19 year smoker, quit 2000
I smoked for 19 years and tried to stop countless times.
The longest I ever managed to stop smoking for was three months. Several times I was able to stop smoking for a couple of weeks but mostly it was only a few hours before I would start smoking again.
I tried to stop using willpower, patches and nicotine gum but it didn’t work because I felt like I couldn’t relax or concentrate without smoking.
There was a constant tug of war going on inside me because I desperately wanted to stop smoking but I also desperately wanted to keep smoking and the cigarettes won the battle every time.
As a nurse I looked after people who had died from illnesses caused by smoking but even with that experience I still wasn’t able to stop smoking.
I was desperate to stop smoking when I heard about Allen Carr’s Easyway.
Even though I was sceptical about it working (because nothing else had), I tried it anyway. I have never been so happy to be wrong because Allen Carr’s Easyway To Stop Smoking did work.
The tug of war ended, I haven’t missed or craved cigarettes at all in the fourteen years since I have stopped and using the Allen Carr method actually was easy.
Through my own experience with struggling to stop smoking and reading Allen Carr’s book I became interested in the area of addiction.
I left the hospital where I had been working and then worked for Drug and Alcohol Services South Australia for two years in their detoxification units. I then worked in community health in an Aboriginal drug and alcohol program for four years. Following that I worked for three years in SA Prison Health in the methadone program.
When I got the opportunity to become the South Australian Allen Carr therapist I left a permanent position in SA Health that I held for fifteen years and joined the Allen Carr team.
It has been fantastic to join the team and be able to help people improve their health through ending their addiction to nicotine. I’m looking forward to helping many more people have a brighter, happier and healthy smoke- free future.