You see loads of advice on stopping smoking.
Do your preparation and get into the right frame of mind, pick a good period, avoid stress, set yourself up, get things ready, buy the carrots/gum/patches/mints/straws............., work out your coping strategies, read and research, get a buddy, find a support site or forum.........and I guess that you could all add to this list with many, many other good suggestions.
The Allen Carr book has popped up a few times in recent threads and there are one or two things that I find particularly interesting about it.
Firstly is the advice on the first few pages to continue to smoke whilst you read the book. he as absolutely clear about this. Continue to smoke while you are stopping smoking.........
Secondly is his advice on when to stop..........he is very vague about this saying things like obviously sooner is better than later etc (not quoting exactly cos can't find the d*mn book at the moment). But he does not particularly pressure you whilst you are reading.
It is not until you have finished the book that you realise just how clever he is.
He really does understand the physcology of a smoker.......what we see called "junkie thinking". He knows that if on page 34 he tells you to stop smoking NOW, most smokers will not finish the book....because they would have to give up smoking! he knows that if he tells you that a certain time is the best time......the smoker will ensure that it never happens.......so his clever trick is to actually make sure that the vast majority of people will at least finish the book.
If you finish the book, then you kind of reach your own conclusion that there is no good time to give up so you might as well get on with it.
You will have good days and bad days/weeks/months whether you smoke or not.........and I do remember the exact words here "Take it on the chin".
My motive for posting these thoughts is the numbers of people who are struggling at the moment for whatever reason and are giving the impression that this is not the right time. I am sure that their reasoning is very powerful and real to them, but my hunch is that whatever is giving them a problem at the moment is probably unconnected with smoking.
We all know the answer to the title of the post, but we all