I Quit Smoking Due to Vanity Rather Than Health Fears

I wish, WISH I could tell you I was driven to quit out of the pressing fears of lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease, early death, diabetes and blood clots, but I shamefully regret to inform you these deadly diseases were not the catalyst of what drove me to finally put a screeching halt to my addiction. It was vanity. What can I say?

I Quit Smoking Due to Vanity Rather Than Health Fears

Zara Barrie, writing on Elite Daily, talks about how stopping smoking at an Allen Carr’s Easyway to Stop Smoking Seminar changed her life immeasurably. Now Executive Editor of “GOMag” the self-styled “cultural roadmap for city girls everywhere” Zara was previously Senior Sex & Dating writer for Elite Daily. She writes:

“From the time I was a 13-year-old girl, I knew I was destined to become a smoker. I was one of those little girls who blissfully gazed at pictures of a waiflike Kate Moss blowing cigarette smoke into the static air from the glossy pages of a fashion magazine.”

Like many – Zara says she was drawn in by the illusion of glamour, rebelliousness, and sophistication plugged mercilessly by Big Tobacco for decades. After her first cigarette, aged 14, she recalls feeling as if she had been instantly transformed from being an “unsure, insecure, teenage girl to a sophisticated, jaded, tough chick”.

Zara details how smoking appeared to provide a reason to approach the cool kids at the parties and have her appear to be viewed as “intimidating and fashionable by the high school populous”.

As time passed things changed and she details how she started to see the dire physical effects of smoking.

The symptoms she describes are common:

• bruise-like half circles beneath the eyes
• brittle hair
• yellow skin
• perpetual reek of a stale ashtray (despite her collection of haute couture fragrances)

Zara writes “I wish, WISH I could tell you I was driven to quit out of the pressing fears of lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease, early death, diabetes and blood clots, but I shamefully regret to inform you these deadly diseases were not the catalyst of what drove me to finally put a screeching halt to my addiction. It was vanity. What can I say? I was 24!”

She attended Allen Carr’s Easyway to Stop Smoking one-day seminar and in her own words “I never, ever picked up a cigarette again. I highly recommend the method – it’s genius and probably saved my life.”

As it turns out – the benefits of having stopped were so profound she couldn’t even believe that she had ever been a smoker to begin with. And it wasn’t just about her “looks” either. Zara writes:

“Yes, my teeth began to once again gleam, the whites of my eyes became otherworldly white, the acne that had relentlessly marred my poor chin for the previous decade magically cleared.

I had a surplus of insatiable energy. I got my period again (which I know might sound like a negative, but after a year of freak-outs, it’s arrival served as a very welcomed event).

My hair regained its shimmery luster, and I stopped bursting into the embarrassing fits of coughing that always ruined sentimental moments in the movie theater.

All the aforementioned positives were AMAZING — but I was shocked to see how the following unexpected areas of my life improved when I finally pulled the trigger and set myself free of my addiction:

I lost an addiction and gained a personality.

Being a “smoker” had been rooted into my identity for so long. Who was I without a cigarette hanging out my red-lipsticked mouth?

That was one of my deepest fears in quitting — thinking I would somehow lose my “edge.” But the opposite happened.

The most powerful lesson I learned once I quit was how much I had hid behind those silly little rolled-up pieces of paper full of tobacco.

When I stopped using them as a crutch, a way to fill the empty spaces in my personality — there was free space for the real me to come out. The complex, dynamic, witty, interesting parts of myself that had been tucked away in a pack of Marlboro Lights. I broke up with toxicity and found true love.”

Zara’s last word on the subject? “For anyone looking to quit , I highly recommend Allen Carr’s “Easy Way To Stop Smoking” method – it worked for me, and TRUST me, girl, if it can work for ME — it can totally work for you.”

Read more about ‘How to Stop Smoking’

Read Zara’s Feature on Elite Daily’s Website

Visit Go Magazine’s Website

From the desk of John Dicey, Worldwide CEO & Senior Therapist, Allen Carr’s Easyway

#QuitSmoking #StopSmoking #BeAddictionFree #AllenCarr #QuitVaping #StopVaping