Quit Smoking No Medication, Easy Stop Smoking, Harmful Effects of Smoking Habit, Kalamazoo, Michigan

About Smoking

Studies have been reported that suggest 70% of smokers want to quit. If this is true, why do only about 5% of smokers quit each year? I think this is because we have been led to believe that smokers smoke because they are addicted to nicotine, and that smoking cessation is incredibly hard to accomplish. For example, the author of a recent review on the topic of smoking cessation in the medical journal Thorax, commented that

The nicotine contained in cigarette smoke is fiercely addictive, making smoking cessation difficult to achieve, even though the majority of smokers want to quit [Coleman, T.: Smoking cessation: Integrating recent advances into clinical practice. Thorax, 2001; 56: 579-582 (July)].

Ours is an addiction oriented society, and we explain away many complex behaviors and problems by appealing to "addiction". We are addicted to nicotine (which is the reason we smoke). We are addicted to food (which is the reason we overeat). We are addicted to caffeine (which is the reason we drink too much coffee or tea or cola). We are addicted to chocolate (which is the reason we crave sweets). So forth and so on.

Some of us also bite our fingernails or constantly chew gum. Others walk around with a toothpick or a matchstick in their mouths, or suck on one breath mint after another. Why do we not hear about addictions to fingernails, gum, wood, or mints? This doesn't make sense, does it, but these habits are the same as the habit of smoking. They are habitual behaviors that occur excessively, and they occur in a wide variety of settings..

All of these behaviors are learned habits. They are not maintained because of addictions. Addictions are difficult to treat. By comparison, habits are easily eliminated. Addictions also give you a very convenient reason not to stop what you are doing...you cannot help it, you are addicted! Or, if you assume that you have an addiction, you are going to need an expert to help you change your behavior. You will think that you cannot stop the habit on your own.

In the case of smoking, you are told that you need physicians, pharmacists, counselors, hypnotists, acupuncturists, behavior modifiers, etc., in order to stop smoking. With Stop That!, all you need is the Program. It will give you everything you need to quit smoking, guaranteed! And, you will be able to take pride in the knowledge that you did it yourself, without expensive medications and nicotine replacement systems, without counseling, and without exposing yourself to the unpleasant or dangerous side effects of most medical treatments for smoking cessation.

COMMON APPROACHES TO SMOKING CESSATION

There are four Nicotine Replacement Therapies (NRTs) that are government approved for use as aids in smoking cessation. Two antidepressant medications have also been approved as first line treatments for smoking. These are Zyban and Wellbutrin (discussed below, generic name Bupropion). These treatments are not very effective, yet any description of smoking cessation programs published by the government or by private agencies is essentially an infomercial for the drug companies manufacturing these products. Review any nicotine cessation guidelines, and you will find statements that smokers have a serious addiction, and that the only effective treatments involve the use of NRT or antidepressant medication. In some instances, the suggestion is to use both!

Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT): NRT includes nicotine patches, gum, inhalers, and sprays. The cost for a recommended 8 to 12 week treatment ranges from about $400 for the nicotine patch to more than $1500 for the inhalers and sprays. Negative side effects are common, and NRTs can be dangerous, as smoking while you use these products can result in a nicotine overdose. About 5% to 20% of smokers using NRT quit, and the four NRT options seem to be "equally effective" (i.e., ineffective). For every claim of a 20% quit rate, there are 10 studies that find quit rates of 5% to 10%. Additionally, many of the studies reporting higher rates of success are either conducted or funded by the drug companies that manufacture and sell these products. In the event of relapse, recommendations are to repeat the program, and probability of success after initial failure is about 5%. Also, only about 5% of smokers who have as few as four cigarettes while using NRT actually quit smoking. So, based on what the statistics and scientific studies are telling us, smokers spend $400 or more on these products, with a 90% chance that they will fail!

Zyban and Wellbutrin (Bupropion): These are antidepressant medications that have been demonstrated to be somewhat effective in helping smokers quit. A 30 day supply costs about $140, and 12 weeks of treatment is recommended ($420). Once again, about 10% to 20% of smokers using these medications successfully stop smoking. In the event of failure or relapse after using these medications, recommendations are to use NRT, or NRT plus medication, spending another $400 to $1500, with an 80% to 90% chance of failure!

NRT AND SIDE EFFECTS

The following information was obtained by visiting my local pharmacy and asking about the side effects of these medications. If you are skeptical, visit your pharmacist and ask for a printout.

Nicotrol Inhaler (by prescription only): "Do not smoke or use tobacco products while using this medication. For women, this medication has been shown to cause harm to the human fetus. This medicine is excreted in breast milk. Side effects that may occur while using this medicine include mouth or throat irritation, coughing, runny nose, indigestion, diarrhea, nausea, or hiccups. CHECK WITH YOUR DOCTOR AS SOON AS POSSIBLE if you experience irregular or fast heartbeat"

Nicotrol Nasal Spray (by prescription only): Same as above. Additionally, "SIDE EFFECTS that MAY go away during treatment include nasal irritation, watering eyes, sneezing, runny nose, throat irritation, coughing, nausea, or headache. CHECK WITH YOUR DOCTOR AS SOON AS POSSIBLE if you experience dizziness, lightheadedness, or an increase in your heart rate (pounding heart)."

Nicorette (gum) and Nicoderm (the patch): Side effects for these over-the-counter products are essentially the same as those above. Additionally, those using the gum may develop oral sores and lesions. Smokers using the patch may experience local skin irritation in the area of the patch

Zyban and Wellbutrin (Bupropion): These are antidepressant medications that have shown some effectiveness in helping smokers quit. As with NRT, reported quit rates are between 10% and 20%. Stated differently, they have an 80% to 90% failure rate. Cautions and side effects include restlessness, agitation, dry mouth, dizziness, difficulty sleeping, headache, nausea, vomiting, change in weight, or tremor. CHECK WITH YOUR DOCTOR AS SOON AS POSSIBLE if you experience mental/mood changes or palpitations. CONTACT YOUR DOCTOR IMMEDIATELY if you experience seizures (1 in 1000 users will have seizures), difficulty breathing, tightness of chest, swelling of eyelids, face, or lips, or if you develop a rash or hives. Do not exceed the recommended dose or use with alcohol; doing so will increase your risk of seizures. To date, there have been at least 25 deaths reported in persons using these medications for smoking cessation!

The Stop That! Program: No prescription is needed, and there are no side effects of any kind! There are no negative side effects because the Stop That! Program does not involve the use of medications or chemicals, and your total one-time cost is $69.95. It is so effective that the probability of success is close to 100% in smokers who adhere to the program. In the event of relapse, all that is needed is to go through the program again. You will never have to spend another cent to quit smoking, and the program will pay for itself in 30 days or less.

Drug companies tell us that nicotine is “fiercely addictive”. They claim it is more addictive than heroin or cocaine. Not true! They emphasize nicotine addiction to frighten smokers, so they will buy their expensive and dangerous products (e.g., the patch, gum, inhalers, Zyban, etc.) to ease the discomfort of nicotine withdrawal. You did not become a smoker after smoking one or two “fiercely addicting” cigarettes. If you are like most smokers, you started smoking in one or a very few places. You then smoked in a few more places, and then in a few more. As you smoked more and more, smoking became a learned habit wherever you smoked. The Stop That! Program will teach you how to break your smoking habit, all without medications, nicotine, herbs, counseling, or hypnosis. It is guaranteed, and the Program will not hurt you physically or financially.

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About Quitting

I believe that no one really wants you to quit smoking. That is right...no one wants you to quit! Certainly, the tobacco companies do not want you to stop buying and using their products. And, I have come to the conclusion that the drug companies that produce aids to quitting do not want you to quit either...they are making too much money providing products that give you a very low probability of success in quitting. Your doctor is probably concerned that you smoke, but most physicians do not talk to their patients about quitting, and only a small percentage make information about quitting available in their waiting rooms. When such information is available, it usually consists of advertisements about the quitting aids mentioned above that were left by drug company representatives on their last sales call. Physicians may be reluctant to recommend these products because, despite the hype, they realize that they do not work. So, rather than suggesting something that is expensive and ineffective to their patients, they say nothing at all.

The medical and psychological literature in the area of smoking cessation is full of junk science. Many studies do not report quit rates as a percentage of smokers who quit. They report that a particular nicotine replacement system or medication will double or triple quit rates. What they do not tell you is that the "treatments" increase quit rates from 5% (the natural quit rate, or the percentage of smokers who quit each year without professional help) to 10% or 15%. With the treatments, costing hundreds of dollars, there are 9 chances in 10 that you will fail! So, improvement with treatment may be statistically significant, but it is not clinically significant because your chances of quitting increase only slightly above your chances when going it alone, or quitting "Cold Turkey". If you follow the Stop That! Program, your chances of quitting approach 100%!

You may also have noticed a disclaimer in ads for the smoking cessation products, suggesting that "Probability of success is greater if combined with counseling or a behavioral program". Perhaps the disclaimer should read, "The probability of success is near zero without counseling or a behavioral program"! Some studies have indicated that improvement with counseling only is as good as improvement with medication or nicotine replacement (i.e., 20%). At least one study has demonstrated that a placebo group, getting no treatment, had a better quit rate than a nicotine replacement group!

Your smoking friends do not want you to quit either. If you have tried to quit in the past, they may have offered you cigarettes, blown smoke in your face, or bet that you would not succeed. Finally (are you ready for this?), you do not want to quit! Not really. You may say that you do, but you do not. There may be times you think about quitting, but those times probably come after you have smoked too much, your throat is raw, or you cannot walk up a flight of stairs without experiencing shortness of breath. Or, you may decide to quit after the heart attack.

Surveys show that 70% of smokers say that they want to quit. I do not believe that 70% of smokers want to quit. I believe that 30% of smokers are honest when someone asks them if they are interested in quitting and say "no". Seventy percent of smokers probably say "yes" when a research scientist or pollster asks if they are interested in stopping a habit that involves inhaling smoke adulterated with more than 4000 chemicals into their lungs, knowing there is a 50% chance doing so will kill them! We all like to think we are intelligent and rational, so smokers say "Sure, I have been thinking about quitting".

I can help you quit because I can assure you of several things.

First, your "addiction to nicotine" has nothing to do with your habit of smoking. It is an unsubstantiated assumption that is made by the medical profession and promoted by the pharmaceutical industry because it pays handsomely. It also gives you a ready excuse for not quitting. If the assumption that smoking was based on nicotine addiction was correct, we would have much more effective treatments for smoking than we do. Millions of dollars have been spent researching the relationship between smoking and addiction, and the result is only a 10% to 20% improvement rate...often less. Additionally, nicotine is gone from your system only days after you smoke your last cigarette. Why then do smokers still crave cigarettes for weeks or months after quitting if smoking is, in fact, based on addiction? They crave cigarettes because their cravings are based on habit, and unless habits are changed or controlled, smokers are almost certain to suffer a relapse. In fact, many scientific studies have demonstrated that success rates in quitting drop dramatically after a year or so, and 80% of smokers take up the habit once again.

Second, I assure you that you can quit smoking on your own. You do not need artificial aids or medications. Once again, much of what you read about quitting suggests that it is the most difficult thing you will ever do. This simply is not true. Going to work every day is hard. Raising a family is hard. Giving birth is hard. Quitting smoking is relatively easy if you go about it the right way.

Finally, you do not have to pick a quit date, and you do not have to stop smoking "Cold Turkey"! These approaches are doomed to failure, because all the smoker who has gone Cold Turkey thinks about is smoking, and once that smoker has a cigarette, he or she has failed. With Stop That!, you can have a cigarette any time you think you want or need one (under the conditions specified by the program), and having a cigarette is not a failure...it is part of the cure! What better way to wean yourself from "nicotine addiction"?

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Stop That Program

Approaches to treatment for any problem are dictated by the assumptions made about the problem. A physician friend once told me that one of his earliest lessons in medical school was to assume a unitary diagnosis when entering an examining room to see a patient. That is, he was taught to assume that the patient only had one medical problem. Now, I think there are many people with many medical problems, but assuming that there is a single diagnosis probably makes it more likely that a physician will identify the problem that brought the patient to the office on that day.

We make the wrong assumptions about smoking because we have been taught to do so by the drug companies that manufacture smoking cessation products. They have taught us that smoking is maintained by an addiction to nicotine, and this leads to treatment with NRTs and medications. Doctors have been taught to give us a pill for many problems, and giving us a pill for smoking makes sense to them...it fits the "Medical Model" of thought. And, much of the information our doctors receive about smoking is provided by the same drug companies that manufacturing smoking cessation products. These companies spend 10 to 15 billion dollars each year "educating" our doctors so they will prescribe their products!

The Stop That! Program is based on a very different set of assumptions. First and foremost is the assumption that smoking is a learned habit. Although you may be addicted to nicotine because you smoke, you do not continue to smoke because you are addicted to nicotine. Once again, smoking may result in an addiction to nicotine, but it is not the addiction that explains the difficulty smokers encounter when trying to quit. Nicotine is gone from the smokers' bodies in a few days, but they continue to crave cigarettes for weeks or even months because of the learned habit of smoking.

You smoke because you have a self-destructive habit that is associated with a great many of your daily activities. If you are like most smokers, you smoke almost everywhere you go, and you consequently seem to have a constant craving for a cigarette. This is what psychologists call a "conditioned response". Smoking is an automatic response to many settings that occurs almost without thinking. Finish dinner and light up. Fix a drink and light up. Telephone rings, light up. Start the car and light up. The Stop That! Program will teach you how to stop smoking by controlling and eliminating these conditioned reactions.

Another assumption that is made in the Stop That! Program is that you really do not want to quit smoking. This assumption is important because it determines the steps to be taken to increase and maintain your motivation and your resolve to quit. If I assume you want to quit, I will give you pep talks and motivational messages, encouraging you to "hang in there". If I assume that you do not really want to quit, I will take another approach to motivating you to stop. I will investigate your personal reasons for quitting, and I will use them to help you stop. You see, your reasons for quitting are not the same as mine were in 1974. All of the death and dying and health messages do not faze you, and they did not faze me either. I did not think, at the age of 34, that anything would happen to me. Cancer and heart attacks happened to the other guy. However, I was young and single, and I did not like the way some women reacted to me because I smelled of smoke. I did not like the yellow stain on my fingers, I did not like dingy teeth, and I did not like burning holes in my clothing. These reasons may not work for you, but they worked for me. The Stop That! Program will teach you how to explore, identify, and use your reasons for quitting to motivate you to become a non-smoker.

Yet another assumption I make about smoking is that, no matter what you may say or think, you really do not enjoy smoking. What you enjoy are the things you do while you smoke. The Stop That! Program will teach you how to evaluate just how much you really enjoy smoking, and you will use that information to stop, guaranteed! Smokers also claim to enjoy smoking because it enables them to rationalize engaging in such a damaging and self-destructive behavior.

So, what have you got to lose? The program is guaranteed to work, and it is guaranteed to pay for itself in 30 days. There are no side effects, and, if you find that you are not quite ready to quit, put it away in a drawer and take it out when you are ready. The Stop That! Program provides you with everything you need to quit, and you will never have to spend another cent to quit smoking...ever! Remember,

“You smoke, you die“

Order now because you can quit smoking, and you will never have to spend another cent to become a non-smoker!

The cost of the Stop That! Program, guaranteed to be effective, is only $69.95 plus tax. It is in book form, and is only 50 pages long. It consists of an explanation of your smoking habit and easy to follow worksheets and assignments, describing the steps you must take to stop smoking. All in the comfort of your own home, without expensive professional consultations or ineffective and dangerous medications or nicotine replacements. The cost of other programs that result in an 80% to 90% chance of failure ranges from $400 to $1500! You decide where your smoking cessation dollar is best spent!

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About Me

I am a Licensed Clinical Psychologist in private practice in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I earned my Doctor of Philosophy Degree in Psychology from Michigan State University in 1972, and subsequently completed a two-year Clinical Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. I am also an ex-smoker. I started smoking at the age of 14, and I quit (for the last time) in 1974 at the age of 34.

I have been a Licensed Clinical Psychologist for 25 years, but my Doctoral training was in the Experimental Psychology of Learning and Learning Theory. After teaching and conducting research in learning and developmental psychology at several colleges, I spent two years in clinical training at the University of North Carolina Memorial Medical Center as a Postdoctoral Fellow. My work there involved studying the application of learning principles to the solution of clinical problems in children and adults. The Stop That! Program is an outgrowth of this amalgam of 35 years of experimental and clinical training, research, and experience, and would not have been possible without this background.

Had my training been exclusively in the Experimental Psychology of Learning, I probably would have followed one of many failed paths to helping smokers quit that are based on reward and punishment. Years ago, for example, psychologists were telling smokers to put large rubber bands on their wrists, with instructions to give themselves a series of painful "snaps" whenever they thought about smoking. Another learning based approach is what is called "aversive" or "rapid" smoking. In this case, smokers are instructed to smoke one cigarette after another, in rapid succession, until they get physically sick and smoking becomes "aversive". Getting sick was to punish the act of smoking, and it was assumed that punishing any behavior would eventually eliminate it. None of these learning or behavior modification techniques proved to be effective, although some are still being used.

Had my training been exclusively in Clinical Psychology, I would probably be using psychotherapy or hypnosis in my attempts to help smokers quit, but there is no evidence that therapy or hypnosis are effective in achieving smoking cessation either.

Contrary to popular belief, smoking is not maintained by an addiction to nicotine. It is a habit that has gotten out of hand. It is no different than drinking coffee, tea, or soda. It is in the same category of bad habits as biting one's fingernails, chewing gum, sucking on breath mints, and nibbling on toothpicks or matchsticks. And, you can break your habit by applying the principles and instructions found in the Stop That! Program. Remember,

You may be addicted to nicotine because you smoke, but you do not smoke because you are addicted to nicotine!

You can break your tobacco habit with the Stop That! Program, and become a non-smoker or non-user in as little as 30 days, guaranteed!

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My Guarantee

The Stop That! Program may be the only smoking cessation program that is guaranteed to be effective in helping you to quit smoking or using other tobacco products. Manufacturers claim that using their drugs and nicotine replacement products will double your chances of quitting, but actual quit rates are only 10% to 20%. Rather than looking at this as a favorable outcome, I see this as an 80% to 90% likelihood that you will spend hundreds of dollars and fail!

I have such confidence in the Stop That! Program, and have experienced such success in helping smokers quit, that I can make the following guarantees:

I guarantee that you will smoke less, or use significantly less tobacco, as soon as you begin following the guidelines in the Stop That! Program.

I guarantee the Stop That! Program will pay for itself in 30 days with the money you save on cigarettes or other tobacco products. The cost of smoking cessation programs is also deductible as a medical expense on your Federal income taxes.

I also guarantee that you can be a non-smoker if you follow the suggestions in the Stop That! Program.

I finally guarantee that you can stop smoking cigarettes or using other tobacco products without expensive medications, nicotine replacements, or counseling. You can quit on your own, without experts or gimmicks, and the Stop That! Program will empower you to do so!

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How To Order

The Stop That! Program is only $69.95, plus shipping and handling. Shipping by First Class Mail is $5.95, and Priority Mail is $9.95. Michigan residents please add 6% sales tax ($3.00). International orders are accepted, with shipping by Global Priority Mail (costs vary by destination). You can purchase the Program now through my Order Page, or you can print my Order Form and make your purchase by mail. I accept payment by check, money order, or credit card (Visa, MasterCard or Discover).


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