Hi, my name is Graham Foster. I was a smoker from the age of 15 to 40. When I was fifteen years old I was one of those people who were not going to take up smoking. My friends and I went on a school trip to Germany where, because of being able to get alcohol at a younger age, we got drunk quite a lot. It was in one of these drunken states that we came upon the idea of trying a cigarette. The first one or two we didn't inhale but as we became braver we began inhaling just a bit. When we started inhaling properly we felt nauseated and dizzy and tried to resist coughing but of course we coughed anyway. So we tried again the next night and the next night and the next. We felt proud of ourselves for being able to smoke and yet we weren't hooked so the fear of becoming hooked had gone. The memory is a little hazy after that but it wasn't long before I remember being quite astonished and very worried that every time I decided not to smoke any more, after a while I would experience a panic attack and smoke again. I was never a happy smoker. I would try to stop time and time again, yet I just continued to smoke more and more. Most of the time I just accepted it but I always felt that one day I would stop. I tried cold turkey, I tried going on holiday, and I tried staying in the bedroom. I tried nicotine gum and patches and inhalers, I even tried acupuncture and hypnotism. It never worked. Eventually I found the secret formula to stop and stay stopped easily and without cravings. In addition to this I also developed other serious addictions that devastated my life. I became an alcoholic and a drug addict. I have had to find a way out of all these addictions in order to get my life back. When I eventually overcame all my addictions I trained as a teacher. After this, I became a trainer in one of the biggest companies in the world. I found I had some talent in communicating information and concepts to others. Putting this together with my life experience I developed a treatment for drug and alcohol addiction. I am currently the Director of Addiction Recovery Centre in Portsmouth, England, which is an established residential rehab. I first got clean and sober from drink and drugs in March 1995. It took me another five years of trial and error before I hit upon the right formula for stopping smoking permanently and easily. I eventually won that battle in early 2000 and have not suffered any cravings since.