Grant Harwood has set up 60 Days to Freedom to teach people how to get to a mental place where they have the resolve to never go back to smoking.

“I was a smoker who was hopelessly addicted,” say Grant.

“I couldn’t give up and I’d tried everything.”

Before setting up the website, the 49-year-old tried to unravel the reasons why many people who stop smoking take up the habit again.

“When I finally gave up, I didn’t just give up, I had to think long and hard about why I couldn’t quit smoking [in the past],” says Grant, who was a smoker for 27 years.

“I did it myself and I did it quietly. I spent months thinking about it. Most of the smokers out there are tempted to give up, perhaps a few times. It’s not the giving up- it’s the going back to it.”

The 60 Days to Freedom programme takes participants through online sessions designed to help smokers reach a stage where they can honestly say they will never smoke again.

“I don’t talk about ‘quitting’ so much on the website,” says Grant.

“We smash concepts that keep people smoking.”

The husband and father-of-two believes a lot of people return to the habit because they never truly commit to becoming a non-smoker.

“You’re sitting there waiting for a justification for it,” he says.

“I believe smokers who ‘quit’ count their days back to smoking.

“They’ve never cut it away from their life forever.”

Grant says that for years he rebelled against pressure from society to give up cigarettes.

“I was rejecting authority,’ he smiles. “Then I realised I’m a smoker because I keep returning to smoking. I wasn’t serious about never putting another cigarette in my mouth. We all want that ‘get out’ clause.”

A personal reason for establishing the web-delivered course was the death of a relative from lung cancer.

“It was a catalyst to say, ‘man, I don’t want to watch another person die like this because of smoking’. I’m going to help a lot of people and I love that idea.”

His advice to people who are committed to stopping smoking for good is to take it slow, as the time taken in their journey is a “drop in the ocean” compared to their future years as a non-smoker.

Smoking is one of those dirty sides of society,” says Grant.

“I teach them never to go back. It’s a day of personal empowerment that you can’t believe.”

To find out more information about 60 Days to Freedom click here.

By Rebecca Gardiner

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