The Easy Way to Control Alcohol (Allen Carr's Easyway)

by Allen Carr

How can I tell that I wouldn’t have succeeded if I’d had the willpower to hold out longer? At the time I couldn’t. But because I now understand drug addiction, I know that I would never have been free, no matter how long I’d hung on.

Undaunted, I asked him if it would take willpower not to get on a Number 9 bus, if you had no desire to get on a Number 9 bus. He failed to see the connection. I explained that the only reason that a smoker lights a cigarette is because he has a desire to light a cigarette. And that Easyway permanently removes that desire before the smoker extinguishes his final cigarette. If the ex-smoker never has the desire to smoke again, why on earth should it take willpower not to smoke again?

It is also indisputable that although alcohol is a chemical, the problem itself is mental, and so is its solution.

People don’t take up drinking to be sociable. Why then do we believe that drinking is a sociable pastime? Because we’ve been brainwashed from birth to believe it: alcohol is considered essential at practically all genuinely social gatherings like parties, weddings and even wakes. In fact, at some social gatherings, like the Oberfest, it would appear to be the only reason for the event. But like any other activity, people don’t do it to be sociable. “I only drink to be sociable” is not a reason but an excuse.

Smokers and drinkers find that even the illusion of pleasure goes if they are the only one doing it in a given situation. This is particularly so at a party, when it is patently obvious that everyone else is perfectly capable of having a good time without having to continually choke themselves and/or pour a poison down their throats.

This is why all drug addicts have a tendency to group together. Such behaviour is often explained as ‘being sociable’.

It is difficult for non-heroin addicts to see the ritual of ‘sharing a needle’ as sociable behaviour.

But have I never heard of a drinking club or the local? Of course, but you can be sociable at the local without drinking alcohol; and if anyone joins a club purely to drink, their next club is likely to be AA, and I don’t mean the Automobile Association.

We have an extremely distorted view of the friendly local. It is true that a bunch of friends will be laughing and joking, but that is because they are friends, not because they are consuming alcohol!