All smokers feel that something evil has got possession of them. In the early days it is a question of 'I am going to stop, not today but  tomorrow.' Eventually we get to the stage where we think either that we  haven't got the willpower or that there is something inherent in the  cigarette that we must
have in order to enjoy life.
As I said previously, the problem is not explaining why it is easy to  stop;  it is explaining why it is difficult. In fact, the real problem is  explaining why anybody does it in the first place or why, at one tune, over 60 per cent of the population were smoking.
The whole business of smoking is an extraordinary enigma. The only  reason we get on to it is because of the thousands of people already  doing it. Yet every one of them wishes he or she had not started in the  first place, telling us that it is a waste of time and money. We can not quite believe they are not enjoying it. We associate it with being grown up and work hard to become hooked ourselves. We then spend the rest of our lives telling our own children not to do it and trying to kickthe habit ourselves. We also spend the rest of our lives paying through the nose. The  average twenty - a- day smoker spends £50.000 in his or her lifetime on cigarettes. What do we do with that money? (It wouldn't be so bad if we  threw it down the drain.) We actually use it systematically to congest  our  lungs with cancerous tars, progressively to clutter up and poison our blood vessels. Each day we are increasingly starving every muscle and  organ of our bodies of oxygen, so that each day we become more lethargic.
We sentence ourselves to a lifetime of filth, bad breath, stained teeth,  burnt clothes, filthy ashtrays and the foul smell of stale tobacco. It is a  lifetime of slavery. We spend half our lives in situations in which society  forbids us to smoke (churches, hospitals, schools, tube trains, theatres ,etc.) or, when we are trying to cut down or stop, feeling deprived. The  rest of our smoking lives is spent in situations where we are allowed to  smoke but wish we didn't have to. What sort of hobby is it that when you  are doing it you wish you weren't, an d when you are not doing it you crave a cigarette? It's a lifetime of being treated by half of society like some sort of leper and, worst of all, a lifetime of an otherwise intelligent, rational human being going through life in contempt. The smoker despises himself, every Budget Day. every National Non -Smoking Day, every  time he inadvertently reads the government health warning or there is  a cancer scare or a bad- breath campaign, every time he gets congested or has a pain in the chest, every time he is the lone smoker in company  with non - smokers.
Having to go through life with these awful black shadows at the back of his mind, what does he get out of it? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Pleasure? Enjoyment? Relaxation? A prop? A  boost? All illusions, unless you consider the wearing of tight shoes to enjoy the removal of them as some sort of pleasure!
As 1 have said, the real problem is trying to explain not only why  smokers find it difficult to stop but why anybody does it at all. You are probably saying, 'That's all very well. I know this, but once you are hooked on these things it is very difficult to stop.' But why is it  so difficult, and why do we have to do it? Smokers search for the answer to these questions all of their lives.
Some say it is because of the powerful withdrawal symptoms. In fact,  the actual withdrawal symptoms from nicotine are so mild (see chapter  6) that most smokers have lived and died without ever realizing they are drug addicts.
Some say cigarettes are very enjoyable. They aren't. They are filthy,disgusting objects. Ask any smoker who thinks he smokes only because  he enjoys a cigarette if, when he hasn't got his own brand and can only  obtain a brand he finds distasteful, he stops smoking? Smokers would rather smoke old rope than not smoke at all. Enjoyment has nothing to  do with it. I enjoy lobster but I never got to the stage where I had to have  twenty lobsters hanging round my neck. With other things in life we enjoy them whilst we are doing them but we don't sit feeling deprived when we are not. Some search for deep psychological reasons, the 'Freudian syndrome',  'the child at the mother's breast'. Really it is just the reverse. The usual  reason why we start smoking is to show we are grown up and mature. If we had to suck a dummy in public, we would die of embarrassment. Some think it is the reverse, the macho effect of breathing smoke or  fire down your nostrils. Again this argument has no substance. A burning  cigarette in the ear would appear ridiculous. How much
more ridiculous to breathe can cer- triggering tars into your lungs.
Some say, 'It is something to do with my hands!' So, why light it?
'It is oral satisfaction,' So, why light it?:
It is the feeling of the smoke going into my lungs.' An awful feeling  - it is called suffocation. Many believe smoking relieves boredom. This is also a fallacy. Bore domis a frame of mind. There is nothing interesting about a cigarette. For thirty - three years my reason was that it relaxed me, gave me confidence and courage. I also knew it was killing me and costing me a  fortune. Why didn't I go to my doctor and ask him for an alternative to  relax me and give me courage and confidence? I didn't go because I knew  he would
suggest an alternative. It wasn't my reason; it was my excuse. Some say they only do it because their friends do it. Are you really that stupid? If so, just pray that your friends do not start cutting their  heads off to cure a headache!
Most smokers who think about it eventually come to the conclusion  that it is just a habit. This isnot really an explanation but, having  discounted all the usual rational explanations, it appears to be the only  remaining excuse. Unfortunately, this explanation is equally illogical.  Every day of ourlives we change habits, and some of them are very  enjoyable. We have been brainwashed to believe that smoking is a habit and that habits are difficult to break. Arc habits difficult to break?
In  the UK we are in the habit of driving on the left side of the road. Yet  when we drive on the Continent or in the States, we immediately break  that, habit with hardly any aggravation whatsoever. It is clearly a fallacy that habits are hard to break. The fact is that we make and break habits every day of our lives. So why do we find it difficult to break a habit that tastes awful, that kills us, that costs us a fortune, that is filthy and disgusting and that we  would love to break anyway, when all we have to do is to stop doing it?  The answer is that smoking is not  habit : IT IS NICOTINE ADDICTION! That is why it appears to be so difficult to 'give up'. Perhaps you  feel this explanation explains why it  is  difficult to 'give up'? It does  explain why most smokers find it difficult to 'give up'. That is because they do not understand drug addiction. The main reason is that smokers are convinced that they get some genuine pleasure and/or crutch from  smoking and believe that they are making a genuine sacrifice if they quit.
The beautiful truth is that once you understand nicotine addiction and the true reasons why you smoke, you will stop doing it just like  that - and within three weeks the only mystery will be why yo \ i found it necessary to smoke as long as you have, and why you cannot persuade other smokers HOW
NICE IT IS TO BE A NON- SMOKER!

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