Quitting smoking is not an easy task. But it is quite possible to separate with cigarettes - and the Allen Carr method has proven it in practice.
Allen Carr is the founder of an international network of clinics that will help everyone quit smoking. This fighter with tobacco addiction calls his method the “easy way”. Carr’s most famous book is entitled The Easy Way to Quit Smoking.
What is the Allen Carr method based on?
Removing fear
Most importantly, he considers the primary elimination of fears that usually do not even include smoking cessation, but the intention to quit. Saying goodbye to cigarettes, we are afraid to find ourselves face to face with addiction, to feel a sense of addiction, which means that deprivation and an unsatisfied desire to take snacks is another. We may not fit into the team, because they will discuss us in the smoking room during lunch. In the meantime, we will do our best to control ourselves, trying not to think about the fact that the nearest store where you can buy cigarettes is very close.
When faced with these (and similar) fears, it is important not to succumb to them. Even if you don’t quit smoking by the Allen Carr method, you can try another method and even give up on the idea of quitting smoking altogether. But if all goes well (and that’s exactly what it will be, because you’re already wondering if it’s time to quit smoking), an easy way to indulge in past addictions will help.
Feel free to try out personal growth training, separate your fears, and move on to the next phase - fighting illusions.
Disappointment
According to Allen Karr, the advantage of his method is the opposite. Usually when quitting smoking an ex-smoker tries to refrain from cigarettes, quarrels with them (and, you have to admit, there are many of them), but this approach is fraught with failure. Like a strenuous diet, after which a thin young lady starts eating sweets again, which she has been denying all this time.
Therefore, instead of overcoming the craving for cigarettes, you can, on the contrary, awaken in yourself the desire to become a non-smoker. Not by banning cigarettes, but by allowing a new one that is slowly killing anyone who gets used to it.
Many smokers' beliefs are just contagious illusions:
- Smoking is a pleasure;
- Cigarette helps relieve boredom / nervousness / stress / excess weight;
- Once you try it, you can't stop;
- Only people who have the iron strength and will can stop smoking;
- Smoking helps you calm down, think more or work harder.
All these arguments may seem convincing to you, but they fall into one big "but": cigarettes have developed that relationship in you, even so much that now without them you can't collect your thoughts or complete a not very successful winner.
So the real problem is not smoking cessation. It is about quitting smoking not for a certain period, but for life. "For life" is not a sentence of existence without cigarettes, but new opportunities and liberation from a bad habit that you can find instead of sick lungs, bad breath and wasted money, not only lost, but to your detriment.
It's great to be a non-smoker
It is important to understand that a smoker does not win by smoking cigarettes, but a non-smoker if he has nothing to do with them. A smoker spends money on his addiction, spends his health, time, acquires other problems along the way, and there are many, from constantly looking for a place for smokers and a restaurant "where you can" to a sensitive request from a partner to brush his teeth more often.
And the smoker gets nothing in return.
Is the candle worth it?
If cigarettes don’t help fight problems, but just create them, you’ll be able to detach yourself from it. You can try other techniques:
- The lilac bracelet method helps many people. It is initially focused on developing positive thinking, but it also helps fight bad habits.
- Other people use the 21-day rule - according to statistics, it is necessary to acquire a positive habit or to give up a bad one.
- Be sure to think about what you would like to spend time free of cigarettes and money that has appeared. For example, single out what you would spend on their forgotten favorite hobby.
We wish you success. Don't let bad habits manipulate you and control your life, there are things you need to give up even before you stop smoking.