Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking - Allen Carr [5]
‘I’ve just finished reading EASYWAY. I know it has only been four days, but I feel so great, I know I’ll never need to smoke again. I first started to read your book five years ago, got half-way through and panicked. I knew that if I went on reading I would have to stop. Wasn’t I silly?’
No, that particular young lady wasn’t silly. I referred earlier to a magic button. Allen Carr’s EASYWAY works just like that magic button. Let me make it quite clear, EASYWAY isn’t magic, but for me and the millions of former smokers who have found it easy and enjoyable to quit, it seems like magic!
This is the warning. We have a chicken and egg situation. Every smoker wants to quit and every smoker can find it easy and enjoyable to do so. It’s only fear that prevents smokers from trying to quit. The greatest benefit of quitting is to be rid of that fear. But you won’t be free from it until you have completed the book. On the contrary, like the lady in the third example, that fear might even increase as you are reading and this might prevent you from finishing it.
You didn’t decide to fall into this trap. When you were a youngster, just starting out as a smoker, you didn’t even know the trap existed. You need to be very clear in your mind that you won’t escape from it unless you make a positive decision to do so. You might already be straining at the leash to quit. On the other hand you may be apprehensive. Either way YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO LOSE!
If at the end of the book you decide that you want to continue smoking, there is nothing to prevent you from doing so. You don’t even have to cut down or stop smoking while you’re reading the book and remember: there is no shock treatment. Do you really think that the health warnings on cigarette packs scare smokers into quitting? If they do, why are one-in-five American adults still smoking?
On the contrary, I have nothing but good news for you. Can you imagine how Nelson Mandela must have felt when he was finally released from prison? That’s how I felt when I escaped from the nicotine trap. That’s how the millions of ex-smokers who have used my method feel. By the end of the book: THAT’S HOW YOU WILL FEEL! GO FOR IT!
INTRODUCTION
‘I’m going to cure the world of smoking.’
I was talking to my wife. She thought I’d finally flipped. Understandable if you consider that she had watched me fail to quit on countless previous occasions. The most recent had been two years previously. I’d actually survived six months of sheer hell before I finally caved in and lit a cigarette. I’m not ashamed to admit that I cried like a baby. I was crying because I knew that I was condemned to be a smoker for the rest of my life. I had put so much effort into that attempt and suffered so much misery that I knew I would never have the strength to go through that ordeal again. I’m not a violent man, but if some patronizing non-smoker had been stupid enough to suggest to me that all smokers can find it easy to quit, immediately and permanently, I would not have been responsible for my actions. However, I’m convinced that any jury in the world, comprised only of smokers, would have pardoned me on the grounds of justifiable homicide.
Perhaps you too find it impossible to believe that it can be easy to quit. If so, I beg you not to toss this book into the nearest trash can. Please trust me. I assure you it’s true that any smoker—even you—can find it easy to quit.
Anyway, there I was two years later, having just put out what I knew would be my final cigarette, not only telling my wife that I was already a non-smoker, but that I was going to cure the rest of the world too. I must admit that at the time I found her skepticism somewhat irritating. However, in no way did it diminish my feeling of exaltation. I suppose that my exhilaration in knowing that I was already a happy non-smoker distorted my perspective somewhat. With