Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking - Allen Carr

...was so easy after reading Allen Carr’s “Easy Way to Stop Smoking” book. I realise that everyone’s experience with smoking and stopping smoking is different, and what's easy to me might not be easy to others. However, I am writing this in the hope that it prompts someone to read the book, and that it changes their life as it has mine.

The book actually says in it that you should keep it close by to refer back to, but I haven’t had to ...
...May 2006, I came across Allen Carr's "Easy Way to Stop Smoking" book. I had never bought a self-help book before and never had any desire to. However, I had a birthday book token to spend and thought I might as well get it. I actually bought it at the full RRP price of £8.99, but it can be bought for less! On returning to work I started reading, and I started to think I shouldn't have bothered. The book made out that there was an easy way ... more

I wrote this review on 1st December, having been 6 months smoke-free. I am now updating it since tomorrow (1st June) is the 1st anniversary of my husband and I stopping smoking. It has been a really good year, and I just wish I’d done it sooner. Although I don’t want to sound cocky, stopping smoking really was so easy after reading Allen Carr’s “Easy Way to Stop Smoking” book. I realise that everyone’s experience with smoking and stopping smoking is different, and what's easy to me might not be easy to others. However, I am writing this in the hope that it prompts someone to read the book, and that it changes their life as it has mine.

The book actually says in it that you should keep it close by to refer back to, but I haven’t had to refer back to it at all as I haven’t craved cigarettes. As I am updating this review I will take the book off my shelf and have another look at it!

***My Experience with smoking***

Perhaps my experience with smoking was not the norm. There was never any "peer pressure" on me to smoke - in fact quite the reverse as my friends at the time were almost as anti-smoking as me! A combination of events led me to start smoking when I was 16 (a relatively late-starter), back in 1997. At the time I wasn't particularly bothered whether I was alive or dead (due to depression), so thought I might as well start smoking. Of course the fact that my parents were so anti-smoking almost definitely (subconsciously) played an important part, although they didn't find out for nearly 2 years (but that is another story!) Another factor behind my smoking was the confusion that when society spends so much time (and money) going on about the evils of smoking, why do people still smoke? I thought there must be something in it.

My husband and I had one previous attempt to give up smoking in 2003, using nothing but willpower. We lasted roughly 3 months, but each day instead of wanting a fag less, I wanted one more and more. I kidded myself that I could just have one, then that I could just smoke on weekends, weekends became weekdays, and soon I was back to square one - we both were since we egged each other on…."go on, I'll have one if you have one!"

As I approached my 25th birthday I decided that it was time for both of us to think about giving up for good. Having been smoking roughly 15-20 a day for 9 years, I knew that enough was enough, and since I now respect my life I do care whether or not I am alive or dead, and am particularly bothered about whether hubby is alive or dead! I also want to have kids in a few years, and would hate the added stress of giving up smoking on top of pregnancy. Although the sheer thought of never having another fag seemed impossible, hubby and I set the date for giving up - 1st June, just after my birthday and various functions we had to attend.

***Buying and reading the book***

Coming onto the point of this review (!), whilst browsing WHSmiths at lunchtime on 31st May 2006, I came across Allen Carr's "Easy Way to Stop Smoking" book. I had never bought a self-help book before and never had any desire to. However, I had a birthday book token to spend and thought I might as well get it. I actually bought it at the full RRP price of £8.99, but it can be bought for less! On returning to work I started reading, and I started to think I shouldn't have bothered. The book made out that there was an easy way to stop smoking which didn't even involve any willpower. As a smoker this seemed absurd - surely if it was that easy I'd have given up smoking before? It sounded far too good to be true. However, I'm not one to buy a book and not finish it, so I persevered. By the time I was on the train home I was hooked, and even more so when I got home and could smoke whilst reading the book in the comfort of my living room.

Yes, you heard me right - to get the full benefits of Carr's book you need to smoke while you are reading. To a smoker this idea sounds very appealing! My thoughts were along the lines of "well, this is my last day of smoking, so I might as well make the most of it!"

I introduced the book to hubby, and over the course of the evening we read it in shifts. Now, let me stress here that the book is not designed to be read by two people in one evening. But bear in mind we were giving up smoking the next day, so we had to read it then, or not at all!

***About the Book***

The book was eye-opening, and while it was really just common sense, it was common sense which many smokers won't ever have thought about! These are the main points which I took away from the book:
▪ Ask any smoker if they could go back to before they smoked. How many would say they would still start smoking?
▪ You do not enjoy smoking, you only think you do.
▪ You are not giving up smoking. Giving up implies that you will be missing something. Since there are no benefits to smoking you will not be giving anything up. You will merely be stopping.
▪ We have been brainwashed into believing that stopping smoking is difficult. The physical withdrawal symptoms are minimal and don't last long.
▪ Stopping smoking can actually be an enjoyable experience as you reap the rewards of no longer poisoning yourself.
▪ There is no need for any nicotine replacement therapies as these are merely another way of poisoning your body with nicotine.
▪ You will soon look at other smokers with pity.

The one thing that the book says that I didn't agree with was that you need to keep the book in a safe place to refer to as and when needed. I have found no need to refer to the book and I did not refer to it when initially writing this review. I have had comments from people saying that they read the book and stopped smoking, but started again a year or two years later. I appreciate that everyone is different, but personally I cannot understand why someone would go back to smoking. Perhaps if someone does think about starting smoking again, then they need to refer back to the book about what to do if you are having a bad day and considering smoking! But I can honestly say that I really don’t miss smoking in the slightest.

One good thing about stopping smoking using this book is that there was no need to do anything like throwing out cigarette lighters or ashtrays. Smoking paraphernalia really doesn’t hinder the process of stopping smoking – and it means that hubby and I pretty much have a lifetime’s supply of lighters for when we want to light candles!

***More detail about the book***

The book was first published in 1985 under the title “The Easy Way to Stop Smoking”. The book I bought was the third Penguin edition with a CD, published in 2006. I haven’t (and have no intention of) listened to the CD – it is essentially a preview of the audio version of the book.

The book is spilt into 44 small chapters some of which are only just over a page long (the whole book is only 215 pages). This makes it really easy to read. This was especially ideal for my husband and I reading the book in one evening!

There is no point in me giving a chapter by chapter analysis of the book. If you smoke and you want to stop smoking, then you really do need to read the book. However, I will share with you a quote from Allen Carr:

“This is the warning. We have a chicken and egg situation. Every smoker wants to quit and every smoker can find it easy and enjoyable to quit. It’s only fear that prevents smokers from trying to quit.”

Carr’s book really does get rid of this fear. The thing which really seems to make stopping smoking so difficult is that people think it’s difficult:

“It is easy to stop! That is a fact. My only difficulty is to convince every smoker of that fact.”

Stopping smoking essentially requires just two steps:
1.Make the decision that you are never going to smoke again.
2.Don’t mope about it. Rejoice.

***Does it work for everyone?***

No, it doesn’t. Everyone is different. When I initially wrote this review I couldn’t understand how this book could not possibly work for everyone. However, 6 months after that perhaps the illusion of Allen Carr being a miracle-worker has lessened slightly. Yes, the book is amazing (it has been for me anyway) but you do have to be ready to stop smoking. If you read the book whilst still being adamant that smoking is something that brings you an inaugural amount of pleasure, then it is unlikely to help you.

I have bought copies of the book for two people, and I will give a brief outline of their experiences:

Sheila, 58 (name changed) – my colleague at work. She had been smoking since her teenaged years. Her husband had been a heavy smoker until his doctor told him that if he didn’t stop smoking he didn’t have much longer to live. He subsequently stopped smoking, but Sheila continued despite her worsening angina. I gave Sheila the book as a present in early July 2006. My other colleague and I felt that it was unlikely that she would read it, or that it would work for her. But I felt it was worth a try, and we were pleasantly surprised.

Sheila read the book over the next month or so, and stopped smoking in August 2006. I am certain that she didn’t find it as easy as I had, but she did it. Several months later her brother died from lung cancer, and I think that probably spurred her on to not start smoking again, although we did think that the stress might lead to her starting again. We were pleasantly surprised.

Paul, 25 (name changed) – Paul is one of my best friends. I bought this book for him for his 25th birthday last June. He read half of it, found it patronising, and didn’t bother finishing it. He evidently wasn’t ready to stop smoking at the time. I am hoping that in the future he will give it another go, especially since in a month’s time he will no longer be allowed to smoke in the pub!

***Saying Well done!***

The last thing I want is for people to say "Well done" for stopping smoking. For a start it was stupid of me to smoke in the first place. But most importantly, since there wasn't anything to give up it was not difficult, it involved no willpower or special skill. Providing that you follow Allen Carr's instructions the method is foolproof – of course not everyone is motivated enough to follow the instructions!

My last fag was at 11:30pm on Wednesday 31st May. I don't regret smoking as such. It was merely something that I did, but don't do anymore. There have been a couple of moments when I have thought that I could do with a fag (when I have been very drunk), but these thoughts are soon replaced as I merely remind myself that I am a non-smoker. I am sure that I could have stopped smoking without the book, but I am pretty sure that I would still want a fag now, and thinking that I'm missing out on something.

Yes the book is repetitive, Yes it can seem patronising, and Yes you will probably want to punch Allen Carr if he says one more time how he used to smoke 100 a day and gave up just like that. But what's a little bit of annoyance if it gets the message through?

I visited my doctor a couple of months after stopping smoking and told him that I'd stopped smoking thanks to Allen Carr. He didn't seem to believe me as to what an amazing book it is, and how it can stop people wanting to smoke (I think only someone who has stopped smoking as a result of the book can truly appreciate it). I seem to spend a lot of time promoting the book, and just find it unbelievable that the NHS waste so much money on nicotine replacement therapies (which people often use in addition to smoking) and funds those irritating adverts on the TV (which when I smoked just made me want to immediately light up) when the book costs next to nothing and is not harming the body. For the price of a packet of fags so many people can stop smoking without any effort.

Call it brainwashing, call it what you like. I don't care, because I'm a non-smoker - Yippee (read the book and you'll understand the Yippees!)!!! And yes, I have also become that annoying ex-smoker who I vowed never to become! I am now particularly looking forward to the smoking ban in public places – coming home from the pub and not stinking of fags has got to be a good thing!

I actually originally wrote this review on the 1st December which was the date that Allen Carr sadly died. His death was a result of smoking in the past, which is actually quite fitting. However, he lived a truly amazing life – to have stopped so many other people from losing their lives due to smoking is such an amazing achievement. I will be eternally grateful to him, and I know that many other people are too.

***My views on smoking now, and how life has changed***

The only downside for me of stopping smoking is that I have become the person that I always hated while I was a smoker. I have even found myself giving smokers dirty looks, or saying loudly in a restaurant when someone lights up “I’m surprised that restaurants haven’t all become non-smoking before the ban comes in”. I know this doesn’t make me a nice person…..but then saying that, before I smoked I had exactly that view as well, so perhaps I’ve just gone back to how I was before.

The other thing is that now that I don’t smoke I feel so guilty for the times that I was in the pub with non-smoking friends, and sat there smoking away without any consideration for them. Of course if they had ever asked me I would have smoked away from them, but that isn’t really the point. When I smoked I didn’t really appreciate how nasty it is for non-smokers.

Financially speaking I don’t really feel that hubby and I are any better off, because we tend to spend whatever money we have. However, we did buy a brand new Peugeot 407 back in October, and we like to see the monthly payments for that as being what we otherwise would have spent on smoking. I know what I’d rather have!

The health benefits have been noticeable from the start. I used to get the most awful hacking cough after I had a cold. These coughs lasted for up to 6 weeks, went from chesty to tickly, and back to chesty again – and this was when they didn’t develop into bronchitis. Then no sooner had I got rid of the cough, I’d get another cold. My coughs really were a nightmare, I got through bottles and bottles of cough medicine, and felt awful a lot of the time – not to mention the fact that I kept hubby awake, and probably the next-door neighbour too. Since stopping smoking I now have normal colds like everyone else, and no coughs. This has led to me being much happier, especially in the winter months.

***Buy the book!***

Allen Carr’s “Easy Way to Stop Smoking” book is currently available on Amazon for £5.39. There are also CD and a DVD versions available which might be useful for those who do not like reading. But I can’t comment on their usefulness since I haven’t used them!

Incidentally, I have just ordered Allen Carr’s “Easyweigh to lose weight”. It has a very mixed bunch of reviews on Amazon (unlike for this book which are nearly all extremely positive), but I reckon it can’t hurt – I will review it in the distant future! Just a note to worried smokers, the weight gain isn’t as a result of stopping smoking, it’s because I eat like a pig!

***Concluding remarks***

If you smoke then I only have two words to say - READ IT! With the ban in public places coming in on 1st July, what have you got to lose? 

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