Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking - Allen Carr [79]
The more you smoked, the more enjoyable this moment is, and the feeling lasts a lifetime.
I consider myself to have been very fortunate in this life and have had some truly wonderful moments; but the most wonderful of all was the moment of revelation. With all of the other highlights in my life I can remember how happy I was but cannot recapture the actual feeling. I just cannot get over the joy of not having to smoke any more. If ever I am feeling low and need a boost, I just think how lovely it is not to be hooked on that awful weed. Nearly all of the letters I receive from people who have broken free the EASYWAY echo this sentiment—that quitting smoking was the best thing they ever did. Ah! What pleasure you have to come!
With over twenty years of feedback from the seminars and the book, I have learned that most people experience the moment of revelation within days, not weeks as stated above.
In my own case, it happened even before I put out my final cigarette. This is relatively common at our seminars; a smoker will say something like, ‘You don’t have to say another word, Allen. I can see everything so clearly, I know I’ll never smoke again.’ Over the years I have learned to tell when it happens without the individual even saying anything, and it is a thrilling moment and a privilege to be a witness to it. From the letters I receive I’m also aware that it frequently happens with the book.
Ideally if you follow all the instructions and understand the psychology completely, it should happen to you over the next couple of days.
Nowadays at the seminar I tell smokers that the physical withdrawal period is around three days and that after three weeks you are truly free, but I dislike giving these kinds of guidelines. It can cause two problems. Firstly it creates an expectation that the smoker will have to suffer for three days or three weeks. As I have already stated, this is not so; with the right frame of mind the whole process is enjoyable right from the beginning. The second is that it creates an expectation that at the end of the third week something earth shattering will happen. As an example, it is possible that someone finds the first three weeks easy but that during the fourth, he experiences one of those dreadful days we all occasionally have, whether we’re a smoker or a non-smoker. This might knock his confidence.
You might reasonably say, “Don’t give any guidelines then.” The problem with this is that with no expectation of what to expect, the ex-smoker is left in limbo, waiting for nothing to happen.
What is the significance of three days and three weeks? These timescales are not carved in stone but are based on the many years of feedback I’ve received. After three days the nicotine has left your body (as I have stated, most of it actually leaves in the first couple of hours) and you are technically no longer an addict. It’s often around this time when the ex-smoker ceases to be pre-occupied with smoking. What usually happens is that you are in a stressful or social situation that previously you were unable to get through without smoking, and you realize that it didn’t even occur to you to light up. From this point on it’s usually plain sailing—don’t get complacent though!
Three weeks is usually around the time when people feel that they have really broken free. This is also usually the time when most serious attempts to quit with willpower fail. Willpower quitters sense around this time that they have lost the desire to smoke and so they let their guard down. They smoke a cigarette to show themselves that they’re in control and of course, get immediately re-addicted. They try not to capitulate immediately, but they are on the slippery slope back to smoking full-time.
The key to the problem is not to wait for the moment of revelation but to realize that you have total control over this process and that it is up to you to decide how you want this whole experience to play out. If you are miserable and depressed, guess what will happen? If you are happy and excited