[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
way: I dive straight in. Now, assuming that I were in a position to insist that if she didn't dive straight
in, she couldn't swim at all. I know that she wouldn't swim at all. You see the problem.
From feedback I know that many smokers have used the original advice I gave on timing to delay
what they think will be the evil day. My next thoughts were to use the technique that I used for the
chapter on the advantages of smoking, something like: 'timing is very important, and in the next
chapter I will advise you about the best time for you to make the attempt/ You turn the page over, and
there is just a huge NOW. That is, in fact, the best advice, but would you take it?
This is the most subtle aspect of the smoking trap. When we have genuine stress in our lives, it's
not the time to stop, and if we have no stress in our lives, we have no desire to stop.
Ask yourself these following questions.
When you smoked that very first cigarette, did you really decide then that you would continue to
smoke the rest of your life, all day, every day, without ever being able to stop?
OF COURSE YOU DIDN'T!
Are you going to continue the rest of your life all day, every day, without ever being able to stop?
OF COURSE YOU AREN'T!
So when will you stop? Tomorrow? Next year? The year after?
79
Isn't this what you've been asking yourself since you first realized you were hooked? Are you hoping
that one morning you will wake up and just not want to smoke any more? Stop kidding yourself. I
waited thirty-three years for it to happen to me. With drug addiction you get progressively more
hooked, not less. You think it will be easier tomorrow? You're still kidding yourself. If you can't do
it today, what makes you think it will be easier tomorrow? Are you going to wait until you've
actually contracted one of the killer diseases? That would be a bit pointless.
The real trap is the belief that now isn't the right time - it will always be easier tomorrow.
We believe that we live stressful lives. In fact, we don't. We've taken most genuine stress out of our
lives. When you leave your home you don't live in fear of being attacked by wild animals. Most of us
don't have to worry where our next meal is coming from, or whether we'll have a roof over our head
tonight. But just think of the life of a wild animal. Every time a rabbit comes out of its burrow, it is
facing Vietnam the whole of its life. But the rabbit can handle it. It's got adrenalin and other hormones
and so have we. The truth is, the most stressful periods for any creature are early childhood and
adolescence. But 3 billion years of natural selection have equipped us to cope with stress. I was five
years old when the war started. We were bombed out, and I was separated from my parents for two
years. I was billeted with people who treated me unkindly. It was an unpleasant period in my life, but I
was able to cope with it. I don't believe it has left me with any permanent scars; on the contrary, I
believe it has made me a stronger person. When I look back on my life there has only been one thing
that I couldn't handle and that was my slavery to that damned weed.
A few years ago I thought I had all the worries in the world. I was suicidal - not in the sense that I
would have jumped off a roof but in the sense that I knew that smoking would soon kill me, I argued
that if this was life with my crutch, life just wouldn't be worth living without it. What I didn't realize
was that when you are physically and mentally depressed everything gets you down. Now I feel like a
young boy again. Only one thing made the change in my life: I'm now out of the smoking pit.
I know it's a cliché to say, 'If you haven't got your health, you've got nothing,' but it's absolutely
true. I used to think that physical-fitness fanatics like Gary Player were a pain. I used to claim there's
more to life than feeling fit; there's booze and tobacco. That's nonsense. When you feel physically
and mentally strong you can enjoy the highs and handle the lows. We confuse responsibility with
stress. Responsibility becomes stressful only when you don't feel strong enough to handle it. The
Richard Burtons of this world are physically and mentally strong. What destroys them is not the
stresses of life, or their jobs, or old age but the so-called crutches they turn to, which are just
illusions. Sadly, in his case and for millions like him, the crutche s kill.
Look at it this way. You've already decided that you are not going to stay in the trap the rest of
your life. Therefore at some time in your life, whether you find it easy or difficult, you will have
to go through the process of getting free. Smoking is not a habit or pleasure. It is drug addiction
and a disease. We've already established that, far from being easier to stop tomorrow, it will get
progressively harder. With a disease that's going to get progressively worse, the time to get rid of
it is NOW - or as near to now as you can manage. Just think how quickly each week of our lives
comes and goes. That's all it takes. Just think how nice it will he to enjoy the rest of your life
without that ever-increasing black shadow hanging over you. And if you follow all my
instructions, you won't even have to wait five days. You won't only find it easy after
extinguishing the final cigarette: YOU'LL ENJOY IT!
80
29 Will I Miss the Cigarette?
No! Once that little nicotine monster is dead and your body stops craving nicotine, any remaining
brainwashing will vanish and you will find that you will be both physically and mentally better
equipped not only to cope with the stresses and strains of life but to enjoy the good times to the
full.
There is only one danger and that is the influence of people who are still smoking. 'The other man's
grass is always greener' is commonplace in many aspects of our lives and is easily understandable.
Why is it in the case of smoking, where the disadvantages are so enormous as compared with even
the illusory 'advantages', that ex-smokers tend to envy the smoker?
With all the brainwashing of our childhood it is quite understandable that we fall into the trap. Why
is it that, once we realize what a mug's game it is and many of us manage to kick the habit, we walk
straight back into the same trap? It is the influence of smokers.
It usually happens on social occasions, particularly after a meal. The smoker lights up and the ex-
smoker has a pang. This is indeed a curious anomaly, particularly if you consider this piece of market
research: not only is every non-smoker in the world happy to he a non-smoker but every smoker in
the world, even with his warped, addicted, brainwashed mind suffering the delusion that he enjoys it
or it relaxes him, wishes he had never become hooked in the first place. So why do some ex-smokers
envy the smoker on these occasions? There are two reasons.
1 'Just one cigarette.' Remember; it doesn't exist. Stop seeing that isolated occasion and start [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl rafalstec.xlx.pl
way: I dive straight in. Now, assuming that I were in a position to insist that if she didn't dive straight
in, she couldn't swim at all. I know that she wouldn't swim at all. You see the problem.
From feedback I know that many smokers have used the original advice I gave on timing to delay
what they think will be the evil day. My next thoughts were to use the technique that I used for the
chapter on the advantages of smoking, something like: 'timing is very important, and in the next
chapter I will advise you about the best time for you to make the attempt/ You turn the page over, and
there is just a huge NOW. That is, in fact, the best advice, but would you take it?
This is the most subtle aspect of the smoking trap. When we have genuine stress in our lives, it's
not the time to stop, and if we have no stress in our lives, we have no desire to stop.
Ask yourself these following questions.
When you smoked that very first cigarette, did you really decide then that you would continue to
smoke the rest of your life, all day, every day, without ever being able to stop?
OF COURSE YOU DIDN'T!
Are you going to continue the rest of your life all day, every day, without ever being able to stop?
OF COURSE YOU AREN'T!
So when will you stop? Tomorrow? Next year? The year after?
79
Isn't this what you've been asking yourself since you first realized you were hooked? Are you hoping
that one morning you will wake up and just not want to smoke any more? Stop kidding yourself. I
waited thirty-three years for it to happen to me. With drug addiction you get progressively more
hooked, not less. You think it will be easier tomorrow? You're still kidding yourself. If you can't do
it today, what makes you think it will be easier tomorrow? Are you going to wait until you've
actually contracted one of the killer diseases? That would be a bit pointless.
The real trap is the belief that now isn't the right time - it will always be easier tomorrow.
We believe that we live stressful lives. In fact, we don't. We've taken most genuine stress out of our
lives. When you leave your home you don't live in fear of being attacked by wild animals. Most of us
don't have to worry where our next meal is coming from, or whether we'll have a roof over our head
tonight. But just think of the life of a wild animal. Every time a rabbit comes out of its burrow, it is
facing Vietnam the whole of its life. But the rabbit can handle it. It's got adrenalin and other hormones
and so have we. The truth is, the most stressful periods for any creature are early childhood and
adolescence. But 3 billion years of natural selection have equipped us to cope with stress. I was five
years old when the war started. We were bombed out, and I was separated from my parents for two
years. I was billeted with people who treated me unkindly. It was an unpleasant period in my life, but I
was able to cope with it. I don't believe it has left me with any permanent scars; on the contrary, I
believe it has made me a stronger person. When I look back on my life there has only been one thing
that I couldn't handle and that was my slavery to that damned weed.
A few years ago I thought I had all the worries in the world. I was suicidal - not in the sense that I
would have jumped off a roof but in the sense that I knew that smoking would soon kill me, I argued
that if this was life with my crutch, life just wouldn't be worth living without it. What I didn't realize
was that when you are physically and mentally depressed everything gets you down. Now I feel like a
young boy again. Only one thing made the change in my life: I'm now out of the smoking pit.
I know it's a cliché to say, 'If you haven't got your health, you've got nothing,' but it's absolutely
true. I used to think that physical-fitness fanatics like Gary Player were a pain. I used to claim there's
more to life than feeling fit; there's booze and tobacco. That's nonsense. When you feel physically
and mentally strong you can enjoy the highs and handle the lows. We confuse responsibility with
stress. Responsibility becomes stressful only when you don't feel strong enough to handle it. The
Richard Burtons of this world are physically and mentally strong. What destroys them is not the
stresses of life, or their jobs, or old age but the so-called crutches they turn to, which are just
illusions. Sadly, in his case and for millions like him, the crutche s kill.
Look at it this way. You've already decided that you are not going to stay in the trap the rest of
your life. Therefore at some time in your life, whether you find it easy or difficult, you will have
to go through the process of getting free. Smoking is not a habit or pleasure. It is drug addiction
and a disease. We've already established that, far from being easier to stop tomorrow, it will get
progressively harder. With a disease that's going to get progressively worse, the time to get rid of
it is NOW - or as near to now as you can manage. Just think how quickly each week of our lives
comes and goes. That's all it takes. Just think how nice it will he to enjoy the rest of your life
without that ever-increasing black shadow hanging over you. And if you follow all my
instructions, you won't even have to wait five days. You won't only find it easy after
extinguishing the final cigarette: YOU'LL ENJOY IT!
80
29 Will I Miss the Cigarette?
No! Once that little nicotine monster is dead and your body stops craving nicotine, any remaining
brainwashing will vanish and you will find that you will be both physically and mentally better
equipped not only to cope with the stresses and strains of life but to enjoy the good times to the
full.
There is only one danger and that is the influence of people who are still smoking. 'The other man's
grass is always greener' is commonplace in many aspects of our lives and is easily understandable.
Why is it in the case of smoking, where the disadvantages are so enormous as compared with even
the illusory 'advantages', that ex-smokers tend to envy the smoker?
With all the brainwashing of our childhood it is quite understandable that we fall into the trap. Why
is it that, once we realize what a mug's game it is and many of us manage to kick the habit, we walk
straight back into the same trap? It is the influence of smokers.
It usually happens on social occasions, particularly after a meal. The smoker lights up and the ex-
smoker has a pang. This is indeed a curious anomaly, particularly if you consider this piece of market
research: not only is every non-smoker in the world happy to he a non-smoker but every smoker in
the world, even with his warped, addicted, brainwashed mind suffering the delusion that he enjoys it
or it relaxes him, wishes he had never become hooked in the first place. So why do some ex-smokers
envy the smoker on these occasions? There are two reasons.
1 'Just one cigarette.' Remember; it doesn't exist. Stop seeing that isolated occasion and start [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]