Smoking: The Secret Art Of Stopping
By Stephen Ross
()
About this ebook
Are you, or a loved one, desperate to stop smoking once and for all? Do you think you will never stop? In: “Smoking - The Secret Art Of Stopping”, Stephen Ross shows how he, and his friends quit after thirty years of chain smoking, with minimum drama, little effort, and absolutely no willpower! Based on the principles of Sun Tzu’s “The Art Of War”, this book takes everything you thought you knew about stopping smoking, and turns it upside down. Creating nothing less than a radically new way of stopping smoking, Ross takes hypnotic literature to a whole new level, showing how the power of words and beliefs have led you to believe that you are a life long smoker - when the exact opposite is true! He tells you more than any doctor about the physiology and psychology of smoking, in a way that is easy to understand, and at the same time, reveals that the true secret of stopping smoking lies in how you turn that knowledge to your advantage. If you finally want to quit easily, with little effort, and absolutely NO willpower, please read this e-book all the way through. Costing less than the price of one pack of cigarettes, it will be the best money you have EVER spent!
Stephen Ross
Stephen Ross practiced law until retiring in 2017. His first novella, MEMOIR FROM HELL, received the 2019 Reader Views Reviewers Choice Award and the 2019 Independent Author Network Book of the Year Finalist Award. It was praised by Reader Views as “realistic and genuine ... the ending is dramatic and haunting,” and by author Anthony Avina as “an emotionally charged novel that needs to be read.” Stephen’s other work includes, POWER LUST, a legal and political thriller set in California, and a supernatural thriller, THE VISITOR. Born in Iowa and raised in Nebraska, Stephen now lives in San Diego, California. When he’s not writing, he enjoys reading, hiking, camping, and movies. He can be reached via his website at www.stephenrossauthor.com on Facebook at www.facebook.com/stephenrosswriter, on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-ross-639114105, and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/stephenross48.
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Book preview
Smoking - Stephen Ross
Chapter One
Preparation
Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win
.
Sun Tzu,
The Art Of War
.
As we begin, it’s vitally important that you understand this:
You do not have to stop smoking while you read these words.
In fact, it’s much wiser if you continue to smoke while you read, unless you decide otherwise. The choice as to when you stop smoking is entirely yours.
This is vitally important, and worth repeating.
The choice as to when you stop smoking is entirely yours.
Why is this so important?
Because one of the greatest myths about stopping smoking, and one of the greatest obstacles to success, is the notion that you can stop smoking FOR someone else, or be told to stop smoking BY someone else.
Every smoker hates being told to stop. Especially by a non-smoker!
Smokers see smoking as an act of self expression. A freedom to choose. (This idea of smoking as an act of ‘freedom’ is a cheap con trick we will examine later, in more detail).
But for now, let’s get one thing clear.
The decision to stop is wholly yours, and yours alone.
This is your journey, your way forward, your campaign.
And I use that last word most advisedly, because the first secret I want to share is this. Your whole process of stopping smoking should be viewed, from start to finish, as exactly that.
A campaign.
Throughout this book, you will notice a few military words and phrases used again and again. They have been chosen for a very important reason - to illustrate one of the primary secrets of the art of stopping smoking. It is summed up in the quotation at the top of this page, made by one of the most successful military leaders of all time, the Chinese general and philosopher, Sun Tzu. Author of the seminal military text The Art Of War
, Sun Tzu based his all conquering military success around an ancient idea which still rings true today:
Fail to prepare, and prepare to fail
.
It is the actual nature of this preparation that is key to successfully stopping smoking. And like eating a hearty breakfast to set you up for the day, or exercising for good health, reading this book actually constitutes that preparation.
Before anything else, preparation is the key to success
.
Alexander Graham Bell
As with any campaign, the first step is a deep recognition of the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy. And, with regard to cigarettes, your first recognition should be this:
Many of the things you have been told about smoking are almost certainly untrue.
Since the first human being thought it was a fabulous idea to cram the leaves of a strange smelling plant into a pipe and set fire to it, smoking has been surrounded by exaggeration, folk tales, and mythology. We’ve heard many before. Let’s list a few:
Nicotine is more addictive than heroin
.
My friend has never been in good health since he/she stopped smoking
.
I smoke to relax, I’m usually too hyper
.
Cigarettes aid my concentration
.
Smoking helps to keep the weight off
.
Most of you are familiar with these old chestnuts. They’ve passed into the folklore of smoking. And that’s exactly the point. Smoking is not just surrounded by these statements.
It is practically defined by them.
Many of them, examined closely, are complete nonsense. They’re just myths.
But they are very powerful myths - a vital part of the process that leads you to pick up that cigarette and light it in the first place. And to keep on doing it, again and again.
And, even worse, these myths then begin to convince you there is no way that you can ever stop.
In short, these myths practically are smoking!
How the heck did that happen?
Because we live in an age of science, we have a preoccupation with corroborating our myths
.
Michael Shermer
From air travel to men on the moon, from deep sea exploration to nano technology, from the rise of medicine to the dominance of the internet, science defines and informs our 21st century life. Everything seems to need scientific explanation - even our myths.
Let’s take one of the more powerful, well established smoking myths usually presented as scientific fact.
Smoking is an addiction.
Now, we’ve all read and heard the debates. Many scientists actually argue that cigarettes are non-addictive - but a far greater number argue that they are. Some concentrate on the different criteria within addiction, for example craving, tolerance, and intoxication. Most conclude, and then argue relentlessly, that cigarettes are strongly addictive.
I don’t believe this. Not for a second. And neither should you.
That is not to say that smoking is not at all addictive. From the sheer numbers who continue to smoke worldwide, it would be crazy to deny there is a certain level of addiction involved. However, this is not the major problem. The problem is the way in which those who argue that smoking is addictive go on to exaggerate the strength of that addiction. They constantly say things like;
Nicotine is harder to quit than heroin
,
or;
Cigarettes are so addictive, they open a window in your mind which means that you will never be able to quit
.
These statements are simply not true.
Experts in the field look at several criteria when determining what addiction is. Amongst them, they look at the level of intoxication or ‘high’ that the drug in question produces, and the severity of withdrawal from that drug.
The fact is, on both those measures, nicotine scores remarkably low.
Most smokers, whilst smoking, deny this. They speak of the incredible ‘buzz’ they feel when they light a cigarette. They then go on say how difficult withdrawal from nicotine is, because they cannot cope without that buzz.
The actual facts suggest quite the opposite.
If the question is how much ‘buzz’ does nicotine produce, say, in relation to heroin or cocaine, nicotine is not even in the same category. Dr. Lynn T. Koslowski, an addiction expert at Pennsylvania State University, confirms what heroin addicts, and alcoholics who also smoke, have known for years. He states;
It's not that cigarettes are without pleasure, but that pleasure is not in the same ball park with heroin
.
In a league table devised by Dr. Jack E. Henningfield of the National American Institute on Drug Abuse, on an intoxication or ‘buzz’ scale of 1 to 6 - with 6 being the least serious, guess what nicotine scored?
Just 5!
Cocaine scored 3, heroin 2, and alcohol came right in at the top, a clear winner in the ‘buzz’ stakes at number 1.
Now, if the physical buzz from nicotine is just a lowly five, then it follows, logically, that withdrawal from nicotine is not even in the same ball park as that from heroin, or alcohol.
As a smoker, you know that’s true. It’s a fact, not a myth.
For example, we’ve all heard of, and some of us have been unfortunate to have seen, the awful delirium tremens associated with giving up heroin or booze. The shakes, the violent retching, the psychotic hallucinations. Addicts who quite literally crawl up walls trying to quit, smash their skulls against drunk tank doors, tear their hair out, or are hideously sick.
People who burst blood vessels in their noses and mouths through violent vomiting, alcoholics, whilst going ‘cold turkey’, injected with librium to calm them down. Heroin users who, on ceasing, immediately end up with diarrhea, involuntary muscle spasms, and freezing, horrendous bone pain.
When was the last time you heard of a cigarette smoker experiencing any of those symptoms whilst trying to stop?
The true answer is, you haven’t.
Because medically, when you stop smoking, those symptoms don’t exist.
And any smoker who tells you any different is either lying, exaggerating, or has had different and more complex issues whilst trying to stop smoking.
(If you think about it, many of those who exaggerate the addictive qualities of smoking are usually smokers who have failed to stop, or people who have never smoked).
What they are doing is repeating those myths again. Important stories, powerful stories, but stories nonetheless. They are, wittingly or unwittingly, passing on all the asides, whispers, and apocryphal untruths about how hard it is to stop smoking when, in reality, it isn’t.
Why do they do this? Why corroborate myths and stories with so called ‘facts’ that turn out, on closer examination, to be simply more myths?
Well, let’s be honest, all smokers do it. I once argued passionately to a friend that I would not only physically fall apart if I stopped smoking, I would probably actually die. I’d heard