It sounds great: a three-point plan to give up smoking. Sounds like an attractive quick fix solution in a world where there are no quick fix solutions. Only agony and longing for a cigarette.
And that's before you have given them up.
Free yourself from smoking, a 3-point plan to kill nicotine addiction promises to give you a "clinically proven way of quitting quickly, painlessly and permanently".
Author Kristina Ivings is based in Britain and claims her stop-smoking groups and workshops have a 70 per cent success rate.
Her three-point plan, she says, recognises the importance of habit, psychological dependence and physical addiction. Throughout her book, she argues that a key point to understand is by giving up smoking, you are not denying yourself a pleasure, but ridding yourself of a burden.
She also argues that other approaches focus purely on the psychological aspect of giving up or neglect the importance of habit.
Ivings is a clinical psychologist who specialises in smoking and has run workshops on giving up for Britain's National Health Service (NHS). She says that as a former smoker she became fascinated by the psychology of smoking. She argues that other books approach the issue by trying to deal directly with withdrawal symptoms, using patches, etc, provide strategies to help people change their behaviour and throw in health education and motivational support.
She says what seems to be missing are ways to help people change fundamentally how they think about their own smoking and their positive view of cigarettes.
Ivings says smoking is full of paradoxes, and emphasises that you must understand a number of points about it if you want to be truly free of cigarettes. These include: nicotine addiction, although often barely noticeably, is a tremendous force; that smoking can reduce your anxiety, but also make you anxious; and that you don't enjoy smoking, but it sometimes also feels extremely enjoyable.
Another telling point she makes is that nicotine withdrawal takes only a few days, but cravings to smoke can hit you months or years after stopping.
As an ex-smoker myself, I believe this is a key point. Many people give up smoking, but you always feel they will begin smoking again. It may take days, months or even years, but they will eventually succumb. To me, this is because although they have gone through the physical pain of withdrawal, they have not reconciled themselves mentally to giving up cigarettes forever.
About 14 years ago, I tried patches (for the cravings), herbal cigarettes (for the habit) and mental exercises to break the link with smoking and its associations with various activities, from work to social situations. It worked and I never succumbed again.
Ivings's book examines the issues she sets out to tackle - psychological, physical and habit - in a very comprehensive, but commonsense way. She does not underestimate or underplay the attraction of smoking nor the myths associated with it. Nor does she seek to scare people into giving up. However, smokers are forced to confront why they want to smoke.
Ivings argues that smoking is " a complete misunderstanding". She makes the simple, but logical point that what she calls Nitch (the nicotine itch) is what you are trying to get rid of when you smoke. But, by smoking you are keeping it alive. She also deals with various treatments, including nicotine replacement therapies and the role they can play in giving up.
Suppose you give up, but then succumb?
Ivings says you should tell yourself you made a mistake, which is fine as everyone makes them at times. Tell yourself that the good thing about making mistakes is that you can learn from them.
"Remind yourself that you successfully quit up until the relapse, so that you have proved you can do it," she says. Most importantly, says Ivings, restate your objective firmly. "Your goal is to not smoke - ever."
The book is very well laid out, with summaries at the end of each chapter but, more importantly, each chapter's key points are highlighted separately.
Free Yourself from Smoking, A 3-point plan to kill nicotine addiction by Kristina Ivings is published by Kyle Cathie Ltd. Price: £8.99 sterling.