Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking - Allen Carr [56]
The Five-a-Day smoker: I envied these people my whole smoking life. It never occurred to me how unhappy they were. If they enjoy smoking, why not smoke more? If they don’t enjoy it, then why smoke at all? This smoker is relieving the withdrawal pangs for less than an hour a day. For the rest of the day he is in withdrawal and having to use willpower not to scratch the itch.
The Morning-only or Evening-only smoker: He punishes himself by suffering withdrawal and using willpower for half the day so that he can relieve his perceived need to smoke for the other half. This is like banging your head against a brick wall because it feels better when you stop.
The Six-Months on, Six-Months off smoker: (Or the “I can stop whenever I want” smoker). If he enjoys smoking, then why does he want to stop? If he doesn’t enjoy it, why does he start again? The truth is that this smoker is hooked 12 months of the year. When he smokes he feels lethargic and trapped and after six months he feels so bad that he needs to stop. As a non-smoker, he feels much better, but over time forgets what it felt like to have to be a smoker and, because he has never dealt with the brainwashing, senses that he is depriving himself or missing out on something. So he lights a cigarette. It’s pretty disgusting so he falls for the same trap as the teenager (“I could never get hooked on something as disgusting as this!”). Before he knows it, he is buying cigarettes again and the whole cycle repeats. Many smokers envy these types of smokers, but in many ways they are the saddest of all. When they are smokers they wish they were non-smokers and when they are non-smokers they are wishing they could smoke. That’s not a life, it’s a nightmare.
The ‘I only smoke on special occasions’ smoker: Isn’t it amazing how everything seems to be a special occasion?
The ‘I’ve stopped but I’ll have the occasional smoke’ smoker: This goes back to the ‘just one cigarette argument. These smokers are headed back to full-time smoking. Think about it this way: if a recovering alcoholic came to your house and said that he was ‘just going to have one drink’ what would you advise? Nicotine is many, many times more addictive than alcohol.
There are two other categories of casual smoker. The first is the type who smokes the very occasional cigarette or cigar, almost always at social occasions. These people are really non-smokers but sense that they might be missing out on something. If you look closely, it’s clear that they’re hating every second of it. They often don’t inhale and look awkward or uncomfortable when they are smoking. They just don’t ‘get’ smoking but can’t believe that the smoker isn’t enjoying it. If they are adults, they often just give up trying to enjoy it and the whole world of smoking remains an inexplicable mystery to them. If they are teenagers, many of them will persist with smoking in the mistaken belief that there must be something to it, and that they could never get hooked anyway. We all started this way.
The second category is very rare indeed. In fact, out of all the smokers who have sought my assistance, I can only think of about a dozen examples. The type can best be described by outlining a recent case.
A woman phoned our center and insisted on speaking to me personally. She was seeking a private session. She is an attorney, had only been smoking for about twelve years and had never smoked more or less than two cigarettes a day. She was, it was clear, a very intelligent and strong-willed lady. I explained that the success rate in group sessions was just as high as in private sessions, and in any event I was only able to give individual therapy if the attendee’s face were so famous that it would disrupt the rest of the group. She began to cry, and I was not able to resist the tears.
The session was expensive. Actually, most smokers would wonder why she wanted to stop in the first place. They would gladly pay me double what that lady did to be able to smoke only two cigarettes a day. However, in