The Enlightened Smoker’s Guide to Quitting
Good Fit
- Readers who have tried to quit repeatedly through fear and prohibition and want a different, gentler approach
- Anyone open to spiritual language and meditation who wants to work with the habit through thought
- Readers who have not yet decided to quit and want to look at their habit calmly
Not a Fit
- Readers looking for clinically proven methods (nicotine replacement, medication, cognitive-behavioural therapy): the book does not go into them
- Anyone who wants direct facts about health risks: the author deliberately gives up scary warnings
- Readers uncomfortable with religious or esoteric language (Buddha, Jesus, Hindu texts, Osho)
The introduction opens with an unusual claim: «If you want to use this book to quit smoking, you can, but you do not have to». The author, Jack Gebhardt, introduces himself: he smoked his first cigarette at seven, was a smoker for about twenty years and smoked his last about fifteen years ago at a Native American ceremony. In the 1970s he worked nine years at a drug-dependence education and treatment centre, then became a stockbroker; oddly, while working with drug addicts he smoked a pack to a pack and a half a day.
The author calls nicotine a «middle-class drug»: he regards it not as amphetamine, cocaine or heroin but as a considerably milder substance, and does not tie the problem to chemistry alone. In 1993 he listened to a talk by the French «Doctor of Happiness» Dr Christian Almayrac; the doctor's patients had «forgotten» smoking as a side effect of treatment. Gebhardt turned this idea into the «School of Freedom for Smokers». He calls himself an «old warrior» but refuses to be a general of anti-smokers.
In the section «Enlightenment?» the author says that the word itself is not welcome in society, quoting Lao Tzu's «he who knows does not speak» and acting with the mind of Jesus as examples. He defines an «enlightened» person as a person who is «happy as he is» and asks: if enlightenment does not bring happiness, who needs it? Its relation to smoking is opened in the next chapter; this part sets up more of a spiritual-philosophical frame and asks the reader not to expect scientific argument.
Chapter 1 presents the book's basic assumption: «you began to smoke because you were trying to find enlightenment, and you found it». At the moment you first smoked your body rebelled and your social programming sounded an alarm, but you discovered a new way of being in the world. The first assignment is simple: «relax» — stop feeling bad about smoking or not smoking and enjoy the last days, weeks, even months. The author quotes Deepak Chopra: «don't try to quit, firm resolve leads you to failure».
- The author speaks of his own smoking experience and his own «school», which gives the book a personal tone
- Short, playful assignments («relax», daily) do not put pressure on the reader
- The «enlightenment» rhetoric and Zen, Tao and Christian quotations bring the book close to the spiritual self-help genre
- In the introduction and chapters the text is written with humour and in plain language
A better-known and more widespread self-help book that also promises quitting without fear or willpower
Another book written to help quit smoking, cited by Gebhardt
An evidence-based book that explains smoking and other habits through the science of mindfulness
The author promises that assignments will never be harder than this first one and that those who do them may find they have «forgotten smoking». He describes the habit as a «bag of autumn leaves gathered from the ground»: when the job is done one forgets it and goes on with life.
The logic of «Enlighten Your Smoking» is this: freedom comes not through will and outside motivation but through the smoker's own natural daily behaviour and sense of «adventure». For some this process can take a few hours or days, for others weeks or months. The author notes again that there is no difference between quitting quickly or slowly.
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