My Love, Please Stop Smoking!

Your Way out of the Labyrinth…

A Website Empowering Those Who Would!

You are not really stuck but it seems like it. Why? Because of the many promises you have made and broken. What promises? The thousands of times you told yourself you would stop - when the exam is over, when Mary calls a halt to visiting her parents, when winter is finally over, when Spring is here! The excuses are as many as there are smokers, as many as the websites promising to help you stop smoking. Think of how many quit smoking products there are. Confusing, isn't it? There are even more quit smoking programs, quit smoking methods, quitting smoking plans, quit smoking benefits...

If you type 'smoking cessation' into the websites of mass distributors like Barnes and Noble, or Amazon, you will find thousands of articles to read, thousands more meticulous discussions and probing studies that cover every conceivable aspect of nicotine addiction: from quit smoking side effects to in-depth statistical studies relating multiple forms of cancer to smoking - in fact there are so many smoking tips, if you'll pardon the expression, you could easily spend the rest of your life studying the smoking habit - which, alas will not make you any the wiser, since while you were leafing through the myriad studies and statistical surveys, you would have gone on smoking just like you are doing now and have been for years.

The labyrinth of confusion the smoking habit is made of are all the reasons you give yourself to postpone stopping. All these excuses correspond directly to the physical tweaks nicotine sets off while your body rids itself of the nicotine residues (along with the nicotine's numerous allies) that the last cigarette you smoked left behind. During the process of your body's trying to rid itself of the last one, the pleasure centers in your brain cry out for more, for a replacement; and the excuses you generate for 'just one more wee cigarette' are your mind's response to what you feel is happening within you.

All of the reasons you give yourself to continue smoking are answers your mind invents to cope with the physical events you notice grinding on inside while the effects of the last smoke are fading. It is an everlasting barrage of excuses that support your smoking just one more cigarette. The constancy of it is what makes you think you cannot stop. But notice: it follows that once you are rid of the excuses you will be rid of the habit as well! You like to tell yourself you've tried very hard to stop but you haven't, not really! You are lying while you pretend you're not; and precisely this is the labyrinth you're in! The sheer weight of continuing to smoke convinces you you cannot stop – you will call in God as your witness: you have so honestly, so often tried...

Meanwhile at the Bar:

On a Hot Summer Evening

Danny tells me Fascinating Things!

Danilo Villani gave me a quizzical look. A brilliant man, he is a contractor who skillfully guides his own construction firm. In his hand, he held a slender book, which he thrust in my direction. Glancing down, I noticed the title: The Easy Way to Stop Smoking by Allan Carr. Standing in the middle of the Iudici Club, I was nursing a drink they call “una bicicletta.” They make the “bicycle” I was riding (or was it riding me?) by mixing Campari with white wine; the concoction seemed like a good idea at the time. The day had been a long, hot one!

Urging me to thumb through his book, Danilo remained silent. When he could no longer contain himself, he said “It’s your method of quitting, isn’t it?”

I had leafed through most of it. It was my method of quitting, all right (Danilo and I had talked about it before). The writing was witty, pithy and to the point – at least in the places I had managed to glance through. I nodded, and gave Danilo his book back.

“I’m supposed to go to a therapy group tonight,” he offered. “I’ve already paid €150 for it but I don’t want to go.” He lowered his voice, “Arianna told me Carr has sold more than 3,000,000 copies of this,” he fanned his fingers out in direction of the book. “Why don’t you publish yours and give me a copy? I want to quit without having to go to a therapy group. Staying away tonight will come as a disappointment to Arianna, I’m afraid.” Arianna was a once-local girl who had moved to England and married. I caught myself wondering if they were having a “thing?” In any event, Danilo was asking me to publish my manuscript, my account of how to stop smoking from inside a smoker’s skin. Autobiographical, what bonds the reader with the text is self-examination; the book presents smokers with their own rationalizations – home-made evasions that keep the habit going. First and chief among them is the thought that stopping must be very painful…

The truth is quitting smoking is pure relief and nothing but relief!

The psychology of tobacco addiction is a tracery of evasions: smokers will do almost anything to stop themselves from realizing the extent to which their addiction has done them in; their rationalizations are the direct result of physical changes their bodies have sustained. The addicts, meanwhile, fastidiously deny every scrap of evidence of this. Without anyone mentioning it, Eleanor will tell you she is wheezing today because of a high humidity index! She saw it on the news!

Smokers are fully capable of dealing with the myths that keep them going; what one has invented one may just as easily rid oneself of. Being conscious means knowing one’s own mind; Eleanor is capable of seeing through her rationalizations because every one of them is hers.

What? Me Read a book about Quitting Smoking?

C'mon, you must be kidding!

Reading about stopping smoking is like eating sawdust! Yuck! Why not pop a pleasant piece of nicotine gum onto your tongue instead? Or Patches, there you are! I remember well that in my forlorn "I'd love to stop smoking" days, I used to chomp on pieces of chewing gum. I felt like a cow but desperate (which cows don't seem to be). It was not the desperation but the endless chewing that made my jaws ache so I'd reach out for a well-deserved, health-giving cigarette - just to give my aching jaws a moment's rest, mind you! Here we go again: God knows! I tried!

Truth is, if someone gave you a dollar every time the thought “I’ll quit!” flies through your mind, you would not want for money, but note: instead of taking this seriously you say, “Tomorrow!” and let your money jingle merrily down the metal throat of the cash box in your friendly cigarette machine just down the block from home! Oh me, oh my!

You must be kidding! There are so many ways, all of them easier than reading, to overcome the nasty feeling that goes with nicotine withdrawal: you put quit smoking patches on, think carefully about smoking addiction, talk to yourself about why smoking is bad; you list reasons to stop smoking, studying how to overcome nicotine withdrawal symptoms to find the perfect way to quit smoking forever. "I'll do it tomorrow," you cry! "Maybe joining a stop smoking support group is the answer (there are lots of them out there). No problem! There are all kinds of stop smoking aids! Second hand smoking is obviously terrible; all the smoking risks mean you've got to get away... The effects of smoking, the facts about smoking balanced against a million tips to quit smoking - they make trying to quit smoking so confusing! Poor me! Quit smoking today is the only answer! Problem is, you've told yourself this so often in the past, now haven't you? You tell yourself you just need to find the right help to stop smoking and what happens when you stop smoking will just have to sort itself out, so there! Thinking a mile a minute off you go on that hopeful, giddy ride you been on so many times before. Doesn't it usually wind up with a sigh of relief that everything will turn out all right and then, when you feel much better again (the future looks rosy!), you fire up another cigarette?

Cheer up! C'mon, you can smoke while you read!

There are lots of things people are ready to sell you to make you stop: the things I've listed and thousands more, including pendulums, gongs and bells – you name it, but the simple truth is you can quit smoking all by yourself! No giving up, no ways to stop are needed for you to do what actually comes naturally; the proof of this is all the time you lived without smoking a single cigarette. Remember, now, just for a second: this is how you lived, without a cloud in the sky, for years before you started smoking. When you smoked is when you let nicotine take hold and addict you!

There are many who are happy to help!

A Testimonial

“My Love, Please Stop Smoking! Your Way out of the Labyrinth… speaks to smokers in understanding and down to earth language. For the many millions of smokers throughout the world who would like to quit smoking but find it hard to do so, Mr. Mueller’s book will be a breath of fresh air.”