'I loved cigarettes and needed them' - smoking doctor finally quits

Break the habit: the real addiction is a mental one, says Dr Max Pemberton.

I had pretty much given up on giving up smoking, having tried every possible method available. Patches, pills, gum, sprays, books, even cold turkey. None worked for me. In fact, some left me smoking more than before.

I've got no major axe to grind with any of these aids or techniques and, with varying degrees of success, they have helped lots of people quit.

But what I wanted was to eradicate my desire for cigarettes - I smoked between 20 and 40 a day - and I wasn't convinced that any of them could come close to that. Indeed I wasn't entirely sure that I actually wanted to quit.

My greatest fear when I thought about giving up was that I would spend the rest of my life being miserable because I couldn't smoke.

Because, you see, I loved cigarettes and had done ever since I had my first at the age of 13. Or at least I thought I loved them.

But deep, deep down I was in conflict.

I adored smoking, but I knew of course - and better than anyone - that it was killing me.

Yet, over the 20 years of my smoking career the government imposed ever-greater restrictions on smoking and I wrote ever more furious articles denouncing the moves as "anti-libertarian" and "health fascism". I took some contrary pleasure from being a doctor who smoked. Looking back, I realise I was in denial.

And then, two years ago as I was sitting on a train I had an epiphany. My gran and aunt had just died from lung cancer, and my mum had embarked on a new round of nagging me about my smoking. It occurred to me that many of the things I was hearing myself say to her were horribly similar to the things that I'd heard my patients say when I'd worked in a rehab clinic for heroin and crack addicts.

It dawned on me that - as with drug addicts - the problem wasn't the physical addiction.

Despite what people believe, nicotine addiction is actually very mild and, because nicotine begins leaving the body within about 30 minutes of it being inhaled, the smoker spends most of their time in a state of nicotine withdrawal without it bothering them.

No, I realised that the real problem was the psychological dependence. This was underpinning my belief that I loved cigarettes and needed them and it was this that I needed to address. This also explained why the gums and patches hadn't worked - I was mentally addicted to smoking. So I began thinking about the psychology of smoking.

The mind of the smoker - as with a heroin addict - resolves the conflict between doing something it thinks it enjoys and the worry this causes because of the health risks, by relying on "cognitive distortions" - arguments that, on the face of it, might seem logical and that allow someone to keep smoking or taking heroin.

So I reasoned that a smoking habit relied on the person setting up myths and illusions and false logic in order to justify and continue their behaviour.

I knew from my experience with addicts that a type of talking therapy called Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), in which these illogical thinking patterns could be challenged, was very helpful. So I spent several months adapting the CBT tools so that they applied to smoking in a self-help format.

I then did the exercises myself and educated myself about nicotine addiction to tackle the myths that surround my habit. On the day I finished the last exercise, 18 months ago, I simply stopped smoking and haven't looked back. Patients soon began asking me to help them, so I decided to turn it into a book.

Stopping smoking begins when you start to really question the behaviour. If you are thinking about stopping smoking this year, I promise you it's not as difficult as you think. If I can do it, anyone can. And trust me, it will be the best thing you have ever done.