Speak to Michael Mahoney at Woolston: www.michaelmahoneyhypnotherapist.com/

Speak to Michael Mahoney at Woolston: www.michaelmahoneyhypnotherapist.com/

I found the one I used to have in the shower in the morning the hardest to skip.

Seriously, go with whatever suits you, there really is no 'best way' to quit. I'm on mind altering drugs at the moment having tried everything else. Good luck.

i bought that book and gave up....... until i got to the pub.

To be fair she doesn't drink any more either, alcohol is usually the killer of all goals, i went from 16st to 12st 8lb, didn't eat a single bit of fast food or drink in that period, went on a stag do, all the hard work out the window after that night.

In my experience you have to genuinely want to stop before you even try. I smoked for years and tried giving up many times but could never get past the first few weeks without going back on them.

Five and a half years ago I was sat watching TV with my two and a half year old son playing on the living room floor when I started to feel very strange, especially down my left. My fingers went numb and I felt dizzy when I plucked up enough courage to stand. The Mrs called the doc who advised her to call the ambulance which she did. I genuinely thought I was dying and would never see my son grow up. I had one more fag whilst waiting for the ambulance (at that stage I figured one more wasn't going to tip the scales one way or the other) and I have never smoked since.

After keeping me in overnight and exhaustive tests both at the time and as an outpatient they never did find what was wrong - just put it down to one of those things. Even now, over five years later I still have the odd craving for a fag. I'll never be a non-smoker, just a smoker who doesn't smoke anymore.

My old flatmate from uni was a serious chain smoker, when he finished one he had to light up the next one. The only time he didn't smoke was in bed and even then sometimes he woke up in the middle of the night to have one. In fairness to him, he always went out of the house to smoke so he wasn't inflicting it on us.

He justified his habit to himself by saying he would quit when he turned 25. He'd been saying this for about 6 years, nobody believed him but he was absolutely adamant.

His 25th birthday arrived and he was nervous as anything. He went without a fag that day and was all jittery by the time we went out for his birthday bash, so he allowed himself to have his last set of fags on this night.

The next day he started for good and went through the whole day without a fag. Went through the whole of the next day without a fag.

On the third day he couldn't handle it any more and lit up a fag, but he felt so disgusted with himself and so much of a failure he couldn't even bring himself to finish the fag. That was his Eureka moment and he never got tempted again after that, despite the cravings, because the feeling of failing on a long term plan that he'd told everyone about was worse than the cravings, he just said he physically couldn't look at a cig any more without feeling sick. He couldn't watch anyone else smoking any more because it brought back those same feelings of failure.

In the end he did incredibly well and has never smoked since which is amazing since he was a 60+ a day and pretty much went cold turkey, the odd thing is he still feels a bit of shame at 'failing' to give up smoking at 25, just because he had that fag!