Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking - Allen Carr [83]
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Ironically, one of the problems with my method is that some people find it too easy. This makes them lose their fear of smoking because they figure that they can smoke when they want and find it easy to quit again. EASYWAY doesn’t work that way. It is easy to stop smoking, but it’s impossible to control it.
Just one cigarette led to the years of addiction and slavery you had to suffer. And just one cigarette will do it again. Do you really want to be a smoker for the rest of your life? Haven’t you already decided that this is the last thing you want? The only essential to being a non-smoker is not to smoke.
The other category of smoker that causes me frustration is those smokers who are too frightened to even try or, when they do, sabotage themselves at every turn and therefore find it a great struggle. The main difficulties appear to be the following:
1. Fear of failure. The point is that as a smoker, you are already a failure. You therefore have absolutely nothing to lose and potentially a tremendous amount to gain.
2. Fear of the panic feeling and of being miserable. These fears are caused by the cigarette. Non-smokers don’t have them.
One of the sweetest things about not having to smoke is to be free of these fears. If you do begin to feel uncomfortable, slow your breathing down and take a couple of nice, big, deep breaths. Focus on the key thoughts: there is nothing to ‘give up’ apart from a life of fear, misery and slavery; every smoker is envious of you as a non-smoker, because every smoker would rather be a non-smoker; that the little monster is dead or already dying. If you go back to smoking you are guaranteeing a future of feeling panicky and miserable. Is that how you want to go through the rest of your life? No one can stop time. Every second that passes, the fear recedes. Enjoy your inevitable victory. If you want to shout, scream or cry then do so. These are all perfectly natural ways to relieve tension. Remember—you are not feeling this way because you stopped smoking, but because you started in the first place. You cannot and will not fail because your life and your future depend on your success.
3. Not following the instructions. Incredibly, some smokers say to me, ‘Your method just didn’t work for me.’ They then go on to describe how they ignored not only one instruction but practically all of them. (For clarity I will summarize these in a checklist at the end of the chapter.)
4. Misunderstanding instructions. These occasional misunderstandings appear to be based around the following:
a. ‘I can’t stop thinking about smoking.’ Of course you can’t, and if you try, you will create a phobia and be miserable about it. It’s like trying to fall asleep at night: the more you try, the harder it becomes. It is inevitable that you will think about smoking. It’s what you are thinking that’s important. If you are thinking, ‘Oh, I’d love a cigarette,’ or ‘When will I be free?’ you’ll have to use willpower not to smoke, which will likely make you feel miserable. But if you are thinking, ‘YIPPEE! I am free!’ you’ll be happy, and the more you think about it, the happier you’ll be.
b. ‘When will the ‘little monster’ die?’ As I have mentioned, nicotine leaves your body very rapidly. You may continue to feel that empty, insecure feeling because many things cause it, including hunger, stress or fear—none of which are necessarily related to smoking. Incidentally, this is why so many Willpower quitters are never quite sure that they’ve kicked it and never feel truly free. They incorrectly interpret a normal hunger pang or slightly nervous feeling about, say, making a big presentation at work, as a nicotine pang. In any case, the feeling is so slight that most people don’t even know it’s there.
c. Waiting for the moment of revelation. As the saying goes: a watched pot never boils. Don’t