Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking - Allen Carr [26]
What does the cigarette really do for me?
Do I really need to smoke?
NO, OF COURSE YOU DON’T.
I find this brainwashing the most difficult aspect of smoking to explain. 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.
My father was a heavy smoker. He was a strong man, cut down in his prime by smoking. I can remember watching him when I was a boy; he would be coughing and spluttering in the mornings. I could see he wasn’t enjoying it and it was obvious to me that something evil had possessed him. I can remember saying to my mother, ‘Don’t ever let me become a smoker’.
At the age of fifteen I was a physical-fitness fanatic. Sport was my life and I was full of energy, courage and confidence. If anybody had said to me that I would end up smoking a hundred cigarettes a day, I would have gambled my lifetime’s earnings that it would not happen, and I would have given any odds that had been asked.
At the age of forty I was a physical and mental wreck. I had reached the stage where I couldn’t carry out the most mundane task without first lighting up. With most smokers the triggers are the normal, mild stresses of life, like answering the telephone or socializing. I couldn’t even change the TV channel on my remote without lighting up.
I knew it was killing me. There was no way I could kid myself otherwise. But what I fail to understand is why I couldn’t see what it was doing to me mentally and emotionally. It was almost jumping up and biting me on the nose. The really ridiculous thing is I never even suffered the illusion that I enjoyed smoking. I smoked because I thought it helped me to concentrate and because it helped my nerves. Now I am a non-smoker, it is difficult to believe that those days actually happened. It’s like waking up from a nightmare, and that’s about the size of it. Nicotine is a drug, and your senses are drugged—your taste buds, your sense of smell. 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.
I remember at one stage switching to a pipe, after another failed attempt to kick cigarettes, in the belief that it was less harmful and would enable me to cut down my intake.
Some of those pipe tobaccos are absolutely foul. The smell can be pleasant, as most pipe tobaccos are infused with artificial aromas, but to start with, they are awful to smoke. I can remember that for about three months the tip of my tongue was as sore as a boil. A liquid mixture of tar collects in the bottom of the bowl of the pipe. Occasionally you unwittingly bring the bowl above the horizontal and before you realize it you have swallowed a mouthful of the filthy stuff. The result is to throw up immediately, no matter whose company you are in.
It took me three months to learn to cope with the pipe, but what I cannot understand is why, during that three months, it didn’t occur to me to ask why I was subjecting myself to the torture to begin with.
Of course, once they learn to cope with the pipe, few seem as contented as pipe smokers. Most are convinced that they smoke because they enjoy the pipe. But surely the question is why did they have to work so hard to learn to ‘enjoy’ it when they were perfectly happy without it?
The answer is that once we are hooked, we have to find a way to service our addiction. You need to get this very clear in your mind. You didn’t get addicted to nicotine because you fell into the habit of smoking. It’s the other way around. You had to get into the habit of smoking to service your addiction.
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