We just interviewed Dave McCarthy who stopped smoking with True Quit. Dave smoked for almost 40 years, from the age of 18, and had tried everything. He said, “I really hated smoking and felt defeated every day until ” …
Well, welcome to True Quit. This is Michael Gregory. I’m the founder of True Quit and I have here with me, Dave McCarthy. Good. Good for you to come out, Dave, on this.
No worries. Thanks, Michael. Thanks for having me.
And why I asked Dave out here is because it’s been so long since I actually quit smoking and since I experienced cravings because of the True Quit method, I actually forgot what it was like to want to quit smoking. So I just thought that I’d ask Dave because Dave quit, I don’t know, a month ago, was it?
Yeah, the big day was the 10 March 2017.
Yeah. So he still has the memory of what it’s like to want to quit. Tell us a bit, Dave, about how it was. How long have you wanted to quit and what if you tried? What did you try beforehand?
Yeah. Michael, I’ve been smoking since I was 18 years of age and really, I’m now in my early 50s and I had been trying to quit for many years, had tried hypnotherapy twice, had gone on a number of quick programmes as well and just had not been able to get past the urges and the roof of the crater, the physical and the mental urges and craters.
So did you try patches, patches as well?
Did you try Champions?
Champions as well? Patches, chewing, all those different willpower? Yes. Fail. It was not good.
I shouldn’t be laughing because each time you try to quit and then it doesn’t work. What was that like?
Look, it’s really discouraging. It’s really discouraging because, for me, I actually hated smoking. I hated it. And so every time that I put one to my mouth, it was like being defeated and I was being defeated up to 1520 times in any 24 hours period. And so you’re kind of taking real hiding with it and you associate it with so many things, like having a beer. Yeah, got to have a smoke or you’re stressed. Got to have a smoke or something. Not quite going right, you got to have a smoke. Those things are kind of tied to you and it’s really hard to break the habit. The addiction, the urges and the craving I just found for myself were really hard until I came across True Quit.
So obviously you wanted to quit for a long time and between the attempts to quit, you had that idea, I want to quit. What stopped you from taking action or what was going through your mind?
What were the thoughts that were going through your mind each time you had the thought, I want to quit?
It had been planted in my head and I probably was the one who planted it, that I was actually too hard to do because I’ve actually failed a number of times. And each time when you fail, you have that thought, it’s just too hard to do because you’re fighting against yourself. And in those times of when you’re really under the hammer or when a situation comes along where you just automatically associate, I’m doing this activity, then I need to do another activity, which is smoking. So it’s really closely attached. Your question is.
What were the sources going through your mind yes?
I should stop smoking. It is not healthy. All the research tells you this, but that doesn’t necessarily give you the motivation to be able to smoke because you’re constantly fighting the physical craving and the mental illnesses.
Did you just believe that you couldn’t do it?
Absolutely.
Or that it was going to be hard like that you’d have to fight. And so that you had to kind of be ready to fight like you had to psych yourself up and you had to get your life in a certain position where there was no stress so that you could actually tape the fight head-on, was that what was stopping you? Because you just weren’t ready for the fight at that time?
That’s a fair comment. Because anytime that I want to stop smoking, if it was going to be hard and you have a smoke when you’re in that phase of not trying to smoke, I know it’s too hard. It’s a fight. And you have to prepare yourself. You have to physically, and mentally get yourself right. And you kind of say, oh yeah, when the conditions are right.
So you put it off.
Yeah, I’ll give this a real go. When the reality is that they’re never going to be right, they’re never going to be perfect, they’re never going to be ideal.
Well, you can see that now in hindsight. But at the time, the thought, just to summarise, was that it was too hard and you didn’t believe that you could do it easily at that time in your life.
Yes. Too hard. Too hard. And I did not believe that I could actually conquer the habits because you believed you had to use Wolf apps. Absolutely. Well, that was the only way.
Right. Even with the tablets, even with the tablets.
Even with the tablets, even with Hypnotherapy, you still need to work out.
Right. So that was what was stopping you from actually trying. Okay. And in contrast to all those attempts, how did you find the True Quit process?
This is what I found. I found education crucial. There are a number of videotapes of clips that you’re encouraged to watch. And my advice to any of you who are wanting to take on Truck and I recommend it to all smokers is that you must do that education part. Because what that does and I’ll tell you what it does, is that it pulls apart the mental processes around smoking. And once you understand that and it isn’t hard, honestly, it isn’t hard at all, mainly because of the way that the clips
are actually put together, they take you through very slowly and deliberately. Good thing is that you can watch them over and over again if you didn’t quite understand something. So this is what true quit did. It sounds like I might be talking a lot. So it sounds like a long process, but it actually isn’t. So it gives you insight into what urges are and what cravings are and the effect that they have on you and how they play upon you every day and how you can actually control them. You can control it.
Did you need to use workout?
No. And that’s what surprised me. Honestly, I thought that if you are trying to stop smoking, even the word trying means that you’ve got to exert some degree of water. And I’m sitting in front of this camera telling you is that actually.
That’s because of the technique?
Yes. The mental technique is crucial because every time you get an urge or a craving, it gives you the model or the pathway to follow where that craving or to urge no longer has an effect.
You did have cravings and then you did the technique.
And what happened, what you find, surprisingly, I was expecting a real fight. And the reality is that when you use the techniques consistently or even if there’s one time where you forget the technique, but next time you remember it, it is so effective at being able to do what it does is that it replaces the urge or the craving with something else. And there’s something else that is not an urge or a craving if that makes sense.
Well, it’s actually quite peaceful. Yeah. The craving just disappears. Would that be right?
You’ve just summarised what I said in about 3 seconds. And it’s not this kind of Zen-type thing. It isn’t. It’s just a place of peace and contentment. And for me, it was more about not so much peace, but contentment that yes, I had the surge. I used the technique. The urge of the craving was no longer there. I’m happy with that.
As a bloke who has come from a long time of struggle to try and quit, how do you feel about the fact that you’re not smoking now? Can you believe it?
I can’t believe it. To tell you the truth, I can’t believe that I can stroll into a pub, my friend still smoking and there are smokers all around me. And even if they offer me to smoke or somebody smoking next to me and they’ve known that I’ll be a smoker, they offer me a smoke and I just don’t want to smoke.
Is that because you do the technique at that time very quickly?
Yeah. Like I’ll even prepare myself. I am going into a smoker’s area. My mate smoker. I’ll just recall that this is what I’ve got to do to remain a non-smoker. And I’m really proud to be able to say that I’m a non-smoker.
It’s really great. It’s really great. It’s been great to help you. So you had all that struggle and actually, you didn’t need to put it off.
All the techniques that I’ve tried in the past, do not address the area of mental and physical crisis. That’s been the whole strength of truffle addressing mental and physical crimes.
Yeah, well, look, I’m so pleased for you. I’m so pleased for the rest of your life.
My extended life. Yeah, that’s right.
And it’s also all your kids and other friends and family they no longer worry about you. Thank you so much for coming out and sharing this. I really appreciate that. It’s worth it and I really appreciate it for you because when you think about quitting, most people were in the situation that Dave was in thinking that it was going to be hard and you put it off and you put it off because you think you have to use willpower. But really that’s just where you don’t understand all the pieces in the puzzle.