Book review: Easy Way To Stop Smoking

Allen Carr’s Easy Way To Stop Smoking is a book recommended to me for, well, quitting smoking.

I respond well to rational arguments that aim to change my irrational behaviour like smoking. And smoking is irrational because we all know, and it is right there on the pack, exactly the risks and flaws of smoking. I mean, we are not idiots. And yet, we still smoke. Because we are addicted. Simple as that.

So this sort of book appeals to me because it aims to unwind that irrational thought process that keeps you smoking or makes you go back to it when you quit (that feel you are being deprived of something when you really are not).

But this book is exceptionally boring. And extremely repetitive. It occured to me it is designed to be repetitive… sort of to nail those other thoughts into your head to replace the other thoughts. Sort of like cognitive therapy when you replace a negative thought with a more logical, realistic thought. So maybe it is intentional but that doesn’t stop it from being insanely irritating. I mean, I got the point. I got it. GOT IT. And I know to make these things work you need to sort of make yourself believe it. So think the thoughts and walk the walk. I get that too. So if the book was half the size I would have been just as fine with that. Seriously. There is only so many times you can say the exact same thing before it gets really annoying.

However, that doesn’t make his approach or argument any less valid…. or any less effective on someone like me who is used to breaking irrational thought patterns (depression). And so, yeah, I get it. It makes complete sense. And so maybe by contorting my mind in this way I will finally quit forever and ever this time. I think I will. Bloody well don’t want to go through it again and as he says there is no such thing as 1 smoke…. as I have often learned in the past. 1 smoke always leads to more. And more and then your just smoking again.

So as long as you want to quit and read with that mindset the book works as it is designed to. By beating the thought process into you over and over and over again.

So, yeah, not the best read.

But hey, I have never quit so Fast in my Life. Or so well and smoothly. So he bored me into not smoking.

Some quotes:

All smokers lie to themselves and others
Smoking is not freedom; it’s slavery
I don’t control smoking; it controls me
Smoking is just the process smokers go through to get their drug
Smoking is not a habit; it’s a drug addiction
The tendency will always be to smoke more
Smoking does not ease stress

You get the gist of it there. It is basically taking what you believed about smoking and re-framing it in a way that will help you see it is an addiction that literally has no benefits at all except to feed that addiction

Anyway, I am not smoking. I am not using my nicotine mints. Or any other nicotine replacement. Nada. Cold turkey and I’m fine with that. So we will see how that goes. Like he says… it feels like Freedom. So maybe the book helps. Maybe I was just sick of smoking.