Allen Carr's Easy Way to Quit Smoking Without Willpower

by Allen Carr

Smoking is simply a trap into which anybody can fall if they light an experimental cigarette. Because once you’ve put nicotine into your body, all it takes is the second cigarette to feed the Little Monster and you begin a lifetime’s journey into the nicotine pit.

There is one thing at both ends of this tug-of-war: FEAR. It is overwhelmingly fear that keeps smokers trapped. On the one hand, the fear of what will happen if we carry on smoking – on the other, the fear of what will happen if we stop; how will we cope?

As soon as you’re a happy non-smoker, the fear of being a smoker disappears. It’s a fabulous feeling of freedom; one you can anticipate with relish.

Smokers believe that cigarettes relieve their stress and help them relax and concentrate. They don’t realize that it’s smoking which causes them to be in a constant state of feeling stressed, tense and unable to concentrate in the first place.

The only pleasure from smoking or vaping is the partial relief of the discomfort caused by smoking or vaping

Fatigue is your body’s way of telling you that you need rest. Pain is your body’s way of telling you it’s being attacked and you need to tackle the cause, not keep trying to suppress the symptoms with drugs.

So we see smoking as a fast track to adulthood. Everything we have ever been told, including the warnings, leaves us in no doubt that smoking is a rite of passage.

The desire for security is instinctive. The belief that smoking provides security is intellectual. It’s a myth that has been put in your mind by a lifetime of brainwashing.

By the time you think you’ve acquired the taste, you’re already well and truly hooked and the cycle of addiction is drawing you deeper and deeper into the trap. All that awaits you is the miserable life of a smoker.

Smoking makes all smokers miserable. But you only realize just how miserable you have been when you stop

When you smoke, all you get is temporary and partial relief, which is quickly replaced by insecurity and emptiness. This void is created by the very thing that you take to relieve it.

But the nicotine trap is not a physical trap; it’s a mental trap, based on illusion.

Remove your desire to smoke and you will become a happy non-smoker… EASILY, IMMEDIATELY AND PAINLESSLY You won’t need willpower. People who have never been smokers don’t have the desire to smoke, although they may still be tempted to try.

When you know for a fact that smoking does absolutely nothing for you, any desire disappears. See through the myth and it becomes easy to avoid falling into the trap again.

‘If I quit, life will be tough.’ Smokers have been fooled into thinking that cigarettes provide them with a crutch in stressful situations and that there will be no pleasure in life without them.

You are not giving up anything

There is no genuine pleasure or crutch to be derived from smoking or vaping; we think there is only because of the brainwashing and the way the nicotine trap twists our perception.

It’s because they associate the smell with the relief of the craving for nicotine.

But smokers suffer an additional layer of stress caused by nicotine withdrawal (the Little Monster) that triggers the even worse feeling of stress (the Big Monster: ‘I want a cigarette – I can’t have one – AAARGH!’).

If you smoke one, what’s to stop you smoking the next one, and the next? If you retain the desire for just one cigarette, you will not escape the trap.

A fundamental part of the brainwashing is the myth that it’s hard to quit. Just about every so-called expert says so, thus adding to every smoker’s fear of trying to quit: ‘I’m going to have to go through some terrible trauma.’ This brainwashing is so powerful that smokers actually feel suspicious when they’re told that Easyway can help them quit easily and without willpower.

As long as you continue to believe that you’re giving something up, you will always be running in pain. The stronger your will, the longer you will withstand the agony.

The traits shared by addicts are not the cause of their addiction: they are the result.

The misery of addiction is not relieved by the thing you are addicted to – it’s caused by it

You weren’t stupid to get hooked and neither were the millions of other smokers. Nor are you stupid or weak for being unable to quit. You’ve just been following the wrong method.

Anybody can fall into the smoking trap. And anybody can escape just as easily

Addiction is a lonely place. Despite the knowledge that millions of people in the world are suffering from the same addiction, smokers and other addicts all think their own problem is unique to them.

It’s essential you understand that you didn’t become addicted to nicotine because you have an addictive personality. If you think you have an addictive personality, it’s simply because you got addicted to nicotine. This is the trick that addiction plays on you.

Smokers are brainwashed into believing that smoking aids concentration and the back-to-front nature of the trap appears to confirm the fact. Until you remove this belief from your mind, you will find it hard to concentrate if you’re craving a cigarette.

When we’re faced with a problem we don’t like, we seek comfort in distractions because they delay the dreaded moment when we have to get to grips with the problem.

Smoking is just another self-imposed distraction. It’s not the physical craving for a cigarette that prevents us from being able to concentrate, because that craving is almost indiscernible. It’s the psychological obsession caused by the Big Monster.

Just as smoking destroys concentration, it also increases boredom by reducing your opportunities for physical and mental stimulation, depleting your energy, making you sluggish, lethargic and lazy, and destroying your zest for life.

Remove the doubt from a smoker’s mind and quitting becomes easy

smoking benefits you in no way; you know you’ve made the right decision; and no purpose will be served by doubting your decision.

Every time something happens that reminds you of when you used to smoke, enjoy the reminder that you are free.

In order to kill the Big Monster, you need to see smoking for what it really is – a drug addiction that does nothing for you whatsoever – and allow understanding to replace brainwashing.

CHECKLIST

To use the words of Aldous Huxley, smokers and, in fact, all nicotine addicts are ‘psychological captives’. Perhaps you think I’m going too far in comparing the world of nicotine addiction to the Brave New World of Huxley’s imagination.

Anyone can walk free from the prison – all you have to do is ignore the influence of other smokers, see through the myth and make your own rational decision to stop smoking.

If, for whatever reason, you begin to feel you want or need more dopamine, why not just listen to some great music, hug your kids or your partner or a friend, or watch a funny film, make love or do some exercise? These activities are not only great fun, but they’re positively beneficial for dopamine production.

All a smoker is trying to achieve when they light a cigarette is to recapture the feeling of peace, calm and tranquilllity they enjoyed their entire lives before they lit their first experimental cigarette. In other words, a smoker smokes in order to feel like a non-smoker.

As we prepare for your final moments as a smoker, let’s recap everything you’ve learned.

The notion of ‘special’ cigarettes is a smoker’s fantasy.

As a happy non-nicotine addict, you’ll enjoy the good times more. You’ll feel more relaxed without nicotine withdrawal, you won’t have the anxiety of making sure you’re stocked up with nicotine, you won’t have to worry about spoiling the enjoyment of other people by blowing foul smoke, vape or stale breath in their face… plus, you’ll have the immense satisfaction of knowing that you are free from the awful slavery of the nicotine addict.

In any situation when your thoughts might turn to smoking, instead of thinking, ‘I used to have a cigarette in this situation’, think, ‘Isn’t it wonderful! I no longer have to smoke. I’m free!’

Do I want to use the key? Or do I want to remain a slave for the rest of my life?

CHECKLIST

Let me remind you of my fourth instruction: ‘Begin, not with a feeling of doom and gloom, but instead with a feeling of elation and excitement.’

The fear of not being able to smoke is completely illogical. It is a fear based on your imagination, which is clouded by illusions. People who don’t smoke don’t suffer with it at all.

The fear of being free of nicotine was created when you started smoking