Ways to quit smoking There are probably no less that a hundred ways to quit smoking, and all have various levels of success depending mainly on the sheer will-power and desire of the tobacco smoker to actually quit once and for all. Most smokers start off by going the old tried, and rarely successful, ‘cold turkey’ method of quitting their habit. Problem with this method is unless the smoker can usually take off about an month or so from work and hermit-ize himself, or herself, from the world at large then the world at large is in for a rather bumpy ride with the smoker trying this method. Friends and co-workers will find themselves either avoiding the smoker in an effort to not get their heads bitten off or ganging up and shoving the jonesing smoker in a room with a pack of cigarettes and locking the door in hope that the person gets a clue. Another method that seems to have had better results for many nicotine junkies is to use the nicotine patches or gum to get the nicotine to satisfy the addiction until they can wean themselves from it without fugging up every area around them and creating a load of disgruntled non-smokers who would prefer not to inhale the second-hand smoke. Hypnosis is another method with varying degrees of success. This method treats not only the physical addiction but the psychological addiction many smokers have. It is this psychological addiction that keeps a vast majority of smokers from ever quitting. The act of smoking and drawing the smoke into the lungs is associated with comforting ones-self. This is very like the way people use food as a comfort tool when things get stressful. Finding an alternative to tobacco is another way that many have quit smoking tobacco while still keeping that psychological comfort. There are many alternative smoking blends on the market today. All of them are tobacco free and generally consist of a blend of legal psychoactive herbs that calm the body and mind to help the person break the physical nicotine addiction if not the psychological addiction.

Quitting Smoking: How even the heaviest smokers can successfully kick the habit!

The First Time

Wouldn%26rsquo;t it be nice to go back in time to your first cigarette and instead of taking a drag, you put the cigarette down and say %26ldquo;No thanks%26rdquo;!! Wouldn%26rsquo;t it be nice to have a second chance and stop the chain of addiction before it even has a chance to start? Do you remember your first drag? You probably didn%26rsquo;t even like it and it may have even made you sick. Well until science comes up with a way for us to travel back into time, this unfortunately is not an option for you. But what if I told you that there is a way for you to have that second chance? Would you be interested in taking it? I am sure most of you would say yes, but express some skepticism about this second chance that I am proposing.

Dirty Little Secret

Well, first of all you know that smoking is not good for your health, but yet you continue to smoke. Maybe even your friends or your family have asked you to quit, maybe even nagged you about it and referred to cigarettes as coffin nails or remarked how you smell like a dirty ashtray. Have you found yourself having to sneak in cigarette breaks in a vein effort to hide your habit from your friends, family and co-workers? And believe me, it is in vein, everyone smells it on you and/or your breath despite the breath mints, spraying on cologne, or flapping my shirt thinking that I was eliminating the smell. I thought I was being really sneaky, but I was really only fooling myself.

Nicotine Substitutes

Then there are nicotine patches and gum that most of us have tried along with other nicotine substitutes with %26ldquo;substitute%26rdquo; being the key word here. How can you break yourself free from a substance that you are addicted to by substituting one source for another? You don%26rsquo;t see alcoholics substituting bourbon for vodka as a means for getting over their addiction so how can we expect nicotine gum and patches to help smokers. Sure you are not inhaling tar and other dangerous byproducts with the use of nicotine gum and patches, but these products do nothing to address the real issue and that is the addiction to nicotine.

Relaxation %26amp; Stress

Other products try to make you feel calmer and attempt to put your body into a more relaxed state of mind as another means of stopping smoking. However, people feel the urge to smoke when they are nervous just as much as they do when they are relaxed so how is a product intending to make you feel more relaxed going to help you to quit smoking? People don%26rsquo;t smoke because they are nervous or stressed; they smoke because they are addicted to the nicotine.

Second Chance

By this point, you probably think I have not painted a very rosy picture for you and that you are destined to be a smoker for the rest of your life. Well what if I told you that I could provide you that second chance I mentioned earlier? No, I can%26rsquo;t send you back in time to your first cigarette, but I can tell you about how you CAN get a second chance.

Chantix

What am I talking about? I am talking about Chantix, a non-nicotine prescription medicine from Pfizer. So who am I and what do I know about smoking anyway? I am an ex-smoker and someone who smoked for many years. I knew smoking was not good for me and yet I continued to smoke despite all of that and against the wishes of my friends and family. I tried all of the smoking cessation products, but always found myself smoking again. That is, until I found out about Chantix. It%26rsquo;s hard to describe how Chantix works, but the best way to describe it is that it gives you a second chance. It breaks the chain of nicotine addiction and allows you an opportunity to start a new life free of cigarettes.

How Chantix Works

Chantix is a pill, which prevents nicotine from reaching key receptors in the brain thus preventing the production of dopamine. Dopamine delivers feelings of pleasure, but the effects are temporary resulting in the craving for more nicotine. With Chantix, the short-term feelings of pleasure you receive from smoking are slowly eliminated over time. The effects are very subtle and you continue to smoke while taking Chantix until the pleasure you receive from smoking eventually disappears. Eventually smoking becomes futile and you don%26rsquo;t even bother to light up anymore.

Chantix %26amp; Your Wallet

I have been a big advocate for Chantix and I have passed the word on to some friends who have tried Chantix and who successfully quit smoking. Others whom I have spoken with have cited the cost of Chantix as a reason for not trying it. My health insurance company covered the cost of Chantix so cost was not a factor for me. I have researched the cost of Chantix and I put together the following scenario. We%26rsquo;ll assume the cost of a pack of cigarettes to be $4.50. That may be high or low depending upon where you live, but for this example we will use it as an average. I have also assumed the monthly cost of Chantix to be $100/month and that%26rsquo;s the cost without insurance coverage. The Chantix program runs for 3 months so lets look at the impact of cost over a year%26rsquo;s time.

Cigarettes per day 20 30 40

Packs per day 1.0 1.5 2.0

Cost per pack $4.50 $4.50 $4.50

3 Month Cost of Cigarettes $405.00 $607.50 $810.00

Chantix Cost $300.00 $300.00 $300.00

Total 3 Month Cost $705.00 $907.50 $1,110.00

9 Month Savings (No Cigarettes) $1,215.00 $1,822.50 $2,430.00

Full Year Savings $510.00 $915.00 $1,320.00

Wow %26ndash; just look at that savings!!! Especially if you smoke two packs a day, the amount of money you save each month could equal a car payment depending on where you live.

Habitual Changes

Other feedback I have heard from smokers about quitting is the fear of their life being severely impacted by quitting smoking. They feel that smoking is so integrated into their every day lives that they fear what their life might be like without cigarettes; that morning cigarette with their coffee, that cigarette after lunch, after dinner, etc. How long does it take you to smoke a cigarette? Two, maybe three minutes? Do you really think your life is going to be that impacted by those brief portions of your day? You actually gain a few more minutes in your day if you think about it. You can go for a walk instead or just find something else to do with those extra minutes in your day.

Change is Good!

Remember change is a natural part of life and it should be embraced and not feared especially when the changes you make better your health and increase your life.

Talk to Your Doctor!

Talk to your doctor about Chantix to see if it is an option for you. Don%26rsquo;t let your fears of how your life will be without cigarettes control the decisions you make. You are in control of your life and you can not only overcome your fears but also your addiction to nicotine. Take the first step towards a better healthier life and call your doctor today! Check out Chantix%26rsquo;s website for more information!

Can you really “permanently” stop smoking?

There is a profound difference between a smoker who has stopped smoking and a non-smoker. The smoker courageously resists having a cigarette, but the non-smoker can’t think of anything worse than smoking.

You’ve probably heard people who have quit smoking 10 years ago still say “Every time I have a beer or coffee I still want a cigarette” – if you are trying to stop smoking those are very disheartening words to hear!

But it simply means is that they only quit smoking at a conscious level - that is, they deliberately and consciously decided to stop, and stopped, and their abstinence is sustained only through their will power. However, subconsciously, smoking is still an attractive prospect for them, and that is where smoking needs to be tackled.

If you’re going to quit smoking, do it right!

There are a million and one ways to stop smoking – from nicotine patches and chewing gum, to tablets, lozenges, inhalers and Zyban, the stop smoking drug. In addition, there are plenty of people out there willing to tell you how to stop smoking - quit tips are everywhere. But they all miss one vital component - the subconscious mind.

If you are going to make the effort to free yourself from the terrible effects of smoking, why not do it right? Use a proper smoking cessation program that will leave you free of the desire to smoke.

Smoking Cessation Program

This program will gently move your mind from its current craving state to complete freedom from cigarettes.

You will no longer be controlled by the need to smoke. No more planning your day so you can smoke, no more running outside at work or at parties, no more worrying whether you have enough cigarettes left.

Smoking-cessation methods that treat smoking as an addiction (nicotine patches, nicotine gum, and so on) have a very low success rate, acknowledged to be around 23%. The makers of the drug Zyban state that the drug is only effective if it is taken in conjunction with ‘psychological intervention’.

A smoker’s mental state must be stable and requires will power to end the dependency. I deliberately call it a dependency and not an addiction. You have seen that an addict must take the drug in just enough amounts to temporarily satisfy the craving, but a smoker doesn’t. An effective treatment of smoking dependency must take into account this fact – that the smoker is not really an addict.

Yes, you heard right!

When many smokers are told during their smoking cessation program that they can keep smoking they are quite surprised:

“You continue to smoke while you progress through the program. You only quit when you don’t want to smoke anymore.”

Now, isn’t that easier on the smoker? Definitely! Does the smoker need to have extraordinary will power to break the habit? Of course not! By connecting the smoker with her sub-conscious she can identify the source of her habit, acknowledge it and then make the choice to stop smoking.

Consult a Hypnotherapist

For effective and permanent results, it is best that you consult and work with a qualified Hypnotherapist. Such a professional is well trained in helping you with your smoking dependency. It would be fruitless to attempt self-hypnosis with a flawed understanding and cause yourself frustration, and in the end find yourself still having not kicked that smoking habit.

If someone you know is a tobacco user, then you’ve a reason to be anxious. Smoking tobacco persists in being the predominant contributor of lung associated cancer human deaths in the United States of America and is attached to an amount of corresponding life-threatening cases of diseases and cancers likewise. You could be considering how you can help someone dear to you to quit smoking cigarettes products, conclusively.

Innumerable men and women are nonetheless blinded to the atrocious results that tobacco smoking can be a causal agency to. One authoritative response to aid an individual to stop tobacco smoking is to induce them to go through stimulus to quit. What could be successful for this particular person? Is he or she the least bit aware of their wellness? Do they possess kids or grandchildren that they would like to be alive so that that will be able to observe them growing up?

One manoeuvre that some people have successfully followed to assist someone to quit smoking comprises printing pictures of smoke damaged lungs and other internal body organs illustrating the comparisons between a wholesome lung and one destroyed by the consequences of smoking tobacco. Naturally, you might not wish to execute this too close to a meal time as they may sick have just eaten!

Now and then all it calls for to assist a person to stop smoking cigarettes is to furnish them with the all important boost. Are they concerned they’ll miss their normal round of social activities? Construct plans to go someplace untested with them. Are they upset that maybe their social circle will not wish to call round to their home if it is no more smoke-filled? Talk over with your acquaintances and enlighten them as to what is proceeding on. Make certain that they’re likewise a part of the plan.

Additional assistance for a person to quit smoking can be smoking aids, including nicotine patches, chewing gum sprays, inhalers, pills et al. What you will be able to do is a bit of analytic thinking about the obtainable products in the first place so that you will be able to present this to him or her and demonstrate how tried and tested such products in reality are. By providing them this type of assistance and making known to them that there is products that do work, you may be able to remove some of the heebie-jeebies and vexation out of the quit smoking experience.

The finest helping hand you will be able to extend to someone is inspiration, even more so if they are an individual who has aspired to give up in previously and has failed. Convince them that this is O.K., that innumerable individuals who are now past smokers necessitated numerous tries before they escaped from tobacco. In acting in this way and underpinning them you’ll likewise be victorious in your charge to help a person to stop smoking tobacco also!

Once offered the chance to quit smoking cigarettes, more people bank on break the use of smoking aids to underpin their resolve. The times of putting up with a agonizing period of the dreaded cold turkey is, quite rightly long behind us. Like many illegal substances smoking can prove to be equally addictive %26 innumerable individuals who battle to crack the habit unaccompanied see that the stages are agonising and all but unrealistic. Numerous ricochet back to smoking after hardly twenty-four hours or so.

The advantageous report regarding the market for purportedly low budget quit smoking tobacco merchandises is almost every last of them are unmistakably successful. For example, one of the more sought after picks, the nicotine patch, goes by discharging nicotine into the body lightly across a prescribed period of time, usually a few weeks.

This helps to reduce your desire to smoke and turns you back from reaching for the dreaded pack of cigarettes. Several nicotine patch products are designed to be worn on for just a single day,but others have to be taken off during the night or be worn for no longer than 12 hours. Products such as these are, designed to be leak-proof and cause hardly any impairment to the skin. Rarely the patches can bring on a mild rash but this generally proves bearable and in most cases there or no ill effects whatsoever.

Nicotine Chewing Gum is an alternative stop smoking aid that many people attribute their success to. The gum functions in a way quite similar to nicotine patches by continually delivering nicotine into the individuals system. Nicotine Gum is not all like every day chewing gum as it can not be chewed for indefinite periods of time. Numerous brands of nicotine gum are boxed with guides as to how to loop up the gum between the teeth an cheek as a way of increasing the gums longevity.

A lot of men and women recommend the nicotine gum product as it bestows on them an physical object to sense in their oral cavity and takes away some of the discomfort that many smokers sustain when they first start to stop smoking cigarettes.

In that respect is a varied assortment of aids to help you to stop smoking tobacco, from tablets to gum and from patches to psychology. Umpteen of these are considered to be for the most part persuasive. by men and women who have recorded success with them. A lot of people have said that they attained the most conclusive outcomes when these aids are utilised together with improvements such as regular exercise regimes, a healthier diet, increased fluid intake such as water or fruit juice which helps the body to remain hydrated and also helps wash aside lasting toxins from tobacco use and most importantly receiving and noting encouragement from family, workmates and friends.

Of course, every individual will need to make up their own as to what type of Stop cigarette smoking products to use and naturally it’s always a good idea to consult with your physician before commencing any kind of treatment. At any rate, the upshot should be that if you feel ready to try to quit smoking tobacco then there are tones of products on the market that you can buy that can give you great assistance in attaining your goal.

Broadly speaking the more protracted an individual has been smoking tobacco so the more arduous it will be for them for you to kick the habit. Even whilst you distinguish the perils you face by lighting up constant cigarettes, the dependence to nicotine impedes your most serious attempts to stop.

If you wish to cease smoking tobacco yet discover that your dependency on nicotine insurmountable to defeat then you’ll in all likelihood necessitate some sort of therapy or treatment. On that point there are many types of treatment at your disposal nowadays such as nicotine substitution patches, treatment via a hypnotist, and systems that employ laser treatment.

Laser based treatment therapies constitute an innovational technique of blocking off or taking away the nicotine addiction symptoms. These methods have been proven to be a extremely efficient weapon in the war to cease the use of tobacco products, the only negative aspects to laser treatments downside are that they tend to work out rather costly, yet, once you compute your yearly expenditure on your smoking habits then it is just about indisputable that the laser treatment therapy will remunerate itself in the long run.

The literal process of laser treatment is unambiguous and is founded along acknowledged scientific processes. They are broadly speaking viewed as a natural kind of therapy, and induces no pain or uncomfortableness with the person being treated. If in the past you’ve tested different techniques to quit smoking then this may prove to constitute a feasible alternate option. During the laser treatment a beam is utilized to the meridian points throughout your physical structure, such as your ears, nose, forearms, wrists and hands. These meridian spots are triggered to discharge endorphins into your bloodstream. There’s zero danger from irradiation because the type of laser employed by these treatment systems are of low-level intensiveness. The treatment helps oneself to become relaxed and of naturally to stand firm against the desire to smoke.

It is simple to comprehend the advantageous outcomes that laser treatment offers to patients. The rate of success could represent a ratio as high as 9 out of 10 coming down to roughly 6 of 10 patients successfully quitting smoking after laser treatment. Due to the very low intensity of the laser used patients are not put at any risk whatsoever. The treatment is normally carried out across a number of sittings of between 20 minutes and half an hour, according to the patient’s circumstances.

The initial stage of the treatment requires activating the meridian points by laser as detailed above. This immediately results in a diminishing of your need for nicotine. Normally the next stage of treatment triggers off dominance of your appetite points; thus greatly helping to forestall the all but inescapable weight gain connected with ceasing to smoke. The closing stages of laser treatment arouses your bodies relaxation points by discharging endorphins into your circulatory system by your pituitary gland, this aids in bearing away the tensions induced by withdrawal from nicotine.

As with virtually any treatment in that respect there are always plus points together with negative ones associated with laser treatments. One of its major advantages constitutes the greater possibility of escaping nicotine addiction. In addition laser therapy does not have any side effects contrary to many additional techniques of dependency removal. The principal negative aspect to laser treatments is manifestly the initial expense, but even considering that, if you’re searching a powerful, established therapy then the cost of it ought to be at a lower place on your list of considerations as you’re currently smoking away a small fortune every week anyway! It should not be too challenging to conceive of attempting several, cheaper techniques, without succeeding and at length in reality spending much more money than the laser therapy would have cost in the first place.

Before you start, get hold of some independent, impartial advice, grab the yellow pages and phone a couple of clinics and exercise your personal assessments to help you determine if laser therapy is a process that might bring home the bacon for you and convert you into the “Non-Smoker” you dream of becoming!

This story of mine goes back 6 years, when after smoking ordinary packet cigarettes from 1- 2 packets a day (And sometimes more) for the previous 34 years, I decided to give them up and swap to hand rolling my own. This was rightly or wrongly based on the premise that by getting rid of all the chemicals that were in an ordinary cigarette, then my body would be ok, as I was “told” that nicotine in itself does not kill you, it is all the other crap (Sorry chemicals) that they put in man made cigarettes that does the main damage. There was none of this in a hand rolled cigarette so I was ok wasn’t I! My rationale did not take into account the amount of actual smoke that was still going into my lungs, and also coking up my whole respiratory system, but I solved that one by being an active twice weekly squash player, so my cardio-vascular would be protected and I would be fit. What a plonker. The challenge I had, was that I had tried to give up a couple of times before, and had tried the nicotine patches and the chewing gum when they came out, but ended up having a ciggy while still wearing the patch chewing the gum, so gave up on that idea as they did not work. They obviously do, but not for me. The thought of actually using willpower to quit smoking, frightened the life out of me, more so than smoking itself; how many people can relate to that one. I did try using willpower but failed miserably, like all the other attempts to try and give up, that I had unsuccessfully tried. Now the word “try” here is very important, because if you “try” to do something you won’t do it; if you tried to pick up that pen from your desk, and you picked it up, you did not try, you did it; if you had tried to pick it up, you would not have picked it up at all. So my attempts to try and Quit Smoking were a miserable failure, so I gave up trying and carried on smoking my roll ups. Fast forward to early March 2008, I started to cough up blood which frightened me somewhat, and I ended up in hospital getting thoroughly checked out. They confirmed that I was ok and the x-ray proved all was clear, miraculously my lungs were also clear, but that it was probably one of my gums that had become weak and started to bleed. (A subsequent visit to my dental hygienist confirmed this, and she also said it was due to smoking) This episode really scared me, and I realized that the time to Do, and not to Try, was upon me. During the past year or so on the internet, I had purchased a set of self hypnosis cd’s to listen to, and one of them was designed to Help you to Stop Smoking. I decided to listen to it that evening (March 31st 2008) and from the following day I have not touched or smoked a cigarette. I cannot now believe that I smoked for all those years, and I can honestly say that I have had little to no cravings or withdrawal symptoms. The one or two times over the past five months that I thought I would like a cigarette, a little voice inside my head said “Why would you want to do that, you don’t smoke” and the thought passes. Now all the benefits I was told about quitting smoking are coming to fruition, like the fact; I don’t stink of smoke any more. The colour and tone of my skin has improved my appearance, and friends say I look ten years younger. No more coughing and wheezing at all. An important health benefit being that the risk of a heart attack is halved compared to that of being a smoker. The financial saving is considerable to say the least You know the rest, so what are you waiting for? DO IT NOW Do this for yourself and let me know how you get on. Hypnosis Stop Smoking

It is a big difference between a smoker that has stopped smoking and a non smoker. Because the smoker is fighting the addiction and resists having a cigarette. The non smoker can not think of anything worse than smoking and that person is really more of a fanatic that often express his or her feelings about smoking and smokers. It is kind of aggressive behaviour and that attitude helps them to stay non-smokers. Some smokers who quit smoking years ago can still feel for having a cigarette after a meal, with the coffee. So if you are trying to quit smoking and hear people talk like that, it is scary to hear. Those persons only quit smoking at a conscious level, that is they decided to stop, but unconsciously, smoking is still an attractive prospect for them. The number of ways to quit are many now and we have got several new products during the last decade or so! Nicotine patches has been around for many years and works great. Many smokers just quit without actually thinking about it when they use these patches. The statistics tell that the ratio for persons that quit long term is rather low though. Chewing gums can take some time to get used to as the taste is not what chewing gums use to be. They work good in the sense that people do not smoke any more. The negative side-effect is that many can not stop with the gums! Good for the lungs but you still have the cost. You can also find tablets, lozenges, inhalers and Zyban which the stop smoking drug. If that is not enough you can always find plenty of people out there willing to tell you how to stop smoking, you can find tips everywhere about effective ways to quit smoking. A lot of smokers try a couple of methods at the same time and we have seen persons with nicotine patches, chewing gum and snuffing at the same time. The good thing is that they save their lungs a little. Unfortunately they are enforcing the addiction. Most smokers are unaware of the unconscious mind. You need to learn about that as it is important if you are going to make the effort to free yourself from the bad effects of smoking. If you decide to quit, you should do it the right way. Then you can start with a proper smoking cessation program that will leave you free of the desire to smoke. The right psychological methods and techniques you will help you to control the smoking addiction and become free from its grip.

“It’s not the nicotine in cigarettes that’s harmful. It’s the smoke.”

That was the tag line provided by a manufacturer of nicotine gum during the famous debut of their product’s commercials a decade ago. While not an entirely accurate statement (will discuss that later) it did strike a nerve with millions of smokers and led them to a rush to purchase nicotine gum. Unlike many other products of the past which promised a lot and delivered little, nicotine transmission products such as gum, patches, sprays et al turned out to work quite well.

This was a veritable godsend! For many years people struggled to discover reliable cures for the pain of nicotine and cigarette addiction but they all were of no avail. Yes, many people were able to quit smoking cold turkey or through other means but with the advent of nicotine transmission substitutes such as nicotine gum and nicotine patches the ability to kick the habit was made far easier than ever before. Because of this, sales of these products boomed to a degree far greater than anyone ever expected.

Whether one is taking nicotine gum, a lozenge or a patch all of these methods serve the same purpose: to deliver nicotine in much smaller doses than what is found in cigarettes and also with the added benefit of not having to inhale dangerous smoke into one’s lungs. Of course, different people react differently to different methods and it may take a little trial and error before finding which particular product works for you. So, if one method doesn’t work there is no reason to feel despondent. Simply try another method/product and see if better results will occur.

Of course, one must never lose sight of the fact that you should not be puffing away while also chewing your nicotine gum! When you are taking one of these cigarette substitutes it is critical to stop smoking when taking the product. There are many people who use these products as a means of cutting back on the number of cigarettes they smoke per day with the eventual goal of smoking none. While this may seem like a decent plan it is NOT the suggested method promoted by the actual product. The reason for this is that if one were to chew nicotine gum and smoke at the same time the sheer volume of nicotine one would ingest performing such “double duty” would be far too much and certainly not healthy.

It needs to be pointed out that nicotine is harmful and it is not just the smoke that can harm you. In fact, nicotine in high doses can be poisonous! Also, no matter what form you ingest nicotine it still remains a highly addictive substance so when you chew nicotine gum there comes the potential to being addicted to the gum as well. Now, this is not stated as a means of scaring people into avoiding nicotine gums, patches, etc but rather it is a method of presenting certain warnings regarding continued use of these products. They are designed to wean you off the drug not replace one transmission method with another.

I want to be truthful first; I really feel that I am fully qualified to write this. Yes I am one of those annoying ex-smoker’s who want to shout it from the rooftop I AM A NON-SMOKER.

Okay, so far it’s been 3 months 9 days and counting, but I am determined to never smoke again. Visiting a Cancer hospice can really help to bring the truth home.

What I would like to share with you is. I know it’s what everybody says: If I can do it, so can you! I smoked for 30 odd years. That little stick became my best friend. Somehow you were never alone with a cigarette, standing in line, just light up! Shocking to say if I was having a coffee and had to choose between a sandwich or my cigarette, guess which one won?

The problem with smoking is that the addiction is so strong regardless of your mood. Happy: you feel congratulated with a puff. Sad: That cigarette consoles you.

We all know it’s the nicotine that is the addictive drug, but it is the added chemicals that are doing the damage to our bodies. By giving up there is also the wonderful reassurance that the damage done can start to repair along the years.

Personally when I was smoking I convinced myself that: well I could get hit by a bus tomorrow, why give up? Shockingly this is a common ruse by smokers! However I did sometimes get a panic attack if I stopped to add up how much it was all costing me. Now I’m smoke free at least I can afford a gallon of fuel!!

What helped me was firstly coming to terms with the fact that the smokers cough I had, really was not that pleasant, especially when you see others dying from the dreaded weed.

So once the decision was made, I used the nicotine patches, the gum, the inhalers, lots and lots of candy, cutting up white straws and sticking those in my mouth. The biggest motive was looking at my family and being supported by them while they suffered my many mood swings of desperation.

It took me about 4 months to be totally free and was certainly the best decision I ever made.

Please if you are considering giving up, try it, if you fail so what, next time round you will know what to do.

If I can you can. Save the money you would have spent, I still do and it’s great to have extra cash to spend. Good luck, join me.