This past summer, a man in the business of helping smokers quit, was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. Just months later, anti-smoking guru Allen Carr lost his battle with cancer. On November 29th, Carr died at his home in Malaga, Spain.

A heavy smoker for 33 years before quitting 23 years ago, Carr claimed to have found an easy way to quit smoking. From that discovery, he founded The Easy Way to Stop Smoking Program, which would eventually grow into 70 clinics in 30 countries. In addition, his company publishes how-to quit smoking books, CDs, tapes and DVDs.

Using cognitive therapy, Carr told smokers interested in quitting that they could do it without willpower, without suffering withdrawal and without gaining weight. The celebrity endorsements for his program include Sir Anthony Hopkins, Sean Bean, Marie Helvin, Johnny Cash, George Harrison, Lisa Stansfield, Sir Richard Branson, Britney Spears, Susannah York, Bruce Oldfield, Stefano Gabbana and Julie Christie.

Carr is credited with helping over 25 million people to quit smoking.

An Easy Way to Stop Smoking Program clinic spokesperson was quoted as saying, "Allen spent many years in smoke-filled rooms after he quit, while treating smokers for addiction. He is certain that had he not quit, he would have died 20 years ago." Near the time of his death, Carr wrote a letter to Tony Blair urging his government and NHS to accept the easy method program. Carr was 72.

In 1998, former Beatles Sir Paul McCartney lost his beloved wife Linda to breast cancer. At the time, she had been helping him work on his fourth classical album Ecce Cor Meum (Behold My Heart). When Linda died, Paul says in his grief the music stopped and he could not work for a year.

Ecce Cor Meum is an orchestral work in four movements. Interlude is Paul's tribute to Linda. BBC News has quoted Paul as saying, "There is an interlude in the middle of Ecce Cor Meum which is a very sad piece of music. My colleague and I remember actually sitting at the keyboard just weeping when we were doing this piece. It does it to me every time. It was a very, very emotional, very sad time for me, obviously, losing Linda."

Last Sunday was Linda's birthday. The album Ecce Cor Meum, recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London, was released on Monday. For Paul, the timing of the release of this work is meaningful. If you plan to be in London on November 4, Ecce Cor Meum will be performed live at the Royal Albert Hall.

Ecce Cor Meum is available for sale at Amazon, with short audio samplings of Spiritus; Gratia; Interlude (Lament); Musica and Ecce Cor Meum. Some of the pieces have a delicate haunting sadness and an exquisitely beautiful emotional quality that makes the music superb. Ecce Cor Meum is a moving tribute of love and remembrance.

A man in the business of helping smokers quit, has been diagnosed with lung cancer. Allen Carr, who was a heavy smoker for 33 years, found what he claimed was an easy way to quit smoking after he quit smoking 23 years ago. Using cognitive therapy, Carr told smokers interested in quitting that they could do it without willpower, without suffering withdrawal and without gaining weight. The celebrity endorsements include Sir Anthony Hopkins, Sean Bean, Marie Helvin, Johnny Cash, George Harrison, Lisa Stansfield, Sir Richard Branson, Susannah York, Bruce Oldfield, Stefano Gabbana and Julie Christie.

Carr believes his lung cancer diagnosis might be the result of second-hand smoke after spending the last 23 years in the presence of his clients who signed up for his Easy Way to Stop Smoking program.

On being diagnosed with lung cancer, Carr was quoted as saying, "I have been the happiest man in the world since I stopped smoking 23 years ago and I still feel the same way. This has come as a shock but I remain very upbeat."

In addition to his quit smoking workshops, Carr wrote a book Alan Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking, which has sold more than 10 million copies in more than 45 countries. He claims his Easy Way to Stop Smoking method has a 53 percent success rate after 12 months compared with less than 5 percent for those who go cold turkey. Easy Way maintains a website.

As Oral, Head and Neck Cancer Awareness Week just ended yesterday, I am a little late to the party. However, while I was looking up information about smoking, I visited their website to discover an eye-opening section profiling historical and famous people throughout history who suffered from cancer as a result of smoking. Sigmund Freud, considered by many to be the most important historical figure in the areas of psychology and psychiatry for his theories on the subconscious, was so addicted to nicotine, that he hid a cancerous growth in his mouth for years because he did not want to be admonished for his smoking habit.

In the few times Freud did manage to quit smoking, he wrote to a friend, "I have not smoked for seven weeks since the day of your injunction. At first I felt, as expected, outrageously bad ... with mild depression, as well as the horrible misery of abstinence. These wore off but left me completely incapable of working, a beaten man. After seven weeks I began smoking again ... Since the first few cigars, I was able to work and was the master of my mood; before that life was unbearable." Despite experiencing the last fifteen years of his life as a series of painfully dangerous surgeries, and the replacement of most of his jaw, Freud smoked until the day of his death.