Allen Carr's Easy Way To Stop Smoking

by Allen Carr

the only ‘enjoyment’ a smoker gets from a cigarette is temporary relief from the discomfort created by the previous one. All the smoker is looking for is the state of peace, tranquility and confidence that they had before they started smoking in the first place.

You know that feeling when a neighbor’s burglar alarm has been ringing all day, or there has been some other minor, persistent aggravation? The noise suddenly stops and we experience a wonderful feeling of peace and tranquility. Actually, this peace is something of an illusion. All that has really happened is that the aggravation has disappeared and everything has returned to normal. What we are really enjoying is not the feeling of normality, but the ending of the aggravation. Before we start smoking, our bodies and our lives are complete. We then force nicotine into our body by smoking our first cigarette. When we put that first cigarette out, the nicotine begins to leaves the body and is replaced by that barely noticeable feeling of a slight emptiness, a bit like hunger. This is nicotine withdrawal—my metaphorical ‘little monster’. If we smoke again, the nicotine is replaced, the slight emptiness disappears and is replaced by a feeling of relaxation, satisfaction and confidence (i.e. a feeling of normality). But the nicotine from the second cigarette also leaves the body, so the empty feeling returns. So we need to light another cigarette to remove that feeling and once again feel normal. And so the smoker’s cycle of withdrawal and replenishment begins. It’s a lifelong chain of attempts to relieve the slight aggravation caused by withdrawal and to once again feel normal. The whole business of smoking is like forcing yourself to wear tight shoes just to get the pleasure ...

This is the illusion of pleasure we associate with smoking. We only acknowledge the boost the cigarette gives us. What we don’t acknowledge is that the previous cigarette created the need for the boost back to normal in the first place. Of course, non-smokers don’t need this illusory boost because they didn’t get the empty feeling caused by withdrawing from the previous cigarette to begin with.

The heroin doesn’t relieve the symptoms of panic; withdrawing from the previous dose caused them. Equally, non-smokers don’t get the empty feeling of needing a cigarette or start to panic when they can’t smoke. The cigarette causes those symptoms and the next one temporarily relieves them to provide the illusion of pleasure or the illusion of relief. Smokers talk about cigarettes relaxing them and giving satisfaction. But how can you even notice being relaxed unless you were tense in the first place? How can we suddenly feel satisfied unless you were previously dissatisfied? Why don’t non-smokers suffer from this state of tension and dissatisfaction? Why is it that after a meal, when non-smokers are completely relaxed and happy, smokers are tense and edgy—until they have fed that little nicotine monster?

The main reason that smokers find it difficult to quit is that they believe that they are giving up a genuine pleasure or crutch. It is absolutely essential to understand that there is nothing to ‘give up’. The best way to understand the subtleties of the nicotine trap is to compare it with eating. If we are in the habit of eating at set times during the day, we don’t get hungry between meals. Only if the meal is delayed are we aware of being hungry, and even then, there is no physical pain, just an empty, slightly insecure feeling which we know as: ‘I need to eat.’ And the process of satisfying our hunger can be very enjoyable indeed. Smoking appears on the surface to be almost identical. The empty, insecure feeling we know as wanting or ‘needing’ a cigarette is almost identical to a hunger for food. Like hunger, there is no physical pain and the sensation is so slight that we are not even aware of it for much of the day. It’s only when we want to smoke but aren’t allowed to do so—the equivalent of the meal being delayed—that we become aware of any discomfort. When we do light up the discomfort ends and we once again feel normal. Incidentally, this is also why some smokers believe that the cigarette works as an appetite suppressant. Smoking doesn’t suppress the appetite; it’s just that withdrawal feels like hunger (I discuss this in more detail in Chapter 30 ‘Will I Put On Weight?’).

history of Western civilization.

smoking involves ingesting extremely toxic fumes and is known to cause depression, anxiety and panic disorders.

Cigarettes don’t satisfy the ‘hunger’ to smoke, they create and perpetuate it.

once the cigarette is extinguished, the nicotine rapidly leaves the body, creating more withdrawal symptoms. This is why, in stressful situations, so many smokers tend to chain smoke.

The real reason every smoker keeps smoking is to feed that ‘little monster’ he has created. The monster tends to need feeding in certain situations and we come to associate these occasions (or a combination of them) with smoking.

The ‘Big Four’ smoking occasions are: BOREDOM & CONCENTRATION—two complete opposites! STRESS & RELAXATION—two complete opposites!

If smoking REALLY relieved boredom, aided concentration, relaxed us and got us ready for action, then smokers would be more engaged, energetic, better able to concentrate and less stressed than non-smokers.

Apart from being a drug (albeit one with no noticeable ‘high’), nicotine is also a powerful poison and tiny amounts are used in many commercial insecticides. If the nicotine content of just one cigarette were injected directly into your bloodstream, it would kill you. In fact, tobacco contains hundreds of poisons, including benzene, polonium and cyanide. This should not come as a surprise as the tobacco plant is from the same family as the Deadly Nightshade. In addition, many cigarettes also contain toxic additives such as ammonia and formaldehyde.

1. Most of us carry on smoking because, although we know that the disadvantages of smoking outweigh the advantages, we believe that there is something intrinsically enjoyable or special that the cigarette gives us. We feel that after we stop smoking there will be a ‘void’, that our life will never be quite the same. This is an illusion, as I will demonstrate. The fact is that the cigarette gives you nothing. 2. Although it is a highly addictive drug because of the speed with which it hooks you, ironically, you are never badly hooked on the drug itself. Because it is so fast-acting it also leaves the body very quickly. Eight hours after putting out a cigarette, you are 97% nicotine-free. After just three days of not smoking, you are 100% nicotine-free. You will ask, quite rightly, why if this is the case, so many smokers find it so difficult to stop, and suffer through months of torture? Why do so many spend the rest of their lives craving cigarettes at odd times, even years after they have become 100% nicotine-free? The answer is the second component to the smoking puzzle—the brainwashing. Breaking the physical addiction and getting through the chemical withdrawal is fast and easy to cope with. In fact, smokers cope with withdrawal their whole smoking lives and they cope with it so easily that they aren’t even aware it exists. Most smokers go all night without a cigarette. The withdrawal ‘pangs’ do not even wake them up. Many smokers will leave the bedroom before they ligh...

While it is very, very mild, physical withdrawal from nicotine does exist—as I said, we experience it every time we put out a cigarette—but it is not the main problem. It just acts as a catalyst to confuse us over the real problem: the brainwashing.

The recovery starts immediately after you put out your final cigarette. Within just twenty minutes your heart rate returns to normal and after 24 hours, the likelihood of a heart attack is reduced by half.

The further the drug drags you down, the greater the relief when you quit. When I finally broke free I went from a hundred cigarettes a day to ZERO, and I didn’t experience one single pang. In fact, it was actually enjoyable, even during the withdrawal period. Think of nicotine addiction as the ‘little monster’ I mentioned earlier. It’s utterly insignificant and you can squash it like a bug. The only danger of the little monster is that it feeds the big monster—the BRAINWASHING.

Every smoker knows of an Uncle Fred who smoked two packs a day, never had a day’s illness in his life, and lived to eighty. We ignore the fact that for every Uncle Fred, there is a Peter Jennings, Humphrey Bogart, Steve McQueen, George Harrison, Betty Grable, Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson, Lucille Ball, Bette Davis or Errol Flynn. Every day nearly 1,500 Americans die of smoking-related causes. We also ignore the fact that Uncle Fred might still be alive if he hadn’t been a smoker.

we are brainwashed into searching for any scrap of information that allows us to continue to justify our smoking.

There it remains for the rest of our smoking lives, unchallenged and all-powerful. We need to begin to ask some searching questions: Why am I doing it? What does the cigarette really do for me? Do I really need to smoke? NO, OF COURSE YOU DON’T.

Why is it that an otherwise rational, intelligent human being becomes a complete imbecile when it comes to looking at his own addiction? It pains me to confess that out of all of the people that I have assisted in stopping smoking, I was the biggest idiot of all.

The worst thing about smoking is not the damage to your health or bank account; it’s the warping of your mind. You search for any excuse to go on smoking, despite being acutely aware of the harm it is causing.

Even the expression ‘giving up’ is part of the brainwashing. This phrase implies a genuine and substantial sacrifice. The beautiful truth is that there is absolutely nothing to give up. On the contrary, you will be freeing yourself from this terrible slavery and achieving marvelous positive gains.

Because he’s brainwashed into believing he has made a genuine sacrifice when he quits, the cigarette continues to dominate the ex-smoker who quits using willpower. This is why people quitting using willpower are often so miserable.

It is not the non-smoker who is being deprived but the smoker who is surrendering a lifetime of: HEALTH ENERGY WEALTH PEACE OF MIND CONFIDENCE COURAGE SELF-RESPECT HAPPINESS FREEDOM And what does he gain from making these enormous sacrifices? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

The only thing the cigarette does is remove the aggravation caused by the previous cigarette, so that the smoker, for a moment, feels like a non-smoker. By lighting up, he temporarily relieves the very slight feeling of emptiness and enjoys the state of relaxation and peace that non-smokers enjoy all their lives. But immediately after putting the cigarette out, the nicotine begins to leave the bloodstream and the slightly empty feeling returns. So the smoker has to light up again, and again and again.

As I explained earlier, some smokers claim they smoke for enjoyment, relaxation or some sort of boost. In fact, this is an illusion. The real reason that any smoker lights up is to relieve the withdrawal pangs. Relieving these pangs returns us, for a short while, to a feeling of normality and this is the illusion of pleasure or a boost. The withdrawal pangs themselves are so mild that most smokers are completely unaware that they even exist. In the very early days we use the cigarette as a social prop. We feel we can take it or leave it. But as the days and weeks go by, the subconscious mind begins to realize that the cigarette appears to relieve the very slight pangs caused by withdrawing from the nicotine contained in the previous cigarette. Because stress or mild anxiety can feel like the empty, insecure feeling caused by nicotine withdrawal, our subconscious gets tricked into believing that the cigarette will relieve real stress too. Of course we do feel better when we have a cigarette but all we have done is to relieve the stress and discomfort caused by withdrawing from the previous cigarette. At no time has the cigarette helped us to address the real stress or source of anxiety. As with any drug, our bodies begin to develop immunity to its effects. The more we become hooked on the drug, the greater the need to relieve the withdrawal pangs and the greater the illusion of pleasure or relief. The further we are dragged down, the more we need the artificial boost the ci...

This boost is not an illusion—she does feel better—but the cigarette has only removed the portion of her stress that was caused by withdrawing from the nicotine in the previous cigarette.

the smoker now feels better able to cope with the stress because they are temporarily no longer going through the additional stress of withdrawing from nicotine.

This is the illusion of the cigarette as a stress reliever. It temporarily relieves the stress caused by the previous cigarette. But all the smoker is really doing is guaranteeing that he or s...

cigarettes create stress rather than relieve it.

As you go through life it systematically robs you of your courage and your nerve. The more it ruins your courage, the more you come to rely on the cigarette to restore it. We all know of the panic that smokers experience when they are out late at night and running low on cigarettes. Non-smokers do not experience this fear and panic: the cigarette creates it.

Cigarettes not only destroy your nerves but also contain many toxins that attack the central nervous system and other key organs and systems, progressively destroying your physical health. By the time the smoker reaches the stage at which it is killing him, he depends totally on the cigarette. He sees it as his courage and cannot face life without it.

Get it clear in your mind: Cigarettes don’t relieve stress; they create it. Cigarettes don’t help you to calm down and relax; they cause you to be panicky and agitated. One of the most wonderful things about breaking free from this awful...

I believe that smokers have more boredom in their lives than non-smokers because cigarettes rob them of energy and they are more lethargic. Instead of getting up and doing something when they are bored, as a non-smoker does, the smoker tends to want to lounge around, bored, relieving their withdrawal pangs.

the smoker is already distracted: that ‘little monster’ wants his fix, and until he gets is, the smoker will find it difficult to concentrate. So when he wants to concentrate he doesn’t even have to think about it. He automatically lights up, removes the distraction caused by needing to smoke and can concentrate properly, like a non-smoker. Looking at it this way it is obvious that cigarettes do not help concentration, rather that experiencing withdrawal makes it harder to concentrate. Of course non-smokers are not distracted by withdrawal pangs and therefore don’t need to smoke to remove them.

Apart from the constant distraction of going through nicotine withdrawal, the progressive blocking of arteries and veins with the poisons contained in tobacco starves the brain of oxygen.

The loss of concentration that smokers suffer when they try to stop smoking is not, in fact, due to the physical withdrawal from nicotine. When you are a smoker and you have a mental block, what do you do? That’s right, if you are not already smoking one, you light a cigarette. That doesn’t cure the block, so then what do you do? You do what non-smokers do: you knuckle down and get on with it. Only this time you do so without the distraction of going through nicotine withdrawal.

You work through the block—as the non-smoker does—but give the credit to the cigarette. Instead you should be blaming the cigarette for providing the distraction that caused the loss of concentration in the first place. This is a very common theme with respect to smoking. The cigarette gets the credit for everything and the blame for nothing.

One of my children would do something wrong and I would lose my temper to a degree that was out of all proportion to what he had done. I really believed that I had an evil, uncontrollable side to my character. I now know that I did, however it wasn’t some inherent flaw in me, but the nicotine ‘monster’ that was rearing its ugly head. During those times I thought I had all the problems in the world, and I wondered what I had done to deserve this miserable, stressful life. Today, I can see the problem so clearly. I was in control of all aspects of my life, bar one. The one thing that controlled me was the cigarette and it was this that was the source of so much unhappiness. The sad thing is that even today I can’t convince my children that it was the smoking that caused me to be so irritable.

Nicotine withdrawal creates feelings of slight tension and anxiety. When the smoker lights up he removes these feelings and can relax, like a non-smoker. But as soon as he puts the cigarette out, withdrawal begins and the feeling of tension and anxiety returns. So he needs to light up again and again… This is the saddest thing about smoking. We smoke so that we can remove the feelings of withdrawal and feel like a non-smoker.

The whole business of smoking can be likened to a fly being caught in a pitcher plant. To begin with, the fly is eating the nectar. But at some stage the plant begins to eat the fly. Isn’t it time you escaped from the nicotine trap?

As I have already said, eventually the cigarette ceases to relieve the withdrawal pangs, and even when you are smoking, you sense that something is missing. This is the curse of the chain-smoker. Whenever you need a boost, you find that you are already smoking, and this is why so many heavy smokers turn to drink or other drugs. But I digress.

During a game of cards, all smokers will be chain-smoking, no matter how slight the withdrawal pangs are. Even so-called ‘casual’ smokers will smoke much more than usual. The ashtrays will fill and overflow in no time. There’ll be a constant bluish fog hovering above the table and even the smokers will complain about how smoky the room is getting. If you were to ask any of the smokers whether they were enjoying it, they would look at you as if you were mad. It is often after nights like these, when we wake up with a throat like sandpaper and a mouth like a cesspit that we decide to try to stop smoking.

Most of these so-called ‘special’ cigarettes come either at a time that’s enjoyable anyway, regardless of whether you are a smoker or a non-smoker (after a meal, a coffee break, having a drink with friends etc.) in which case the cigarette is getting the credit for something that is fun anyway, or after a period of abstinence (after a meal, a coffee break, the first of the day, after a long flight etc.) where we are enjoying not the cigarette, but the ending of the irritation of not being allowed to smoke. This is explained in more detail in the coming chapters.

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

These bodies of ours are the most sophisticated machines on the planet. Whether you believe in a divine creator, a process of evolution and natural selection or a combination of both, it is safe to assume that if we were meant to smoke, we would have been provided with some sort of filter to screen out the hundreds of toxins contained in tobacco smoke.

The beautiful truth is that there is nothing to ‘give up’. Once you purge the ‘little monster’ from your body and the brainwashing from your mind, you will neither want nor need cigarettes.

Cigarettes do not improve meals. They ruin them. They destroy your sense of smell and taste. As a smoker, all you can think about is why everyone else is eating so slowly and when it will end, so that you can smoke. Like I said, it’s not so much that we enjoy smoking; it’s that we get miserable and anxious when we can’t. It doesn’t seem to occur to us that non-smokers don’t experience this misery and stress.

Cigarettes systematically attack your nervous system, robbing you of your confidence. The