The Easyway to Stop Smoking

by Allen Carr

The whole business of smoking is like forcing yourself to wear tight shoes just to get the pleasure of taking them off.

Get it clear in your mind: CIGARETTES DO NOT FILL A VOID. THEY CREATE ONE!

Quite simply, the key to being a happy non-smoker is to remove the desire to smoke. With no desire to smoke, it takes no Willpower not to do so.

What’s the point of being healthy if you’re miserable? What’s the point of being rich if you’re miserable? Surely it is far better to have a shorter, sweeter life than a longer, more miserable one?

As I have said many times: it’s not that we enjoy smoking, it’s that we’re miserable when we can’t smoke. But non-smokers don’t get miserable when they can’t smoke. The cigarette causes the misery. Why can’t we see this when it is so obvious to everyone else?

the main problem with stopping is not the chemical addiction, but the mistaken belief that the cigarette gives you some pleasure and that as a non-smoker you will be depriving yourself of that pleasure.

It is the thought of that one ‘special’ cigarette that often prevents smokers from even trying to stop: the first in the morning or the one after a meal.

Whatever you do, don’t try not to think about smoking. This is a tactic used by people who are quitting using willpower. They try not to think about smoking, but of course this makes them think about it even more. Soon they are obsessed and can’t get the cigarette out of their mind.

SAVOR EACH THOUGHT AND EACH MOMENT. REMIND YOURSELF HOW WONDERFUL IT IS TO BE FREE ONCE AGAIN AND CELEBRATE THE PURE JOY OF NO LONGER BEING A PRISONER, A SLAVE AND AN ADDICT.

Willpower quitters frequently doubt their decision to quit because they still suffer from the illusion that they enjoyed smoking and this causes the sense of deprivation

Remember that you have traded in a life of fear, misery and slavery for one of health, happiness and freedom.

Substitutes include gum, candy, pills, patches and chocolate. DO NOT USE ANY OF THEM. They make it harder to quit, not easier because they perpetuate the myth that you have given something up and that you need to replace it with something else. That quitting smoking has left a hole in your life that needs to be filled. Smoking was the hole in your life. When you get rid of the cigarette, you fill the hole and are once again complete.

Remember these points: 1. Smoking is a disease. You do not need a substitute disease when you quit. 2. You do not need nicotine. It is poison. You don’t need a substitute for poison. 3. Remember: cigarettes create the void; they do not fill it. Non-smokers don’t have a ‘void’. The quicker you truly accept that you do not need to smoke, or do anything else in its place, the sooner you will be truly free.