Out of the Ashes: Help for People Who Have Stopped Smoking

After I quit smoking, while learning how to live without cigarettes, this book saved me!!! I carried it with me all the time and I'd open it randomly whenever I had a craving. No matter what page I read, it was about me and what I was experiencing. It's been 8 years since I quit smoking and I recommend this book to everyone in the smoking cessation classes I now facilitate.

I have earmarked a few pages of this book that I refer to again and again. It is the voice of reason and like a friend I turn to when I feel I want to smoke. This book has enabled me to remain smoke free. I no longer delude myself into thinking I can handle "one puff" or that I will be a "social smoker". Whats more I feel stronger and healthier and happier than I ever did as a smoker.

This book is not a how-to-quit book, but rather a how-to-stop-deluding-yourself-about-smoking book. It gives you the tools to think honestly about smoking again (after years of addictive thinking), about the struggle involved, and how to master it. I found it enormously helpful in reorienting my thinking, so that when I wanted to slip back into smoking, I was able to talk myself out of it and refocus on what I really wanted: to remain smoke-free. Also, unlike many quit smoking books, it doesn't talk down to smokers, but rather helps you feel positive and hopeful about the quitting process.

I have now been an ex-smoker for almost two years. I smoked 3.5 packs of cigarettes a day for twenty-five years. This little book of short, focused readings absolutely revolutionized the way I thought about the process of quitting, the cravings, the mental gyrations, etc., that all quitters are intimately familiar with.I believe that this book was more of a factor in my success than the nicotine gum or Zyban, both of which helped immensely. After four failures (never lasting over three months), this book changed my THINKING and THAT was the real key to success. If there was a 100 star rating, I'd give it!

This is an excellent resource for folks who have stopped smoking or are planning to stop. There are absolutely no do's and don'ts (no nagging). This is a portable book that can be taken with you everywhere for excellent motivational tips. I take it to work, school, and read a couple pages before bed. This is not a preachy type book thats what makes it so nice, it's written by two people who have stopped smoking for today. I highly recommend this book!