Jim McCreadie

I never pictured myself as a smoker. Both of my parents smoked, though mum quit almost 40 years ago—and I found the sight and smell of cigarettes appalling, my friends did not.

As a teenager, many of my closest friends smoked. Eventually, I got tired of feeling left out and one day, I decided to try a cigarette, just one. This remains one of the worst experiences of my life and started social smoking, that was a decision I would regret.

That occasional cigarette ingrained itself in daily life. Less than a year after my first cigarette, I bought my first 10-pack. So began my 17-year journey of on-and-off, open-and-secretive smoking. I was never a heavy smoker, but I was a smoker, buying a 10-pack whenever I could.

It was a love-hate relationship. After all, I’d watched my dad die at 54 from smoking-related lung cancer, and the thought of sharing his fate terrified me. But I didn’t, and couldn’t quit. In fact, the panic I felt further fueled my addiction.

Being a smoker was like having a secret identity. On one hand, there was the Jim that everyone around me knew. But when nobody was watching, I quietly planned out time to smoke, and squirrelled away spare change to buy cigarettes. This secret “me” made excuses to leave the room, and came back chewing gum and smelling of aftershave.

It seemed normal to me at the time, but now I see it was a life of perpetual purgatory and deceit. Mostly, I lied to myself. And after dozens of failed attempts to quit, I began to accept the “reality” that I was destined to an early death just like my dad.

The thought of leaving my wife, daughters, and family behind forced me to commit to quitting, to find a way to permanently eliminate cigarettes from my life. After asking around the office, a co-worker said she had overcome her 40 cigarettes a day routine using a method called Allen Carr’s Easyway to Quit Smoking. I thought, “Easy way to quit smoking? There’s no such thing.”

After plucking up the courage to commit to another attempt at stopping, I decided to give the Allen Carr’s Easyway method a go. The impact it had on me was incredible and immediate. I felt my 17-year burden being lifted, freeing me from the prison of addiction. I was excited to put out my final cigarette, with no doubts, fears, or reservations. At that point, it was a much easier decision to quit smoking than it would’ve been to continue.

Feeling liberated, I contacted the Allen Carr’s Easyway office in Edinburgh; I wanted to help others overcome their addiction too. Within weeks, I was training to be an Allen Carr facilitator, the most rewarding and enjoyable job I’ve ever had.

A group arrives at each session, nervous about what the day holds. I get a front row seat to their life-changing transformations, watching people overcome their greatest challenges in just five hours. With this sense of achievement and purpose, I am proud to be a part of the global Allen Carr’s Easyway family. And I look forward to continuing Allen Carr’s inspirational work.