Don’t you find it obnoxious when people give unsolicited advice about a topic they know absolutely nothing about? I do. That’s why I feel qualified to give my two cents about quitting smoking.

I was a rebellious teenager and started smoking in 1964 at the age of fourteen. I started on Kents because the girl who I was emulating smoked that brand. They came in a clean white package that looked so sanitary and nice and modern.

When my family moved to Japan I smoked Marlboros that I bought in the commissary vending machine on base for fifteen cents thanks to the U.S. government. The popular Japanese brand was Hi-Lite. They were rank to begin with and then the Japanese had an odd way of sucking on a cigarette, allowing the smoke to billow out of their mouths and then vacuuming it into their lungs. A noxious chemical reaction must occur when the smoke hits the air as when I tried this technique once to see what the attraction was I thought it felt like radioactive fingernails scraping the inside of my lungs. A very strange addiction, which I did not cultivate thank goodness.

After Japan I went to India where I smoked Four Square that came in a classy flat box, and when trying to scrimp on money, bidis, the cigarette of untouchables, handrolled, dovetailed, green tobacco leaves, laced with cloves and very hard on the lungs.

I spent a few years in Europe where I smoked Parisian Supers, another harsh cigarette and an occasional Gauloise, the notoriously hardcore French brand that came in a patriotic white and blue package with the winged helmet of the ancient French Gauls. I suppose that there is no greater quintessential love generation memory than sitting in an Amsterdam movie theater watching “Easy Rider” passing around funny cigarettes.

But my teens slipped into my twenties and smoking was definitely not a joke. Back in the States I was desperate to quit my pack a day Marlboro habit. In the mid-1970s there were no support groups and smoking was entirely socially acceptable. You could smoke on airplanes and there were not even smoking sections. In movie theaters cigarette smoke spiraled into the funnel of light created by the thirty-five millimeter projector beam. Mothers and fathers packed their kids into the family car for fun outings, windows rolled up, cigarettes blazing. You could smoke just about anywhere, including hospitals.

And so it wasn’t like people were tripping over themselves to help me quit. Without resources, I did the only thing I could think of. I sat down by myself and reviewed the many clever arguments that devilish voice would come up with the minute I put out my last cigarette. Anyone who has attempted to quit an addiction is familiar with this voice. Like a brilliant and charismatic attorney arguing a case, this voice provides a tirade of convincing arguments as to why you should indulge. One little cigarette is not going to hurt you. In 1974 the voice was saying: Faye Dunaway smokes and she is so gorgeous! And so does Jessica Lang and she is amazing! And look at Al Pacino, he is so cool. You can cut down instead of quitting. It would feel so good just to have one puff. And when you are in withdrawals these simplistic arguments sound very, very credible. And so, having experienced the voice throughout numerous prior attempts at quitting, I carefully reviewed all the arguments in preparation for what I hoped would be my final and successful attempt.

And so fortified with my strategy I embarked on quitting. Whenever I heard that siren voice I reminded myself of the list of arguments I had made when I was not out of my head with withdrawals. It took six grueling months to the magic moment when I realized that I was not thinking obsessively about lighting up and that the voice was barely audible. To this day I remember how arduous those six months were. I still consider quitting smoking the biggest accomplishment of my life. And of course I have never for a second regretted quitting smoking.

Today we understand that my heart to heart with myself is called “psyching up,” and that it is a very powerful tool to help solidify ones intentions. But today there is also so much more support for quitting smoking than just biting the bullet on your own. For one, smoking is not only not socially acceptable, but in many places in the country smokers are scorned as social pariahs. And so there is much more incentive to quit. There are self help groups and support telephone lines.

The American Cancer Society (ACS) offers numerous tips for quitting smoking, including taking the antidepressant bupropion (Zyban), which is thought to mimic nicotine’s effects on the brain by boosting levels of the chemical messengers dopamine and norepinephrine (stimulants that make you feel energized). I talk more about neurotransmitters in my book Death by Supermarket. For now, it’s enough for you to understand that you can raise neurotransmitter levels naturally. After all, if you are trying to quit one chemical, why put another chemical into your brain?

The ACS suggest numerous other drugs, such as varenicline (Chantix) which comes with the lovely side effects headaches, nausea, vomiting, trouble sleeping, unusual dreams, flatulence and changes in taste. Or nicotine replacement patches gum or lozenges, which have put billions of dollars into the coffers of pharmaceutical companies from “ex” nicotine addicts who have switched from one nicotine delivery device (cigarettes) to another (these drugs).

The ASC website goes on to disparage acupuncture, hypnosis and other natural methods of reducing cravings. In DBS you will read, from Samuel Epstein, M.D., who is one of the world’s leading experts in cancer prevention and causes that, “The American Cancer Society is more interested in accumulating wealth than savings lives. Their CEOs have high salaries. They have a billion dollars of cash assets in reserves. They have major internal conflicts of interests.” And you will read that the ACS depends on large donations from pharmaceutical companies and that the ACS supports research on drugs that will keep cancer patients alive for a couple of added months rather than concentrating on preventing cancer in the first place.

So let’s get real about how you can quit smoking without taking drugs.

Research demonstrates that quitting smoking cold turkey with willpower is the single most successful approach. That is because willpower comes from the brain. And happily, there is also much more known about brain chemistry today that can fortify willpower.

When you quit smoking the physical addiction can be broken in three days, the psychological addiction can last for months, even years. That is because most of Americans attempt to function in life with very low brain neurotransmitters. If I were quitting smoking today, I would do everything I could to create a healthy, balanced brain before I tried to quit:

Number one on my list would be to stop eating all white sugar and white flour products.

Stop eating all factory food, which contains chemicals.

Eat a balanced diet of real, organic food.

Include protein with every meal (not soy—more about the dangers of soy in later blogs but for now you need to know that soy contains fluoride which damages the thyroid and leads to hypothyroidism = obesity). Your brain and neurotransmitters are made from protein and fats, not from carbohydrates.

Quit other stimulants such as caffeine and herbal stimulants (all that junk you an buy on TV to lose weight). If you need a hot water experience in the morning, switch to organic green tea, which has half the caffeine of coffee and contains health giving properties.

If you have access to an experienced acupuncturist, by all means utilize this 3,000 year-old proven technique.

Hypnosis and neurofeedback therapy are also proven methods to calm the brain down.

Exercise vigorously every day to boost dopamine levels in your brain. Walking is free.

Spend ten minutes exposing your arms and legs to full afternoon sunlight without sun-block. This will give you 50,000 IUs of vitamin D to help heal your lungs from all that damage.

Take cod liver oil every single day. (The flavored variety neutralizes the fishy taste.) Omega 3 oils are clinically proven to balance brain chemistry (more about this in DBS).

Take a quality multi-vitamin and added antioxidants to help your lungs heal from smoking. Three times a day, with meals, take 20 milligrams CoQ10 and 100 milligrams alpha lipoic acid.

To boost neurotransmitters and to help you sleep, twice a day, on an empty stomach, 30 minutes before breakfast and lunch take 100 milligrams 5-HTP. Before bedtime, along with a small amount of natural carbohydrates such as fruit take 25 milligrams vitamin B6 and 100 milligrams magnesium and 100 milligrams of 5 HTP.

Since I quit smoking back in 1974 thousands upon thousands of people have died from lung cancer. Deaths from lung cancer are now up to 140,000 each year. And cigarettes cause other cancers too as free radicals know no bounds. Smoking also robs people of their beauty. When I see Faye Dunaway, Jessica Lange and Al Pacino (ugh, those teeth) I do not doubt that they have aged that badly because they smoke.

Today’s twenty-four year olds may some day bid an early adieu to glamorous smokers Colin Farrell, Keira Knightley, Johnny Depp, Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn or at the very least cringe at how hideously they have aged. I hope in that distant day ex-smokers will look back and say, “Yes, it was hard to quit smoking, but it wasn’t as hard as it could have been because I took the necessary steps to balance my brain chemistry.”

Good luck and OM SHANTI!