The thing about "How to stop smoking" guides is that not all guides work for all people. If they did, there would only be one guide. So what I'll say is that this is how I stopped myself after filling my lungs with 20 to 30 fags a day for over 30 years and leave it at that.

The first thing is to actually decide that you WANT to give up smoking.

I did this myself by totting up how much I was spending each month on cigarettes and then realising what other stuff that cash could be spent on. You then need to pick a day when you will smoke your last cigarette. It's no use just to decide to quit on the spur of the moment, throw the last 5 cigs in the pack away and stop right there and then. Oh, sure, doing that will work for some people under some circumstances. For example, I guess it would be easy to quit like that if you were told your kid will be very ill if you don't stop, but that isn't what happens to most people. No, it's best to give yourself a minimum of 2 weeks to mentally and physically prepare to stop smoking.

OK, the first thing you need to do is get yourself down to your doctors surgery and ask about help to stop smoking. You will be given all the help you need and this will include a class you can go to. This is the one you need. They are usually held once a week in local schools in the evenings. There may be 3 or 4 within easy driving reach but just pick one. Get yourself to the class and register. This is a painless proccess and all free. The "class" is always a one-to-one discussion with the only exception being if a couple decide to stop smoking at the same time. The expert will tell you about all the different tools at the disposal of anyone wanting to stop smoking which include the ones you have all heard about like the patches and gum plus other ones you may not know such as the lozenges and the nicotine sticks.

At the end of the chat and after all your options have been explained and discussed, the expert will organise a prescription for whatever you have decided upon. This will be for a week's supply of the patches plus one of the other three options.

Here's how it all works.

You reach the date you decided to quit on and you have been to collect your prescription. It's getting late and time for bed. This is when you put the patch on. Just peel off the backing paper and stick it on your arm. Usually above the elbow and in a place without a wad of hair. Most folk use the upper arm because it's convenient but anywhere will do.

During the night and while you are sleeping, the patch will slowly leak out a stream of nicotine into your bloodstream. This is way, way, way less than you would get from smoking but it means that when you wake up, you don't have that instant craving for a ciggie that you normally get after 7 - 8 hours of sleep. What happens is that the patch gives you a sort of baseline nicotine level and you won't actually want a cigarette. What you may find though is that your hands have nothing to do at certain times. Times like when you have a brew. I found sticks of carrot very handy at these times. I know it sounds really stupid but I cut the carrots into fag shapes and put them in an old cigarette packet, lol

If, during the course of the day, you think you need an extra boost of nicotine, that's where the gum, lozenge or nicotine stick come in. BTW, you don't chew the gum like ordinary gum. What you do is chew it a bit to get rid of all the outer coating and make it soft and then you shove it between gum and inside lip and leave it there. It seems there are a lot of nerve endings there or something and the nicotine in the gum gets to the receptors in the brain at top speed. Just leave the gum there for 10 minutes before having another few chews at it and putting it back between gum and lip but in another part of your mouth.

The next stage is different with everyone but after going to the meeting every week for 7 weeks, it was decided that we should try the reduced version of the patches. Exactly the same routine as before except that the patches have less nicotine in them. We only used them for 2 weeks and that was it. We both, one night, actually and genuinely forgot to put the patches on and then didn't use them again.

We haven't smoked since and we last had a cigarette at 2am on 01/11/07