Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking - Allen Carr [52]
There is nothing sadder than the smoker who is trying to cut down. He suffers from the drug addicts’ delusion that the less he smokes, the less he will want to smoke. In fact, the reverse is true. The less he smokes, the longer he endures the psychological itch to smoke and the more he treasures finally being able to scratch that itch.
A slightly odd twist to cutting down is that the smoker often becomes more aware of the taste, which he invariably finds distasteful. It doesn’t stop him smoking, but he does begin to wonder why he is doing it. Like chemical addiction, taste is a red herring. We often find that our most precious cigarettes are the ones that taste the most foul. The first of the day is a classic example. For many smokers, the first of the day is the most important of all, yet it’s the one that has them coughing and spluttering the most.
It is essential to remove all the illusions about smoking before you smoke a final cigarette. Unless you’ve removed the illusion that you enjoy the taste of certain cigarettes, there will be no way of proving it after you become a non-smoker without getting hooked again. So, unless you are already smoking, light one up now. Take six big drags, inhaling each drag as deeply into your lungs as you can. Now ask yourself what it is about the taste that you enjoy.
Perhaps, as I did, you believe that only certain cigarettes taste good, like the one after a meal. If this was so, then why smoke the others? Anyway, how can two cigarettes from the same pack taste different?
Don’t take my word for it; see for yourself. Smoke a cigarette consciously after a meal to see if it tastes different to the others. The reason that the smoker perceives that the one after a meal or at a social occasion is more enjoyable, is because at such times we are enjoying ourselves anyway, whether we’re a smoker or not. The one after a meal is for some people the most precious of all. This is because in addition to being at a time when we’re having fun anyway, it also comes after a period of abstinence.
It is such a shame that smokers so value the one after a meal when the truth is that they should be acknowledging that it is their need to smoke that has ruined their ability to enjoy the meal in the first place.
As I have said many times: it’s not that we enjoy smoking, it’s that we’re miserable when we can’t smoke. But non-smokers don’t get miserable when they can’t smoke. The cigarette causes the misery. Why can’t we see this when it is so obvious to everyone else?
Cutting down not only doesn’t work, but it is also the worst form of torture. It doesn’t work because smoking is not a habit, it is an addiction. You can’t become less addicted to something, you’re either addicted or you are not. We can’t break a pack-a-day addiction and re-make it as a two-a-day addiction. You aren’t deciding how much you will smoke; the rate at which your body metabolizes nicotine dictates how much you will smoke.
When we cut down, our psychological ‘need’ to smoke remains the same but now we are only servicing that need on a limited basis. This means that we spend large amounts of time wanting to smoke but not allowing ourselves to do so. This builds a feeling of deprivation and sacrifice identical to that experienced by the smoker trying to quit using willpower. Therefore when we are cutting down, we have to suffer the misery of the willpower quitter without even getting the benefit of being smoke-free! It is truly the worst of both worlds. You have to apply willpower and discipline for the rest of your life. Who could think of a more miserable future?
As I said, the main problem with stopping is not the chemical addiction, but the mistaken belief that the cigarette gives you some pleasure and that as a non-smoker you will be depriving yourself of that pleasure. This mistaken belief is triggered by the brainwashing we are subjected to before we become