There is also a prescription drug, called Chantix, designed to help smokers quit. It has been recommended to me many times, and my parents both used it with great results. It works by reducing nicotine cravings while also making smoking less satisfying. But it also has adverse side effects, particularly for anyone with a history of depression. Given that I have bipolar disorder, every doctor I’ve asked has recommended that I do not use the drug. Another dead end.The only thing that sort of worked was reading a book that’s supposed to reprogram your brain to never want to smoke again. Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking promised that I would put the book down and have no desire to smoke. What’s strange is that it worked…at first, anyway. I was a “happy non-smoker” for a grand total of two weeks. I was telling everyone I knew, bragging about how easy it had been, and how confident I was that I would never smoke again. Then, one night at a bar, a man next to me lit up a Newport menthol — possibly my least favorite cigarette in the world — and the smell was so intoxicating I couldn’t stand it. I asked to bum one.It was incredible. All of the joy of my first cigarette came rushing back — the dizziness, the burning, the smell. It was so much better than the cigarettes I had smoked before I quit. Then I asked for another, and he obliged. I was ashamed; I had thrown away two weeks of work and disappointed myself, and everyone who was rooting for me.The next day, I bought a pack. I even read the book again. I’d read in a smokers’ forum that it sometimes worked better the second time. I made it a week after my second attempt. But working as a bartender and spending so much time around smokers, smelling them and watching plumes of smoke settle over their heads, has made my journey toward quitting feel, at times, impossible.