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Comment by pandoro | Hacker News Reader

I can recommend to read Allen Carr's "Easyway to stop smoking" if you haven't already. I had been smoking for 15 years total as well, tried to stop at least 6 times (sometimes for 18 months, with the help of Nicorette and e-cigs) and was telling myself "today is the last day" every single day. But I was constantly tempted and was always picking it up again. A lot of ex-smokers I knew kept recommending me this book with almost magical claims. I finally begrudgingly read it and stopped from one day to the next. The craziest thing is that it was actually easy to stop this time and gave me great satisfaction. I have stopped for 2 years now and am confident that I will never smoke again (contrary to all other attempts).

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I'm not a smoker, but know many, many people who are legitimately addicted to tobacco. What is it about the content of this book that made such a change in you? I'd love to hear about your experience - it sounds like an extraordinary approach if it indeed works as well as you're saying, which makes me think it's some kind of written neurolinguistic programming thing, a technique that could be helpful in a lot of other situations.

I don't smoke, but my understanding of that book is that it basically reprograms your associations re: smoking and quitting smoking.

Before you read that book, quitting smoking is perceived as a loss of something that made you feel good. The permanence of this loss -- the anticipation of living the rest of your life without this source of comfort -- leads to cravings.

What the Carr book does is install a new set of associations: smoking is disgusting and your life is going to be so much better once you free yourself from this completely unnecessary weight that's been dragging you down. Instead of viewing quitting as the loss of something good, you learn to view it as the act of freeing yourself from something bad. Now, when you think about a future without smoking, the anticipation is positive: you get to live the rest of your life without this terrible thing intefering with it! And all you have to do is just stop doing it! Sure, you might have a little bit of physical withdrawal for a little while, but isn't that worth it to be permanently free of this awful thing that's been ruining your life?

That's the basic gist, as far as I can tell. In a way, it's just about being optimistic about a life without cigarettes instead of pessimistic.

That's a very good summary of the approach. It stems from the observation that every single smoker already know about all the reasons they should not smoke (health, financial, social,...) yet they still do it.

You know it's probably going to kill you, you know it costs a lot of money and you know it's anti-social. The book wastes no time trying to convince you about those things. However, it dispels in a very systematic and repetitive way all the positive myths you believe (or repeat to yourself) about cigarettes ("the brainwashing"). It does not actually relax you or bring you pleasure, it just relieves a nicotine addiction and allow you to get back to a state you already had before smoking. It does not taste good. It does not help you focus. Nicotine withdrawal is actually extremely mild. Etc.

As the parent comment explains it's a re-framing, a change of paradigm. By the end of the book I could very clearly see that quitting would not be a sacrifice or "a pleasure i would loose" but something that would make my life better. And to be honest, this has felt like magic. A few days after finishing the book I just threw my pack in the trash and it really has been easy and at times actually even pleasant to quit. Every cigarette you do not smoke brings you a feeling of pride, accomplishment and liberation.

“This Naked Mind” by Annie Grace takes a similar approach with alcohol.

Thank you for this comment, as a non smoker, not fat person, this is probably the most helpful comment of the week ! I made a [Ask HN] post [1], to solicit further tips.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32720738

Congratulations! What clicked for you from reading this book compared to everything else?

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