Smoking and weight gain

A question that is often asked is "Will I gain weight if I quit smoking?" The honest answer to this is, there is a chance it could happen. The majority of smokers who quit see little or no weight gain, but an unfortunate few have been known to put on 3kg's or more.

It is thought the longer and the amount someone has smoked, the more likely the chances are they will gain weight. There are other factors as well, such as lifestyle and genetics.

There are a few reasons as to why some people gain weight after they quit smoking.

Firstly, years of smoking has a dulling effect on the taste buds. After smoking has ceased, the taste buds can regain full tasting ability. This may lead to overeating as it becomes more pleasurable.

Secondly your body burns up approx 200 calories a day trying to rid your body of the poisons that smoking puts into it. When you quit those extra calories need to be burned, otherwise they may be stored as fat.

Thirdly, people have been known to substitute cigarettes with food. Eating food is a good way of replicating the hand to the mouth habit that has been picked up from smoking. It is a habit that some smokers find hard to break

So what is the best way to ensure that you don’t gain weight after you quit smoking?

When you decide to quit, it needs to be more than just stopping smoking. The main reason people cite for wanting to quit smoking is for their health, well if that’s the case than why not make other healthy lifestyle changes too. These should include,

Eating healthier: Add more fruit and vegetables into your diet. Fill your fridge and cupboards with high protein, low fat, low calorie snacks instead of salty, sugary ones. Don’t avoid bad foods altogether but restrict them to once a week. Eating good, nutritious foods will also help your body repair any damage that had been sustained from smoking.

Exercising more: Just 30 minutes a day of solid aerobic exercise (jogging, biking, sport etc) will burn up those extra 200 calories. Add a regular exercise program into your weekly routine. If you already exercise you may need to step it up a notch. Make healthier choices such as biking, not driving to work, take the stairs not the elevator etc.

When my partner and I stopped smoking we decided we were going to change our whole lifestyle into a much healthier one. We keep this lifestyle today and we will keep it for the rest of our lives. When I think back to my smoking days, I am looking back at a totally different person. I am now smoke free, weigh less, have more energy and feel the healthiest I have ever been.

When you decide to quit smoking, decide to change your lifestyle into a healthier one too. That way there is no chance you will be one of those unfortunate ex-smokers who put on weight.

Cutting Down on Cigarettes-Does it work?

Cutting down on cigarettes in order to help us quit. Many of us have tried this method, and for 99.9% of us it simply didn't work.

Sounds good in theory doesn't it? "By cutting down the number of cigarettes I have each day it will help my mind and body get used to going without for long periods". That's the problem with theories, they don't always work when put into practice.

So why is cutting down a sure way to lose the quit smoking battle? The idea is to put you in control, right?

Sorry but cutting down does the exact opposite, it in fact puts the cigarette in control.

Look at it this way.

Imagine you usually have a cigarette once every hour but you want to quit so decide to cut down. Smoking half as much seems like a good place to start so one cigarette every two hours it is. You have just put out your last hourly cigarette and now begins the two hours until your next one. What might happen?

• 30 minutes later: The first thoughts of your next cigarette come creeping into your head, no biggy though, you are sure you can last another 90 minutes.
• 60 minutes later: You would normally have your next ciggie around this time, the urge to have one is very strong. But you are committed right, you want to quit. Just one hour to go, boy you hope it goes fast.
  
• 80 minutes later: WHAT, how can only 20 minutes have gone by. You really want that cigarette now, in fact it is getting hard to concentrate on anything else. You reach for the packet, NO WAIT, you can hold out for 40 minutes, surely.
  
• 100 minutes later: Boy oh boy its getting hard, you cant stop looking at the clock, you have already checked that it is working properly but you check again to make sure. You get the packet and lighter out ready to go.
  
• 115 minutes later: CIGARETTE, CIGARETTE,CIGARETTE
• 12o minutes later: You finally get to light up and puff away, it is one of the best cigarettes you have ever had. Ahhhhh that is so good.

Now the two hour wait begins all over again.

• 30 minutes later: The first thoughts of your next cigarette come creeping into your head, no biggy though, you are sure you can last another 90 minutes.
• 60 minutes later: Ahhhh stuff it, I'm not going through that again. You light up and the theory hasn't worked. You don't bother trying again.
  

The idea was to put yourself in control but unfortunately all you have done is given the cigarette all the power. It has been put up on a pedestal and now instead of it being just another cigarette it has becomes a special and valued one.

If you are looking to quit smoking, cutting down is not a method I would recommend. Try a system that puts you in control, not the cigarette.

Tips for Giving Up Smoking

Every man and his dog can give you tips for quitting smoking, I will give you only one.

Never think of it as "giving up". This is a a very popular term and I have a big problem with it. Why? Because it has a real negative vibe, when in fact stopping smoking should be a really positive experience. I think this is a major reason as to why thousands of people fail to quit, they go into the process with negative thoughts and feelings right from the beginning.

I was once a smoker and just like a lot of you out there I was always saying to myself "I will give up soon". Unfortunately "soon" didn't arrive until 4 long years later. Why, because I kept telling myself that I needed to give up, I was putting myself into a negative frame of mind right from the start.

It wasn't until I eliminated the thought that I was giving something up, that I actually did quit.

This may sound strange at first but in order to successfully quit you need to be 100% positive about it. The fact of the matter is being smoke-free is a really positive experience and it needs to be thought of in this way. You are not giving anything up at all, it is in fact the exact opposite, you are gaining by no longer smoking.

What do you gain by no longer smoking:

• Your Health: It has been proven that overtime the health affects of smoking can be reversed, adding years to your life compared to if you kept smoking.
• Improved Hygiene: You and your clothes no longer reek of disgusting cigarette smoke and your fingers and teeth lose their yellow tinge.
  
• Money: If you are a pack a day smoker at a cost of $10 dollars a pack, you will save yourself $3650 in the first year alone.
  
• Time: A cigarette takes about 5 minutes to smoke. This may not seem like a long time but it all adds up. If you smoke 20 cigarettes a day thats 100 minutes taken up by smoking. What other productive things could you use that time for, work, play, time with friends and family.
• Pride: This was a big one for me as I wanted to be able to tell my friends and family that I had overcome this obstacle. I wanted them to be proud of me but most of all I wanted to be proud about myself.
  

The best tip I could ever give you about how to quit smoking is to not think of it as giving up at all. Instead think of everything you will gain and you will succeed.

Smoking Quit Tips: When Drinking

When you are trying to quit smoking, one of the biggest obstacles you will find is alcohol. I am a former smoker myself and I know that when you have a drink in one hand you are likely to have a cigarette in the other. The two do literally go hand in hand. In this article I would like to give you some smoking quit tips for when you are drinking.

To me quitting smoking was much easier than I expected it to be, I would go days and weeks without touching a cigarette. That was until I started to have a couple of Bourbon and Cokes, then I couldn't find my smoking buddies fast enough in order to pinch one of their ciggies.

The obvious solution to this is to not drink while you are trying to quit smoking. You could try and find reasons not drink such as being the designated driver or having family or work commitments the next day. Because the quitting process may take a few months and you still want to have a good time with your friends this will not always be a realistic solution. Here are some ideas on things you can do to avoid the dreaded cigarette while you are drinking.

• Don't go overboard, try to restrict yourself to a few drinks. The more drinks you have, the harder it will be to say no.

• Try to keep focused on the reasons why you trying to quit. Don't obsess on these thoughts as it may ruin your night, just give yourself occasional reminders. Again the more you drink, the harder it will be to focus.

• Try to avoid your smoking friends when drinking. This doesn't mean staying away from them at all times but just while they are smoking. Hang out with your non-smoking friends instead. Your smoking friends wont resent you for this, they wish they could give up like you.

• When at bars and clubs avoid the designated smoking areas at all costs.

• If you associate a certain drink with smoking (like I do with bourbon and coke) then try a different drink instead.

• We know that hang-overs are caused by dehydration, not only from the drinking but from the smoking also. If you have stopped smoking for a while then the dehydration effect of cigarettes becomes much worse. If you have a night out of both drinking and smoking than you will pay big time the next morning. Trust me, I have experienced this for myself and I now use it as motivation to not smoke while I'm drinking.
  

Without doubt the hardest time I had quitting smoking was when I was having a few drinks. By using the above tips I have managed to overcome this obstacle and now no longer get those urges after a few drinks. I hope you can do the same

The After Effects of Smoking

We all know that smoking harms you and the people that you smoke around but something that is not as commonly documented is the after effects of smoking on your loved ones. You may be the one with the physical pain but it is your family who have to deal with the agonising emotional pain. I would like to share with you a story that is sad for me to tell.

I have been very lucky so far in my life in the fact that I haven't had many people who I am very close to, die. The closest person to me who has died is my Uncle Brian and he passed away last year at the age of 64. Uncle Brian was a heavy smoker and had been so since his teens. He was one of the smokers whose mentality was 'I will never give up'.

Well, one day my Uncle Brian did give up, the day he was diagnosed with cancer. The cancer was the direct result from all those years of smoking cigarettes. In the just under a year he managed to hold onto his life he didn't touch another cigarette.

The hardest thing for my family was having to watch Brian slowly deteriorate over that year. He has so much to live for, a loving wife and family, many friends and was actively involved in sport and social clubs. He did his best to live for as long as possible not only for himself but for everyone around him. He had to live that last year of his life wishing he had never smoked that first cigarette and hoping that a miracle would save his life.

That miracle never came and his funeral was one of the saddest days of my life. My Dad is Uncle Brian's younger brother and the two were very close. Dad wrote a eulogy for the funeral but only managed to say a few sentences before being overcome with grief. It was the saddest thing I have ever witnessed. Something that will always stick in my mind is something that Dad said to me a few days after the funeral. "We should have at least 10 more years of Brian in our lives"

To those of you out there who think that you cant quit then trust me when I say you can. You just haven't found the right motivation yet. Why not use your family, friends, all the people that love you as the motivation you need. Just imagine you are lying in a hospital bed, you are very sick and don't have long to live, all thanks to smoking. All your friends and family are standing around the bed crying wishing this wasn't happening. Think about that deep sad look on their faces.

Now imagine what you are thinking as you lie there with your loved ones all around you. Imagine how you feel knowing that you are one responsible for putting yourself and all the ones you love through this pain. The stupid thing is all of this pain could've been prevented if you had simply quit smoking. Now it's your time to go and the physical and emotional pain you feel is gone. Sadly for your loved ones the emotional pain doesn't stop, they have to live with this pain for the rest of their lives.

Are you feeling motivated yet. I really hope so, please don't be like my Uncle Brian and find that motivation when its too late.

Movie Stars Smoking

Cigarette companies have used many forms of promotion since the inception of the cigarette. In the early days of the twentieth century we were told that smoking was good for us and doctors were even used to back this claim up (incredible!). This belief was held until the first general surgeons came out in 1964 stating that smoking is not good for you and is in fact potentially lethal.

Since this time we have seen a drastic drop in the promotion of smoking, no longer do we see television advertising, sporting sponsorships or billboards advertising tobacco. However there is one form of advertising that has remained consistent over this time, getting movie stars smoking on the big screen.

But why use the movies and movie stars to promote smoking?

Research has shown that the vast majority of smokers start before they turn twenty, the cigarette companies know this fact all to well. Another fact they know is that children who see there favourite celebrities smoking on the big screen are 16 times more likely to view smoking favorably.

For the youth their popular culture is largely dictated by the movies and the celebrities that star in them. If you want to be with the in crowd, than you have to be up to date with all the news and latest fashions of the celebrities. This is exactly why cigarette companies executives are trying to get the stars to light up as much as possible during their movies. If the youth see them smoking than there is a good chance that they will start up too.

If you think that even cigarette companies wouldn't stoop so low as to blatantly advertise to our children than please reconsider that thought.

A 1999 study from the U.S Department of Health and Human Services found tobacco use in 79% of movies rated G and PG and 82% of those rated PG-13.

Is there one reasonable excuse as to why any movie rated PG-13 or below should have tobacco use in them, I will give you an excuse but its not reasonable. It's because someone was paid mega bucks to make it happen.

It was actually made illegal in 1998 to have paid product placement of tobacco in the movies. You would think that this would stop or at least slow down the promotion of smoking. Well it hasn't.

A classic example of this is in the 2002 movie 'Men in Black II'. There are some scenes of these cute little aliens (which appeal to children and were later made into toys to give away in kids Burger king meals) smoking away on Marlboro cigarettes. How do we know the brand, well the little aliens are surrounded by Marlboro cartons. It doesn't take a genius to figure out some money exchanged hands somewhere there.

Marlboro have come out and said “If producers or directors use or depict our brands, they do so without seeking or obtaining our permission.”

If the above statement is true then I just don't understand why the people who produced 'Men In Black II' would clearly show the Marlboro brand name when there is no incentive in it for them.

This is because the above statement is a big fat lie, of course they paid for the tobacco product placement. After all these cigarette companies have got pretty good at lying to us, they have been practicing since the beginning of last century.

Dangers Second Hand Smoke

We all know that smoking has serious health effects on the individuals who choose to smoke cigarettes. For the vast majority of people it will lead to sickness, disease and eventually premature death. But what are the dangers second hand smoke pose on those who choose not to smoke, but are put in the unfortunate position of being around those who do on a regular basis?

Before we explore this question it is important to understand exactly what second hand smoke is. Second hand smoke (also known as environmental tobacco smoke) is smoke that is inhaled involuntarily by someone who is not smoking. This second hand smoke can come from two sources, Sidestream smoke and/or Mainstream smoke.

• Sidestream smoke is produced from a burning tobacco product e.g. burning end of a cigarette, out of a tobacco pipe

• Mainstream Smoke is the exhaled (breathed out) smoke from a smoker.

Second hand smoke is very harmful as it is known to contain over 4000 chemicals compounds including some of which are very poisonous. So not only are smokers causing themselves considerable harm but they are harming and possibly killing those that they smoke around.
So what exactly are the effects of second hand smoke on these people?

Non-smoking Partners

• A non-smoking spouse has a 30% increased chance of developing lung disease and a 20% increased chance of developing lung cancer

• Can cause many other health problems including nasal sinus cancer, stroke and weakened immune system (which can lead to many other health problems)

• Breathing problems are very common and these can include coughing, asthma, bronchitis, pneumonia and bronchitis

• Breathing in your partners smoke can also have an emotional toll because as a non smoker they have chosen not to go down that path but yet they still have to put up with all the negatives of smoking.
  

Infants and Children

Infants and children suffer from the effects of second hand smoke more than adults because their bodies are still developing. Infants also breathe faster than adults and therefore inhale more second hand smoke. Some of the effects of second hand smoke on children include;

• The chances of an Infant dying from SIDS(Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) quadruples in a smoking household

• Increased risk of developing illnesses and diseases especially ear infections, bronchitis, pneumonia asthma and breathing difficulties.

• Children with Asthma are in particular danger as breathing in second hand smoke (even in small amounts) can trigger an attack and make future attacks worse.
  

• Second hand smoke has been linked to children with behavioral and learning difficulties. Children who are constantly around smokers score lower on tests including maths and reading.
  

If knowing what smoking is doing to your own body isn't enough to make you quit then you really need to consider what your second hand smoke is doing to your family. After all do you really want to be responsible for making a family member sick or even for their death. No, of course you don't. So make now the time to quit, if not for yourself then for the ones you love.

Methods of Quitting Smoking: Why NRT's Dont Work

There are hundreds of methods of quitting smoking with NRT's being one of them. NRT's (Nicotine Replacement Therapy) come in many different forms and have been around for a few decades. They are supposed to work by helping you to ween off cigarettes by putting small doses of nicotine into your system while you are trying to quit smoking. Sounds good in theory but I'm go tell you exactly why NRT's don't work.

I'm sure you have all seen the NRT advertising (T.V ads, posters, billboards etc) trying to convince you that you can not give up smoking without their product, whether it be a patch, drug, gum, spray or whatever new contraption the pharmaceutical companies can come up with. Now how many people do you know who have given up forever using an NRT system? Some of you may know one, two people tops but the majority of you (like me) won't know anybody. There is a very simple explanation for this:

People are given Nicotine to help replace their addiction to Nicotine.

Try to forget every NRT ad you have ever seen and read the above statement again. How on earth is someone who is addicted to a drug ever going to quit by taking the same drug? There have been many cases where people are able to stop smoking but then get addicted to the NRT system that they used to help them quit. Why? Because its not the smoking they are addicted to , its the nicotine.

NRT's are expensive and inconvenient so people stop using them after a while. Well what happens then? They are still addicted to nicotine and need their fix. So, of course they go back to a cheaper, more convenient form of nicotine: Cigarettes.

It then becomes a never ending cycle which is exactly what these pharmaceutical companies want. They don't want you to quit any more than the cigarette companies do, their bottom line depends on it.

In not sure who is more evil, cigarette companies who make millions by spreading death and disease or the pharmaceutical companies who make millions by spreading false hopes and dreams. Maybe they are both just as evil as each other because they both use clever marketing to spread their lies and take advantage of other people.

I hope that I have helped you to see why NRT's don't work. There are other stop smoking options out there so why not give them a go. After all, their primary goal is to help you quit, not take your money.

Quitting Smoking Benefits

Regardless of age, sex or how many years you have been puffing away, there are always benefits of quitting smoking. Everyone who smokes knows deep down (even if they wont admit it ) that they should quit. There are many benefits of quitting smoking, with undoubtedly the main one being that it can save and add many years to your life. If you choose to smoke, odds on it will kill you, history has well and truly proved that for us. Lets take a closer look at the benefits.

Here are some quitting smoking benefits in relation to your last cigarette.

20 minutes: Heart rate slows down which in turn lowers your blood pressure
8-12 hours: Dangerous carbon monoxide levels have dropped down to normal
2-3 days: Risk of heart attack declines (and will continue to do so for next 3 months). Taste bud sensitivity and sense of smell begin to return. Energy levels increase.
1 month: Bronchial tubes begin to heal which reduces the need to cough and/or clear the throat. Lung functioning has improved.
2+ months: Energy levels will significantly increase, everyday activities such as climbing stairs become much easier. Blood circulation has improved because cigarettes no are no longer constricting blood vessels.
1 year: Risk of getting coronary heart disease is half of what it would've be if you still smoked.
5+ years: Risk of stroke is the same as a non-smoker. Lungs are strong and healthy again, risk of getting lung cancer is halved. Risk of getting other smoking related cancers are greatly diminished also.

It is easy to see that quitting will add years to your life but there are many more benefits of quitting smoking than just this, these include;

• Other health benefits, like decreased risk of emphysema, bronchitis, pneumonia, angina, osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, sexual disfunctions to name a few from an enormous list.
• Those around you benefit from not having to breathe in your second hand smoke. They also get to a know a new you whose breath and clothes no longer stink of awful cigarette smoke.
• Smoking ages you greatly. By quitting you give yourself the chance of looking younger for a longer time.
  
• Think of all the money you will save, I mean really think about it. If you are a pack a day smoker and it costs $10 a pack. In one year thats an extra $3650 in your back pocket. $Cha-Ching$. Do the calculations for your own habit, you will be shocked.

The health benefits of quitting smoking I have talked about above are only the tip of the iceberg. If you are a smoker, no matter your age, gender or how long you have been smoking, now is the time to quit.

It is your turn to experience the benefits that quitting smoking has to offer.

Why Do People Start Smoking?

In this the year of 2008 can anybody out there give me one good, legitimate excuse to start smoking, just one is all I'm looking for....... anybody? Didn't think so, because lets be honest with ourselves, there is no excuse. So why do people start smoking?

So what was my good, legitimate reason for starting?

Well the year was 2003, I had recently moved out of home and now had the freedom to make my all my own decisions, including whether or not to smoke. I chose to smoke. Anyway, what choice did I really have, my flatmate's and nearly all of my friends smoked. Being around smoking all the time I was bound to start eventually. There was also the fact I was learning about all the stresses of the real world including having responsibilities such as my first full time job and having to pay all my bills. Smoking helped deal with these. I was a smoker for four years, although luckily now I have seen the light.

Well, those were my excuses. Are any of them good and legitimate? Absolutely not. Why are they not legitimate? Because it is now the 21st century and before I started I knew all the dangers involved and I knew how highly addictive nicotine is. Yes, I was young but youth is not a good, legitimate excuse to start. The youth of today are more highly educated on the dangers of smoking than at any other time in or history. There are some in society who do have good, legitimate reasons to have started smoking and they are our oldest generations, the ones we call Grandma and Grandpa.

Back when they were young, smoking was encouraged to the point where if you didn't smoke you were considered a bit of an outcast. Smoking advertising was literally everywhere, even cartoon characters were used to advertise the so called "benefits" of smoking. Check out this television ad on You Tube featuring Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. There they are sucking away on cancer sticks, sitting, laughing and talking about the joys of smoking while their wives are in the background slaving away mowing the lawns. Unbelievable.

I also remember being told the story about how my best mates grandpa started up smoking. He was a teenager in the 1920's and he had a bad cough so his mum sent him to the doctor. He walked into the doctors office to find the doctor puffing away on tobacco. Well what did you reckon this highly trusted, highly educated member of society suggested for the cough? His subscription was to start smoking tobacco with no filters immediately, as that will get rid of the nasty cough! So of course, like a good boy would, he followed the doctors orders. From then on he smoked no filter cigarettes until the day he died, not surprisingly of lung cancer.

Now thats a good, legitimate excuse to have started smoking.

If you know your excuses for starting smoking are like mine, not really excuses at all, it is time to quit. Now I've quit, I realise I had no excuse to start, but I had many excuses to stop.

Effects of Smoking on Human Health

The effects of smoking on human health have been known since the 1940’s. 60 years later the list of diseases associated with smoking is enormous and ever growing. Everyone knows the risks involved but yet that does not stop those of us who continue to light up everyday. The most disastrous health effect of smoking is that it can (and in most cases will) kill you. The most common lethal health effects of smoking, are cancer and cardiovascular disease

Cancer
Smoking is strongly linked to a number of different types of cancer which threaten multiple organs (pancreas, kidney, bladder to name a few). 30% of all cancer deaths worldwide are thought to be a direct result of tobacco smoking. The most common form of cancer caused by smoking is lung cancer. Smokers are 22 times more likely to get lung cancer than non-smokers. This disease hardly existed before smoking. Those with lung cancer usually don’t live longer than 5 years after being diagnosed.

Cardiovascular Disease
The health effects of smoking include the increased the risk of stroke (twice as likely) plus heart and artery disease (2-4 times as likely). This is due to the fact smoking causes an increase in blood pressure, decreases exercise tolerance, damages blood vessels and increases clotting of blood. All of this puts enormous stress on the heart and sooner or later this pressure will become too much and can lead to fatal consequences.

Non-lethal health effects of smoking
While not all effects of smoking are life threatening, they can still cause years of suffering and pain. Some common non-lethal effects of smoking include;

• Emphysema (85% of sufferers smoke)
• Angina (20 x the risk)
• Speeds up the aging process
• Neck, Back and muscle pains
• Osteoporosis
• Erectile dysfunction/Impotence
• Pneumonia
• Psoriasis (2 x risk)
• Type 2 Diabetes (non-insulin dependent)
• Hearing loss
• Stomach ulcers
• Influenza
• Tooth decay
• Tuberculosis

The effects of smoking listed above are but a few examples from an enormous list. It is not matter of if you will be effected by any of these if you continue to smoke; it is a matter of which ones will effect you, how many will effect you and when will smoking kill you.

The disastrous health effects of smoking are obvious. Do you want to quit and give yourself the chance of living a long, happy, healthy life, or do you want to keep smoking and live a short, unhealthy life full of sickness, pain and disease.

If you choose to quit then try the "Successfully Stop Smoking System". It has saved many people from suffering from devastating effects of smoking. Out of all the products available, this was the only thing that worked for me. It uses psychological tactics I knew about but never would have thought to use to help me quit smoking.

I know it can help you too.

Start Smoking Story

Hi there,

My name is Todd Williams and I am here to help you to stop smoking.

Now, I am not one of those people who has never had a cigarette in their life and looks down their noses at smokers. I was a full time smoker for 4 years and I know what its like to have that nicotine craving. I would like to tell you my start smoking story.

I actually didn't start smoking full time until I was 20, which puts me in a bit of a minority because the vast majority of people take up the habit while at high school. I would like to tell you about my smoking history from my first cigarette until the day I stopped smoking 8 months ago.

Just like the first kiss, we all remember our first cigarette. Mine was with my mate Simon when we were 12 or 13 (cigarette, not kiss). His dad is a smoker and one day Simon decided it was time for us to see what all the fuss was about. We waited until his dad was asleep, pinched a ciggie and sneaked off to the garage. Never really being the rebellious type, I remember being nervous and excited. We were about to be very bad.

My mate Simon lit it up and took a drag, then handed it over to me. I held it to my lips with visions in my head of me coughing and spluttering all over the place (like they do in the movies), but I never did. We finished off the ciggie and all I remember was feeling slightly confused because it wasn't fun, it stunk and it tasted really bad. I have to admit, I did feel pretty cool though.

For the rest of my teenage years I would have had less than 10 cigarettes and I remember saying to people that I will never ever start smoking full time. Famous last words huh. I managed to survive all the smoking peer pressure through my teenage years so how did I start when I was 20. Well like for many of us it starts when we get to know our friend Mr Alcohol.

Every Friday I would go around to my mate Tim's place and we would have a few beers and play some darts. It became a weekly ritual for us. He is a smoker and after downing a few he would offer me a ciggie and being slightly intoxicated I would say yes. As the Fridays went by I gradually smoked more and more each time. One Friday he got a bit annoyed at the fact I was smoking all of his cigarettes so I decided I would buy some to take to his house on Fridays. Good idea in theory but the fact of the matter was I now had ciggies on me all the time. I began to smoke on other days, when I wasn't drinking and even on my own. Before I knew it I was buying pouches of tobacco and I was hooked.

Nicotine had won and it would continue to win for four more years.

I have been a non smoker for the past 8 months and I am 100% certain I will never, ever start again. Famous last words again I know but I know deep down inside myself that smoking is gone from my life, forever. You probably want to know how I quit and how I could be so confident of never starting again, well I'm going tell you. It is a method called the "Successfully Stop Smoking System".

It was the only thing that helped me and many others to stop smoking.