A Thank-You to Allen Carr
I started smoking as a teenager and first stopped when I was about twenty. Anyone who has smoked or quit will know how difficult it can be. The hold smoking had on me was much stronger than I understood at the time.
I remember one day, after I had been smoking for three years, deciding that I would stop. I had no idea how addictive cigarettes were until I tried to go without them. I went to high school that morning and came home struggling with intense withdrawal symptoms. I remember telling my brother that I needed to go and buy cigarettes immediately.
That was when the reality of addiction frightened me. I felt a strange fear in my body and thought:
“This cannot be good.”
Of course, I already knew that smoking was bad for my health. But I was young, and having a cigarette with a drink was just something we did. I had never really considered how hard it might be to stop.
Perhaps another two years passed. I was in my first year of university, or maybe I had just started my second, when I found myself sitting on the couch one evening and wondering why I smoked.
When Smoking Stopped Feeling Like a Choice
What bothered me was not simply that I smoked, but that I needed to. It no longer felt like a choice. I was always checking whether I had enough cigarettes and whether there was a gas station nearby that would still be open if I ran out. There was something both unpleasant and sad about constantly counting cigarettes, afraid that running out would become a crisis.
That night, I did some research and got myself a copy of Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking. I read it in one sitting. When I finished, I remember saying:
“I will stop smoking.”
I felt an enormous sense of relief, as though a heavy burden had been lifted from my shoulders.
Carr’s explanation helped me see that what I had regarded as a personal choice had become dependence. The comfort I associated with smoking was, for me, relief from a craving that smoking itself kept renewing. As soon as I began to question the belief that I needed cigarettes, I felt free.
Both insights made sense to me. I remembered that day a few years earlier when I had tried to stop: smoking had not felt like a choice at all. I could also see how cigarettes had created the very need I kept trying to satisfy.
I had imagined that smoking gave me a little lift, made life easier, or relieved boredom. Sometimes it simply gave me something to do. I felt as though I had been brainwashed into seeing cigarettes as something they were not. Reading the book was like turning on a light: the illusion fell away, and with it, the belief that I needed to smoke.
What Changed the Next Morning
The next day, I had my morning coffee and felt so happy that I was not smoking. I expected the withdrawal symptoms to last around twenty days, and I felt ready for them. There were a few very difficult days, though. I remember going into a kiosk and deliberately avoiding the cigarette display so that I would not think about smoking.
For me, changing how I thought about smoking made all the difference. Still, a year or two later, I returned to it for brief periods, perhaps twice, for a few months at a time, smoking just a few cigarettes in the evenings. Even then, it was never the same. I did not feel the same attraction or the same powerful pull that I remembered from before, and I found it easier to stop. I read the book again and eventually stopped for good.
A Nonsmoker, Not an Ex-Smoker
Many years have passed since I last smoked. I consider myself a nonsmoker, not an ex-smoker. I know I will never smoke again because I have come to realize that I do not like smoking at all.
I am writing this to thank Allen Carr for a book that I believe helped save the good life I have now. I do not know whether I would have managed to stop without it, or how much harder it might have been. Perhaps I would still be wishing I could smoke. I do not.
His words and clear reasoning changed the way I saw smoking and helped me understand something that had once felt beyond my control. I cannot thank you enough, Allen. What a legacy you left.
Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking.
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