At some point, I had an established new hobby i enjoyed (running), i knew that smoking was holding me back, and i had a partial coping mechanism for dealing with craving and depression that comes with stopping.
10 years later, I still run, and I'm still happy with the tradeoff on my level of fitness, which is something that helps remind me of why I stopped when I have a craving.
(I know a lot of people don't like running, but my takeaway I think is that it's better to focus on a new hobby / habit and establish new patterns while still smoking and then try and quit, vs just stopping and then trying to fill the void after). I hope this makes it sound less hopeless.
I think the post was directed at non-smokers, to scare them into not starting to smoke.
Isn't that tautological?
My sample size here is extremely small – I know of three people who have used the method (2 read the book, 1 took the seminar) and all three were successes. I don't know of anyone who's done it that hasn't succeeded, but I expect there are tons of those. People who believe in it because it's worked for them are much more likely to speak broadly and loudly about it.
I also think it's really unhelpful to talk about quitting smoking in such hopeless terms. If I was still a smoker, being told I was inevitably going to be craving cigarettes for the rest of my life might almost convince me not to quit at all.
It doesn't have to be this way.
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