How This Super Addict Quit Smoking

by Bud Macfarlane

Thirty Years of Nicotine Slavery

I smoked two packs of cigarettes a day since I was a teenager. I smoked after meals, at parties, while driving, on breaks from work, while watching TV, when on the phone, when I was bored, when I was excited, when I was sad and when I was happy. I was profoundly addicted.

I sincerely assured people I was going to quit "someday." I claimed that I enjoyed smoking. These self-deceptions sometimes convinced others. As a result of my enthusiastically bad example, three of my four sons became smokers. They inherited their addictions from me.

The real truth was ugly: I was humiliated and tempted to despair. I was a slave and several hundred inhalations per day were constant proof. During my failed attempts to stop over the years I became miserable, sick, and ornery. I gained weight, too—another potentially deadly health risk. One time I stopped smoking for over a year but remained addicted to nicotine gum instead. Eventually I slunk back to those deadly white sticks.

I was never fully comfortable unless I was in the act of smoking, which meant I was not truly happy for most of my waking hours—I experienced an ongoing low-grade misery during all that time spent between smoking cigarettes. I could not hold a conversation in a restaurant, no matter how much I enjoyed the other person's company, without that pang-pang-pang yearning for nicotine calling me to leave the table to indulge my craving. On a few humiliating occasions I even stepped outside during Mass to sneak a cigarette.

So how did this super-addict stop smoking nine months ago with ease and without using will power?

The short answer is that I read a book entitled Allan Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking. It is available online and you are encouraged to smoke as much as you like while you read it (according to Mr. Carr's own ground rules). If you are similar to most addicts, you will freely desire to stop smoking before you finish reading it—and you will actually stop smoking with ease and without using willpower (Mr. Carr strongly considers using willpower counterproductive). Feel free to skip the rest of this story and procure a copy of Mr. Carr's book to get started!

What follows is how God led me through a series of supernatural interventions to stop smoking even though I was not actively considering quitting. I believe He did this so others (perhaps you or someone you know) could be freed from nicotine addiction and receive all the wonderful, beautiful benefits which come with that freedom. This happy chain of repercussions is already happening: several people in my life (including two of my sons) have already stopped smoking using the principles shared in Mr. Carr's book.

Starting with Daily Mass

Fourteen years ago I decided to attend Mass every day. Receiving Jesus in the Eucharist became a serene interlude during difficult times in my life and a foundation to answering God's call to develop a more serious prayer life. Additionally, offering Holy Communion every day for our Mary Foundation benefactors (past, present, and future) is the most important function of my responsibilities as the founder of an apostolate named after the Mother of God. I really do pray for you and your loved ones, with all my heart, and for everything you could possibly need, including for abundant miracles, every day.

I am not legalistic about attending daily Mass. On rare occasions I miss when family or work responsibilities (or sickness) makes going difficult or impossible. Until last summer, however, and without a pang of guilt, I usually skipped daily Mass when I traveled on business or personal trips (of course I always attend on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation).

Deciding to go to daily Mass during a personal trip last spring, however, became the first indirect cause of my being freed of nicotine addiction. It's a bit convoluted, but fascinating in a cool way, so follow along with me...

My four sons are all stand-out rugby players and their high school is a national powerhouse in the sport. Last spring and summer, as a result of my son Xavier's team taking part in multiple rugby tournaments in North Carolina, I made three long car trips there from Ohio.

On the second trip, for some deeply felt but unarticulated reason, I decided to forego staying up late to socialize with the other parents and coaches—my usual routine. Instead, based on a strong inner prompting I could not deny, I retired early in order to be able to attend daily Mass at a nearby church I found on the web. This was so spiritually satisfying that I decided to put the kibosh on my now-seemingly-ridiculous Skip Daily Mass During Trips policy.

However on my next trip a few weeks later the Catholic parish where I enjoyed attending Mass was on the other side of Charlotte and thus a two-hour drive round trip. Instead I attended daily Mass at a couple of local parishes. For Sunday Mass, at a third church, Xavier and I were mightily impressed by the music, architecture, the spiritual focus of the parishioners, the large families, and especially the holy priest.

Directly afterward, while "enjoying" a smoke outside I commented to two men how much I liked their parish. When one of the men, Conor, heard my name and confirmed I was the Catholic novelist, he became very excited because my first novel had a "big impact" on his life. All these years later he was a father of ten children and worked for a major Catholic publisher. He invited me to visit his company the next time I was in town. Later that day, I received a call from another man, Rick, who worked for Conor; Rick was an old friend with whom I had lost touch over a decade earlier. Rick went out to dinner with my son and me that evening and we had a wonderful time of Christian fellowship. (As a result of this evening together, Rick began going to daily Mass.)

After I returned to Ohio, Rick kept reminding me to return to North Carolina to take Conor up on the invitation to visit their publishing house. I was having a difficult time scheduling a visit, yet Rick remained undeterred; in late July he asked me if I was planning to attend the Catholic Marketing Network (CMN) trade show in Chicago, which was slated to begin in a few days.

Although I helped start the CMN twenty years earlier, I had not attended their trade show in thirteen years—there were always scheduling conflicts. I checked my calendar: no conflicts. I told Rick I would meet him there!

At the CMN show, it just so happened that our Mary Foundation booth adjoined one occupied by an apostolate called Live the Fast, about which I knew nothing. Because of the proximity, I met its founder, Andy LaVallee. We hit it off like long-lost brothers. I nicknamed him the Bread King of Boston because he owns one of the biggest bread distribution companies on the Eastern seaboard. Inspired by a recent return to the practice of his faith, Andy founded Live the Fast and used his decades of industry experience to develop a healthy, affordable, natural, and delicious fasting bread.

I read Andy's autobiography over the next few days and it renewed my fervor for fasting. I was especially struck by Andy's profound conversion from a self-centered sinner to a truly holy man—a conversion which took place in Medjugorje, Yugoslavia, after the "Passion of the Christ" Catholic actor, Jim Caviezel, hounded him to make a pilgrimage there.

As my longtime readers know, even though I made two visits to Medjugorje in the late 1980s, I have been calmly neutral about the reported apparitions of Mary there. Even so, Andy LaVallee's autobiography—his conversion and his transformation into a new man in Christ—moved my heart and caused me to reconsider; I surprised myself by personally accepting that God is working through this spiritual phenomenon (although I of course will submit to any final, authoritative conclusion by Rome on this matter).

By the time I met Andy I had been secretly dreading even contemplating quitting smoking for years. A dark interior voice assured me I would never overcome the monster. Big tough guy from New Jersey? Please. To the core of my soul I was direly afraid I would never be free, that I would die young because of cigarettes and miss out on decades of my sons' marriages and grandchildren. That I would not be able to write more novels or help Our Lady reach millions of souls through the Mary Foundation because cigarettes were going to kill me. And fearful (in a twisted way) that even if I did quit that I would hate every minute of it and gain so much weight that I would die young from heart disease. This was the real reason why I kept pushing my "final" attempt to quit into the future.

During the week following the CMN show, in early August, while working on pre-production for our newest CD, I needed to physically bring Vinny Flynn's Healing and Holiness to a meeting with our graphic designer for a color selection comparison. I was fasting that day, inspired by Andy LaVallee's witness and friendship. It was the anniversary of his father's death, so I was offering reparation for his father's soul. I had not listened to my old friend Vinny's talk in years, and having just seen him in person as well at the CMN show, I began listening to "Healing and Holiness" on a whim during the drive home without thinking much about why. Vinny began by urging me to become a saint—and then explained in his wonderful way how Confession and the Eucharist are the twin sacraments of healing on the path to holiness.

Healing.

It just so happened that as I listened I was also on my way to pick up my youngest son to bring him to Confession at the Cathedral of St. John's the Evangelist in downtown Cleveland. I kept listening. Clete jumped in and listened along with me. When we arrived twenty minutes later, slow-burning with inspiration, I decided to go to Confession, although I had just gone two days earlier and did not have much to confess. I knelt before the priest and Jesus. I told the truth. "I am truly sorry for smoking to whatever degree it was my responsibility—for hurting myself and others—and I came here today to beg for supernatural healing and release from this horrible addiction."

Without comment the priest gave me absolution and a light penance and I was instantly overcome with the Holy Spirit right there in the confessional. I began to sob. I never cry or sob during Confession—and I have been going this sacrament every week or so since I was seventeen years old. Afterwards, fresh from absolution, feeling clean like taking a shower after a sunny day on the ocean shore, my son and I prayed a Rosary together, and then Mass began and we received Communion. Still fasting, I offered everything for Andy's father with great zeal. It was beautiful.

And when we returned to my Jeep after Mass, I was just as addicted to cigarettes as ever. I lit a cigarette right there during the ride home and continued to smoke all day and all evening as usual. I forgot about my confessional plea for healing.

A few days later I found myself at The Fest, a free all-day Christian concert sponsored by the Diocese of Cleveland on the sprawling grounds of Borromeo Seminary (where my son Xavier would enter a few weeks hence. P.S. He loves it!). An estimated forty thousand people came to enjoy inspirational music and the culminating open-air Mass. The Mary Foundation was there, of course, offering everyone free copies of our CDs, booklets, and novels. Under the hot sun I signed hundreds of novels and prayed with almost as many people—except when I was taking a cigarette break in the woods behind our booth.

In the late afternoon I met a strapping thirty-something man, Jim, a Catholic street evangelist and prison minister. When I asked if we could talk privately to learn more about his work, he agreed to trot over to my private smoking spot behind the booth. When I offered him a one, he calmly turned me down and volunteered that he had stopped smoking a few months earlier. I asked him how he did it.

"I read a book," Jim said. "I know you won't believe me, because I didn't believe it myself, but it was easy, even fun. The only rule is that the author encourages you to smoke while you read it. This guy understands us." He scrunched his brow together, looking into the distance, a faint smile on his face. "He was one of us, worse than us, a super addict," he continued, holding his hands up to form a kind tunnel inches from his gaze. "Somehow his book changes how your brain thinks about cigarettes. By the end you want to stop smoking."

Intrigued, thinking perhaps the book might contain a few insights if I tried to quit a year or two later, I pulled out my phone and ordered it online with my new buddy guiding me along to the correct title. Allan Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking. $10 or so through online booksellers.

A few days later Carr's book arrived. On the back cover were testimonials from celebrities such as Anthony Hopkins assuring potential readers that Mr. Carr's approach really worked: including that stopping smoking would be easy, enjoyable, would require no will power, no drugs, no weight gain, and absolutely no nicotine substitutes (i.e. no gums, patches, or "vapor" e-cigarettes). Mr. Carr's foundation estimates that over ten million people have quit using his method and that ninety-five percent of the people who try it quit successfully—a truly staggering ratio because I already knew that most anti-smoking "programs" have low success rates along with very high recidivism rates (returning back to smoking).

Despite all this, it was impossible for me to believe Carr's claims although the author seemed sincere and authentic. After decades as a nicotine addict and multiple failed quitting attempts I could not accept that stopping could be easy and not require will power. If you are still smoking, you know exactly what I mean, don't you? I set the book aside, figuring I might quickly scan through it someday for "pointers."

As it happened I took a trip the following weekend—just nine days since my Confession. Because it would require me to be in airports, on planes, in hotels, and spend time with someone who would not tolerate smoking, I was anticipating having to rely heavily on nicotine gum and sneaking off to smoke to get through it. I was dreading the prospect. I tossed Allan Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking into my backpack with the thought that there might be a few tidbits of advice to help me grit my way through the weekend.

The odd thing, however, is that I have never been able to read on planes, even though I am a voracious reader otherwise. Reading on planes always makes me fall asleep after a few pages. I do not recall finishing or reading a significant portion of a book during a flight in over three decades of frequent flying! Even so, I optimistically bring along a book or magazine on most trips for downtime in hotels—or as a sleeping aid while actually flying.

You already know what happened: I did pick up Allan Carr's book during the flight and read most of it on the airplane. By the time the plan landed I was ready to stop smoking. I tossed my nicotine gum into the garbage when I got off the plane and did not buy any cigarettes. When my friend picked me up I said, "Uh, I think I just quit smoking." And I did. It was easy. It was fun at times. It required no will power. I feel great. I gained a little weight, but not much.

Although I was in very good physical condition before stopping because I exercise daily, my strength, stamina, and aerobic condition went through the roof in the weeks following as the poisons leaked out of my cells. I feel fifteen years younger. So far I have saved over two thousand dollars from not buying cigarettes and lower life insurance fees (and if I live another thirty years that adds up to over $90,000, not including any avoided medical costs associated with smoking).

Everything in Allan Carr's book is true and it works. It worked for me. It has worked for my friends and my sons. I gave the book to my doctor, and it is working for his patients who have quit smoking. It will work for you.

The Chain of Events

Thirty-four years ago I consecrated my heart to Immaculate Mary as a member of the Militia Immaculata. As one consequence, twenty-six years ago I started the Mary Foundation; as one result of working at a Catholic apostolate, twenty years ago I helped found the Catholic Marketing Network, inspired by a certainty it would help people in unforeseen providential ways for decades to come. Fourteen years ago I fell in love with daily Mass.

Last spring, because of my craving to receive the Eucharist every day, I decided to answer a prompting of the Holy Spirit to attend daily Mass while on road trips. Two trips later I met Conor (who was inspired by one of my novels) after Mass. Conor put me in touch with an old friend, Rick, who invited me to the Catholic Marketing Network trade show (which I had not been planning to attend) a few days before it began. There I befriended Andy LaVallee, whose booth happened to be next to mine; Andy returned to his faith during a powerful conversion at Medjugorje, and his autobiography immediately inspired me to fast on the following Wednesday. On that day, although I had no intention that day of listening to it, I heard the Mary Foundation's "Healing and Holiness." This is a talk by my old friend Vinny Flynn (who I met and befriended at the original CMN founder's meeting twenty years earlier). Hearing this talk prompted me to go to Confession and ask for healing for nicotine addiction. A few days later, at a Catholic Musical Festival on the grounds of the seminary my son attends, I ran into a Catholic street evangelist who had just quit smoking after reading Allan Carr's book. A few days after that, I read this book on a long plane flight (the first book I have been able to read on a plane in three decades). Because of this book, I stopped smoking with ease, which quickly led to several others being freed of nicotine addiction, including two of my sons.

Nine months ago I had no serious plans to stop smoking. Hmmnn.

And now, for the rest of the story...

In 1986 I was in Medjugorje for the first time, alone, not particularly inspired, just walking around a residential neighborhood on the outskirts of town. It was hot and sunny. I saw one of the visionaries, Vicka, standing in a field, praying with a small group of people. I walked over. She eventually turned to me and asked me what I wanted. I told her I wanted to quit smoking. She put her hands tightly on my head, her fingers digging into my long hair, then prayed, her eyes clenched shut, for a long time, with great fervor and zeal. When she finished, unmoved, I walked away and lit up a cigarette, one of hundreds of thousands I would smoke over the next thirty years.

After I stopped smoking, I called up my new friend, Andy LaVallee, and told him about Vicka praying over me three decades ago. "You'll find this interesting, Andy," I told him. "When I read your autobiography, I simply had to accept in my heart that Medjugorje was authentic. One week later, despite having no plans to stop smoking, all sorts of things happened to help me quit and Vicka's prayer was finally answered."

Andy smiled. "Praise Jesus Christ, brother."

(Please Note: Any opinion expressed above regarding any alleged private apparitions or revelations not yet approved by the Catholic Church reflect the author's personal beliefs, and thus are not necessarily those of the Mary Foundation's or its workers. Thank you and God bless.)

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Bud Macfarlane, founder of CatholiCity.com and the Mary Foundation, is the author of three bestselling Catholic novels, available free of charge from Saint Jude Media. You can comment on his articles here.