Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking - Allen Carr [18]
Every drag of a cigarette delivers, via the lungs to the brain, a small dose of nicotine that acts more rapidly than the dose of heroin the addict injects into his veins. In fact, this comparison is one that the tobacco companies themselves use. In an internal memorandum dated 1971, a Philip Morris executive wrote: ‘The cigarette should be conceived not as a product but as a package. The product is nicotine. Think of the cigarette pack as a storage container for a day’s supply of nicotine. Think of a cigarette as a dispenser for a dose unit of nicotine.’
Nicotine is a very fast-acting drug, which sounds frightening, but is actually good news because it means that it not only enters the body quickly but also leaves the body quickly. Immediately after putting out a cigarette, nicotine levels begin to fall. There is enough nicotine in each cigarette to make the average smoker feel the need to smoke about every forty-five minutes. Incidentally, this explains why most smokers smoke around twenty cigarettes per day.
As soon as the smoker puts out the cigarette, the nicotine starts to leave the body and the smoker goes into withdrawal.
At this point I must dispel a common illusion that smokers have about withdrawal. Most believe that withdrawal pangs are the terrible trauma that is experienced when a smoker isn’t able to smoke, or is attempting to quit. This is not true. These pangs are, in fact, mainly mental and are caused by the illusion that the smoker is depriving himself of his pleasure or crutch.
The actual pangs of withdrawal from nicotine are so slight that most smokers have lived and died without even realizing they are drug addicts. Fortunately it is an easy drug to kick, once you understand the nature of the addiction and accept that you are, in fact, addicted. This point was quite a revelation when this book was first published. Now it is universally accepted.
There is no physical pain in the withdrawal from nicotine. It is merely a slightly empty, restless feeling, the feeling that something isn’t quite right, or that something is missing, which is why many smokers think it is a feeling of needing something to do with their hands. If it is prolonged, the smoker becomes increasingly anxious, insecure, agitated and irritable. It is like hunger—for a poison, NICOTINE.
Within seven seconds of lighting up the nicotine contained in that cigarette reaches the brain and the ‘craving’ ends, along with the feelings of anxiety and irritability, resulting in the feeling of relaxation and security that the cigarette appears to give to the smoker. This is an illusion though. The feeling of ‘relief’ is really just the ending of the state of tension that was created by the previous cigarette.
In the early days, this whole process of withdrawal and relief when replenishment takes place is so slight that we are not even aware that it is taking place. When we begin to smoke regularly we think it is either because we’ve come to enjoy it or that we have got into the ‘habit’. The truth is that we’re already hooked. We don’t realize it, but it’s like a little nicotine monster has taken up residence inside us and its appetite is slowly but surely growing.
All smokers start smoking for a variety of stupid reasons. But the only reason why anybody continues to smoke, whether they are a ‘casual’ or heavy smoker, is to feed that metaphorical ‘little monster’.
This, for me, is the saddest thing about smoking: 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.