ing.


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Chapter 8Pick Your Shots

Lets say you now understand how much of your habit is chemical addic-tion, and how much of it isnt. And lets say that you are now going to beginto let go of that part thats not chemical addiction, and just concentrate onthat part thats really under your control without effort, such as Reason

Number 4 in Chapter 7, because someone offered it to you. If you donthave an urge to smoke and someone offers you one, a great way to deal withthis situation is to say, No thanks, but thanks for the offer. Actually, Im inthe process of ending my habit, and its not quite time for me to smoke oneyet. But Ill be glad to stay and talk with you while you smoke. Can you dothat? Of course you can. And if watching them smoke while you talk bringsup the urge so strongly that you start paying more attention to their cigarette

than to your conversation, then go ahead and smoke. But know that just byputting it off for a moment, even a minute or two, you havent lost groundby giving in and smoking. You aresupposed to smoke when you have thaturge! Just know that by putting off the smoke for that little time,youve wona battle, and are one step closer to winning the warwith your enemy.

Another reason we smoke that I didnt mention in Chapter 7, (because itsnot a reason westart to smoke a cigarette, but is a reason that we continue to

smoke it long after weve satisfied the urge) is the Eat everything on your

plate directive. Waste not, want not, was a big one around our house. Butin this case,you cannot waste a cigarette nearly as badly as a cigarette canwaste you. So when you have decided you need to smoke, then go aheadand smoke. But while youre smoking alone, smoking a brand you donteven like, and talking to it too, you will want to start watching for that in-

stant when you feel like youve had enough. That is not determined by how

much cigarette is left, but by how much desire (urge) to smoke you are stillexperiencing. Once that has been satisfied, put the damn thing out andthrow it away.

If youve been smoking a pack a day, and paying roughly $2.00 per pack,you are paying ten cents per cigarette. If you are getting an average of ten

puffs from each, then each drag costs you one cent. ONE PENNY! If

youve taken three or four drags from a cigarette, theres only six or sevencents worth left. If you are doing this process, then just by the nature of it,after a week or two your consumption will probably be down to less thanhalf what it had been before you began. So now you may only be smoking


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ten cigarettes instead of twenty. One dollars worth. What does it matter ifyou throw away the last half of them? Fifty cents? Would you take a fifty

cent piece from me for giving you a pill that has all the poison in it that yourcigarette has, but not get to smoke it? Just take the pill every day, and Ill

give you fifty cents each time. Unless youre truly nuts, of course youwouldnt. Its not worth fifty cents or fifty dollars, or fifty thousand dollarsto regularly ingest poison into your body that has been proven to kill, and atthe very least, diminish the quality of your life dramatically. At least it is notto me. Is it to you? So dont worry about wasting a little tobacco, or fifty

cents a day. Youve already saved a dollar a day. As soon as you feel theurge to smoke satisfied, kill the cigarette! And I mean KILL IT. Do not putit away and reuse it! Clinical tests have proven that the residual smoke in a

partially smoked cigarette causes it to be far more carcinogenic (cancercausing) than a fresh cigarette.

As to the other reasons, each time you catch yourself impulsively reachingfor a cigarette, ask yourself why you want one. Is it for any of the other

reasons Ive listed, or another one of your own that I havent? If so, askyourself if you can do without it. If the answer is no, then ask yourself if youcanput it off for a few minutes or more. If the answer is still no, then take itout and smoke it. Try to go someplace alone and do your mantra. But ifthats not feasible, mumble it to yourself where you are. Make yourself asconscious as possible that youre doing what youre doing. Then do it untilyou feel you can stop. Then stop. Then congratulate yourself for your

awareness, and pat yourself on the back for stopping when you wanted to,not just because the thing was all gone. And believe this. With each andevery cigarette you smoke with this kind of awareness and deliberation, thecloser you will come to that last one. And after that last one, you will neverwant to smoke again. You will not only not want to, but never even betempted to start again. You will have released yourself from perhaps the

strongest mental enslavement ever known to man.The personal self-confidence and self-respect I have attained by just ac-

complishing this one task in my life has been an invaluable tool in attaining

confidence in all areas of my life.It will do the same for you, if you let yourbody release you from theevil spell that has been cast upon you and yourancestors for generations.


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Half a billionHalf a billionHalf a billionHalf a billion packs perpacks perpacks perpacks per

year are sold illegally toyear are sold illegally toyear are sold illegally toyear are sold illegally to

children under 18. An estchildren under 18. An estchildren under 18. An estchildren under 18. An estiiii----

mated 3,100,000 U.S. teens,mated 3,100,000 U.S. teens,mated 3,100,000 U.S. teens,mated 3,100,000 U.S. teens,

1 out of 61 out of 61 out of 61 out of 6, are regular smo, are regular smo, are regular smo, are regular smokkkk----ers.ers.ers.ers.


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Chapter 9Gotta Get That Feeling

When you first started to smoke, do you remember, beyond the burning sensation inyour lungs, the urge to cough, and the watering of your eyes, that right in the back of your

throat, where your uvula hangs (that little knobby piece of skin), you felt a definite stab-

bing, pinching feeling when the smoke hit it, just before it went south, into your lungs?

After you were smoking for a few months, that seemed to go away, didnt it? And that

nausea that you felt, that green feeling went away too. Well, guess what! No they didnt

go anywhere. Your throat is still sending that same pain message to your brain. Youre

still feeling a bit queasy and nauseous when you smoke, especially that first one in the

morning. But why arent you consciously feeling it? Because your brain has decided not

to acknowledge those signals. It has built a mental callous around the nerve endings that

receive and process this information. After all, if you heard a fire bell ringing, youd jump

up to see where the fire is. But if you heard that bell for days, weeks, months, years, andthe fire department never showed up, youd eventually learn to tune out the sound.

When I was first married, we lived in a mobile home right next to a railroad track.

Every morning at about four a.m. that train would come bustling down the line and blow

the whistle when it came just about even with our trailer. After several months, I learned

to tune it right out and sleep right through it. Then, after a year, we moved to another

park, you guessed it, right on the tracks. We got the spot cheaper than most of the rest be-

cause of its location. I never missed a nights sleep. My brain was already conditioned.

Your body has conditioned itself to survive the massive doses of poison you have been

taking by moving chemicals around in your system, and manufacturing others to combat

the enemy. Once your body realized that you were not only notgoing to respond to the ur-

gent call of the pain and queasiness it was sending you, that you were going to continue todo the behavior that caused the pain, it began to attempt to compensate for that pain and

sickness on its own. Its first step was to begin to deny that you were even feeling the pain

in your throat, or the nausea in your gut. It just ignored it.

But now, with a desire to heighten your awareness, and let your body do the right thing,

all you have to do is look for those signals again. When you take that first hit in the

morning, look for that tickle in the back of your throat, and ask yourself if you really

arent a bit more nauseous right after you smoked than you were before. I know very few

smokers who ever eat breakfast. They say, as I did, Well, Im just not a breakfast kind of

person. Bulls**t! The reason you dont eat in the morning is because you are already

sick to your stomach from the cigarette, and your body knows that if you put food on top

of that poison, its likely to come back up, or at least want to. Your stomach has a great

deal of difficulty digesting when its busy trying to deal with being poisoned.

The more you look for those signs that the actual physical act of smoking isnt pleasant,

the more you will find them. You will not have to manufacture them. You wont have to

pretend to feel them. Just look for them. They are there. They have been since your first

smoke. Once you stop denying them, and they re-emerge, you will be very near the end of

your dependence upon tobacco. At the point that you think, Oh crap, I have to smoke


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now, you have broken the back of your enemy, and its only a matter of time before you

realize, as I did one evening that hey, I havent smoked all day! Ive had this pack with

me right here, and I havent even thought of smoking one all day! (Right then I lit one

up, began to puff urgently, and immediately got so sick I had to sit on the bed with my

head between my legs for several minutes!)

Once you get down to that regular four a day habit, dont try by willpower to reduce itany further. Let your body do that all by itself. Its first signs that its taking over the pro-

cess is when you find that youve only taken two drags from the cigarette, but you feel

like pitching it already anyway. Let this process take as long as it needs to take. Dont

rush it, but dont fall back to your old brand, or stop counting them, or start smoking

socially all the time again. This is not to say that if you do any of these things, the process

wont work. It will always work to the degree you do the behaviors that you can do with-

out willpower.

Remember, do not struggle with this process. You cannot prove it is wrong, or wont

work for you, by not committing to it fully, or just reading it. The process works. The

question is, will you work it? Just like when you started smoking, the choice is yours.

How much effort is it to change brands? How much effort is it to count your cigarettes?How much effort is it to begin to smoke alone and speak to the cigarette? How much ef-

fort can it take to throw away half a used butt, once you no longer have the urge to smoke

it? How much effort does it take to ask yourself what the reason for the next cigarette is,

and if you can do without it, even for a few minutes?

If any of this is too much effort, just use of it what is not. And if its all too much for

you, how did you ever get this far in this little book?

Tobacco Company researcTobacco Company researcTobacco Company researcTobacco Company researchhhh----

ers, dating back to 1968, rers, dating back to 1968, rers, dating back to 1968, rers, dating back to 1968, reeee----

alalalalized that the pestiized that the pestiized that the pestiized that the pesticide usedcide usedcide usedcide used

on ton ton ton toooobacco caused canbacco caused canbacco caused canbacco caused cancer.cer.cer.cer.


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Chapter 10The Ghost of Smoker Past

Over my lifetime I have read, sincerely studied, many self-improvement books. There are a similar themes running through all of them, stated in

many different forms, using different terms. One of the most popular, and I

believe most accurate, is that the brain, on a subconscious level, cannot dis-

tinguish between reality and vividly detailed imagination or fantasy. An ex-

cellent example is given in Maxwell Maltzs Psycho Cybernetics, wherein

he related to a test given on a basketball court. Seventy-five subjects were

tested in groups of twenty-five. First, all three groups were tested as to their

accuracy rating at making a basket from the free-throw line. Then the first

group was instructed to practice with a real ball for an hour each day for

thirty days. Group Two was to sit on a chair at the free-throw line and see

themselves practicing with their minds eye, making shots, missing and

correcting, and making more. The third group was instructed not to practice

at all.

At the end of the thirty days, Group Three had not changed. Group One

improved 43% by practicing with a real ball in real time. Group Two im-

proved 42% by simply visualizing the practice. Their bodies reacted to the

vividly imagined practice almost identically to those who actually physi-

cally practiced. This is because the imprint upon the brain was nearly the

same.This is the reason we can laugh or cry when we see funny, sad, or poignant

scenes in movies, even when we intellectually know full well that the mo-

ment was contrived by technicians and actors, and isnt even really hap-

pening at that moment. We allow ourselves to believe in the moment so ef-

fectively, that our bodies react as if what we are seeing is really happening.

Given this information, there was one incredibly valuable element I devel-

oped for this process. I had become a smoker in a moment, as a result of a

decision that I had consciously made. I then by repetition, sent the order

deep into my subconscious, where it had been a running program, keepingme coming back to smoking over and over, even when I thought I didnt

want to. Then I asked myself a great question. Can I go back into my past

memories and remake that decision differently? I can say now from actual

experience that yes, I can, and so can you. It worked for me by frequent

repetition of the following exercise.


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As a student of hypnosis, I learned that hypnosis is actually nothing more

than relaxation, concentration, and cooperation. Self-hypnosis is that state

weve all been in so many times when weve only thought of it as memo-

rizing our own new telephone number, or watching a television show. One

must be in a state of hypnosis to a large degree in order to perform either ofthese tasks. For this to apply to your needs, you must understand that you do

not need an extensive course on hypnosis to be able to hypnotize yourself

right now. It is as simple as this. Find a comfortable spot to recline. Recliner

chairs work well, but a bed or couch will work just as well. Begin to relax

each and every muscle in your body by consciously thinking about that set

of muscles until you feel them tingle without moving them. Begin with your

toes and work your way very slowly up your body, paying much attention to

your diaphragm area, and your neck muscles. Contact each area of your face

and head with your mind. While doing this, count backward from twenty,

and loosely assign a number to each area of your body, starting with your

toes as twenty. Then, as you move your concentration upward, count back-

ward. By the time you get to your head, you should be at five. Then relax

your face, neck, scalp, etc. with the last numbers, ending with zero. This

way, each time you do the exercise, as you count the number, your body will

know what area you want it to relax. After a half dozen exercises, you will

be amazed at how fast you can completely relax your physical body by

counting backward. Opening up your body and mind to self-hypnosis really

is this simple.

Next, fantasize the most pleasant scene you can to relax your mind. It maybe a scene from your past, or one you hope to have in the future. I tend to

think of a beach in Thailand. Or perhaps you are more of an indoor person.

Whatever your image is, picture details in bright color. If there are or were

sounds, listen for them.

Once you have accomplished a state of as nearly complete relaxation as

the above can bring you. Begin to remember the approximate time when you

began smoking. First the general time in your life, then zoom in tighter and

tighter until you bring yourself back to that moment when that decision was

made. See yourself from a few feet away, watching that younger, more naiveand foolish person before you, making that first serious, life-threatening

mistake. Yell out (silently) to him/her. Say whatever you can to convince

her/him not to proceed, even though you may believe that this will do no

good.

N

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