I smoked for almost 18 years, 12 to 15 a day and never had the courage to have a serious attempt to quit. I tried reducing (I created spread sheets with graphs, daily averages, formulas to calculate rewards, penalties, comparing months, days, hours and all) for more than a year, which was an enormous struggle and did not help at all to reduce my desire to smoke and I think it made cigarettes even more precious for me than they were ever before.
Recently, before boarding for a 7 hour flight, I bought a pack of nicotine gums – for the first time in my life. After trying it in the flight and afterwards, I realised it helped me and I didn’t feel like smoking that much. So I set a date, stopped smoking cigarettes and started chewing nicotine gums from that day onwards. I was thinking that it was going very good by the help of miraculous nicotine gums and keep asking myself why I did not try them before. In the meantime, I had a tiny question in my mind: will it be also easy for me to quit nicotine gums when the time comes? After 10 days, I realized I don’t crave for cigarettes anymore but for gums and took it as a good sign. As a coincidence, I heard about Mr. Carr’s “way”, seminars and books towards the end of the 2nd week of my attempt and decided to read the book to see some other options. I was expecting it to be an advertisement of his seminars and nothing more. Ok, it wasn’t an advertisement but honestly, book did not tell me anything I didn’t already know. There is no magic of any kind. All it does is, like it says at the back cover, “removing the psychological dependence” without you even noticing and while thinking “I know all this, mister.” It’s been 5 days since I finished the book and stopped chewing. Although I don’t understand why and how, I have no cravings whatsoever and I think I became a non-smoker for good at the first attempt (after 18 years!!!). May be even more important than being able to stop and doing it easily, I realized, with the help of the book, it was my nicotine addiction turning me into someone who is getting more and more tense, irritable. So thanks a lot Mr. Carr for doing what ever you did.
I read this book in November 2003 after being a pack a day 20-year smoker. By the time I finished the book I knew I was sooo done with smoking. It is almost comical how easy the decision to stop was. I did not gain an ounce when I stopped smoking (matter of fact since [full article...]
I found Mr. Carr’s book to be a very easy read that stated in very clear terms the “WHY, HOW, WHEN” of quitting. Mr. Carr gets straight to the heart of the matter – no gimmicks here, no psychological b.s., just a no b.s. approach to why you should quit, how you will be able [full article...]