Easy Way to Stop Smoking Read Online Free PDF

yourselves why other habits, some of them extremely enjoyable ones, are easy to break, yet a habit that tastes awful, costs us a fortune and kills us is so difficult. If you think you enjoy smoking, ask yourself why you absolutely
have
to smoke that cigarette, but can take or leave other things in life, which are infinitely more enjoyable.

C HAPTER 2
T HE E ASYWAY
    T he aim of this book is to get you into the frame of mind whereby instead of starting out on your smoke-free life with a feeling of doom, gloom, misery and depression, you can start right away with a feeling of elation, as if you have been cured of a terrible, life-threatening disease.
    Smokers thinking about quitting are often intimidated by what they perceive to be the scale of the task they face. They feel as if they are attempting to scale Mount Everest single-handed. They believe that they will need to suffer terrible physical withdrawal pangs, that they are giving up their best friend and that they will, in all likelihood, fail anyway. Who could think of a worse frame of mind with which to take on this, or any other project? The smoker has already programmed him or herself to fail. But if you are able to replace those negative thoughts and feelings with an attitude of excitement and anticipation, then the task is made far easier. In fact, with the right frame of mind, it is not only easy, but also incredibly enjoyable to stopsmoking. From then on, the further you go through life the more you will look at cigarettes and wonder how you had ever believed you needed to smoke. You will look at smokers with pity as opposed to envy.
    Provided that you are not already a non-smoker or an ex-smoker, it is essential to keep smoking until you have finished the book completely. This may appear to be something of a contradiction. Later I shall be explaining that cigarettes do absolutely nothing for you at all. In fact, one of the many puzzles about smoking is that when we are smoking a cigarette, we look at it and wonder what on earth we are doing: it is only when we can’t smoke that the cigarette becomes precious or desirable.
    However, let us accept that, whether you like it or not, you believe you need to smoke and that you can’t relax or concentrate properly unless you are smoking. So do not attempt to stop smoking before you have finished the whole book. As you read further your desire to smoke will gradually be reduced until it disappears entirely. Let the book do its work. Remember, all you have to do is to follow the instructions.
    With the benefit of more than twenty years’ feedback since the book’s original publication, apart from Chapter 28 (‘Timing’), this instruction to continue to smoke has caused me more frustration than any other. When I first stopped smoking, many of my friends and relatives stopped, purely because I had done it. They thought ‘If he can do it, anyone can.’ Over the years, by dropping little hints I managed to persuade the ones who hadn’t stopped to realize just how nice it was to be free! When the book was first printed I gave copies to the hard core that were still puffing away. I worked on the basis that, even if it was the most boring book ever written, they would still read it, if only because it had been written by a friend. I was surprised and hurt to learn that, months later, they hadn’t bothered to read it. I even discovered that the original copy I had signed and given to someone who was then my closest friend had not only beenignored but actually given away. I was hurt at the time, but I had overlooked the dreadful fear that slavery to the weed instills in the smoker. It can transcend friendship. I nearly provoked a divorce because of it. My mother once said to my wife, ‘Why don’t you threaten to leave him if he doesn’t stop smoking?’ My wife said, ‘Because he’d leave me if I did.’ I’m ashamed to admit it, but I believe she was right, such