September is the new January

I was listening to the radio the other day (I think it was September 1st) when the presenter's guest did something amazing. She reflected my own thoughts almost to the letter.

She was musing on the idea that September is a time for new starts.

How true. September is the start of the new academic year. As a proud father, it's my pleasure to be tooting around looking for new items my children will need in school this year. An expensive hobby, but a good one. They themselves feel another year older, new subjects, teachers, for my eldest, her first year at High School.

September marks the end of the summer, the holiday period is over. A new season begins and we shed our T shirts for something a little warmer.

Life gets underway again.

As a reader of this newsletter I imagine you may be considering quitting smoking. People say to me all the time - 'I think I will wait until January, a new start, a new year.'

Very often I do not hear from those people again. It is an excuse to put off quitting brought on by the fear of doing so.

So why not let September be your new January?

Good luck and we hope to see you soon.

What is the use of running if you are on the wrong road?

I see that more than a billion people now are governed by laws requiring large, graphic warnings on cigarette packets warning of the dangers of smoking.

Is smoking dangerous? Oh my God! Thanks for telling me, I was born yesterday.

I have seen 4000 smokers now in my career as a Stop Smoking Therapist and never has a single one been forced to stop smoking because of graphic images.

If you smoke and you are constantly reminded of what smoking does to you, it makes you anxious, insecure. What does that make you want to do?

SMOKE SOME MORE!!

That's the nature of the addiction. In addition to this, the more intelligent people are cajoled into doing something, the less likely they are to do it. That's the nature of mankind.

Addiction and the human psyche are very complex issues and you can't change someone's perception with a sledgehammer.

If you want to help someone stop smoking, make sure they WANT to quit first, and then show them that any pleasures they perceive from smoking are illusions based on the fact that they are suffering a drug addiction.

You can run as fast as you like, but if you are on the wrong road all it will do is get you further from where you want to be.

Smoking monkey with a hangover

I had the pleasure of helping some more smokers in Liverpool get out of the smoking trap today. We talked briefly about the amount of brainwashing which occurs and latent advertising through tools such as product placement.

Which reminds me, I felt like some mindless cinema last night so I went with a friend to go and see Hangover 2 - the first one was hilarious and I was looking forward to it.

Don't waste your money, never have I seen such an insipid sequel.

To add insult to injury (to my wallet) I was appalled to see the blatant glamourisation of smoking and implied abuse when a monkey was seen smoking. The monkey was made to look 'cute' smoking, a blatant message to potential young users that smoking is cool and harmless.

On top of this there appeared to be no concern whatsoever for the abuse of the money character who wasn't making an informed choice about smoking.

It's all made to seem so trivial - if you know me you know that irreverence is my middle name but this is trivialising a drug which kills 130,000 a year in the UK. Of course, the tobacco industry is aware that it eventually kills off its own consumers so it spends millions on stunts like these aimed at making smoking looking cool and cute and therefore attracting young new drug addicts.

As usual, they have blood on their hands.

British American Tobacco

I note with some interest that BAT have admitted to funding the National Federation of Retail Newsagents' high profile campaign against a government ban on cigarette displays in shops.

In a letter to Labour MP Kevin Barron, BAT confirmed: "We have provided financial assistance to the NFRN in relation to this campaign." However, BAT denied it used "underhand tactics" or that the federation was a front for the company.

This nightmare goes on. There is no other product available in the UK which, if you follow the instructions for consumption will kill half of its consumers.

Under international guidelines, the UK government is obliged to ensure the drafting of all legislation is free from tobacco industry influence.

BAT's admission has prompted Barron to write to the Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, warning the government's commitment to tobacco control "is being undermined by covert lobbying by the tobacco industry".

I had a client this week who took the option of attending our second booster session as provided under the money back guarantee of Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking. This lady visited me at my home as she had to have the session so as not to alert her partner, who does not know she still smokes.

She is intelligent and successful but DESPERATE to stop smoking. A 40 year old woman in tears at the thought of continuing to smoke, leading a life secret from her partner.

Yet still these legalised drug dealers continue to do whatever it takes to encourage smokers to take more drugs in the full knowledge that it will eventually kill them.

If that shouldn't be described as 'criminal' - I don't know what should.

Enjoy having a non smoke...

My clients often ask me, during a session, what they should do when they see groups of smokers outside having a chat in the sunshine, apparently enjoying themselves. Sometimes a recent stopper can fall into the trap of feeling envious when seeing their pals out choking themselves.

I tell them to enjoy having a non smoke! Enjoy the fact that while the weather is good (like today) you can go out and breathe in huge lungfuls of uncontaminated air, the very lifeblood of human existence, without having the worry about the black cloud looming above you full of fears about what smoking is doing for you.

My favourite author, Kurt Vunnegut Jr, says this: when you're having just a normal, ordinary time with no worries, just stop and ask yourself - if this isn't good, what is?

Go outside today and enjoy the sunshine and most of all, enjoy having a non smoke.

Then ask yourself, if this isn't good, what is?

Cigarettes are my friends....

Cigarettes are my friends...I hear this many time in our clinics.

We have now started Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking Clinics in The Wirral, in order to better serve the people living south of the River Mersey, not just those living north who attend the Knowsley Clinic.

I was there on Sunday and met a lovely gentleman who said that when had previously quit just using willpower, it was this feeling of loss of a friend which had made him crave cigarettes when watching smokers.

After a short discussion he came to the conclusion that should he make friends with any of the other clients there that day, if he then discovered that due to some weird curse half of their friends would end up dead and ALL of that person's friends would be at least injured, he probably wouldn't want to be friends with that person.

The gentleman is now a non smoker since his realisation that cigarettes are not your litte friend, they are your enemy, a bully.

I remember when the school bully got kicked out of the building.

It was a great day.

You learn something new (about smoking) every day

I remember Allen said this to me once - he said that years after he stopped smoking that he learned something new about smoking every day.

I have to admit I wondered what he meant, how could you learn something new about smoking every single day? Having met about 4,000 smokers now as a therapist I do now know what he meant.

Although clients learn from me every single day as the mouthpiece for Allen's method, I also learn from the clients about smoking, aspects which may not have been observed by me when I was a smoker.

For example, a fine gentleman who attended a corporate session I conducted at Ball Packaging came to me at the end and said one thing which stuck out for him was the isolation of smoking. I assumed he meant that by going out in the cold smokers isolated themselves from others.

Actually what he meant was that he and his wife would often go out with two other couples, 5 out of the party of 6 were smokers. He would feel guilt and shame, not for smoking but for the fact that his wife was sat inside with no one to talk to, feeling a little like a lemon! Although she never complained, this man was overjoyed at the fact she would never be left on her own again, as he knows he will never smoke again.

Thanks for the lesson!