Quitting smoking is no easy task. But it is quite possible to part with cigarettes - and Allen Carr's method has proven this in practice.
Allen Carr is the founder of an international network of clinics to help everyone stop smoking. This fighter with tobacco addiction calls his method "the easy way". Carr's most famous book is titled The Easy Way to Stop Smoking.
What is Allen Carr's method based on?
Fear Removal
The most important, he considers the primary getting rid of fears that usually accompany not even quitting smoking itself, but the intention to quit. Having said goodbye to cigarettes, we are afraid to find ourselves face to face with addiction, to experience a feeling of addiction, which means that deprivation and an unsatisfied desire to take a puff is another. We may not fit into the team, because discussions in the smoking room during lunchtime will pass us by. 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 do not quit smoking according to the Allen Carr method, you can try another method and even give up the idea of quitting smoking altogether. But if everything goes well (which is exactly what it will be, since you are already wondering whether it is time to quit smoking), an easy way to leave the addiction in the past will help you.
Feel free to try trainings for personal growth, part with fears and proceed to the next stage - the fight against illusions.
Disillusionment
According to Allen Karr, the advantage of his method is the opposite. Usually, when quitting smoking, a former smoker tries to restrain himself from cigarettes, argues against them (and, you must admit, there are a lot of them), but this approach is fraught with failure. Like a grueling diet, after which a thin young lady again begins to eat sweets, which she has been depriving herself 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 banning cigarettes, but allowing a new one that slowly kills anyone who gets used to it.
Many of smokers' beliefs are merely addictive illusions:
- smoking is pleasure;
- a cigarette helps to relieve boredom / nervousness / stress / excess weight;
- if you try it once, you can't quit;
- Only people with iron fortitude and willpower can quit smoking;
- Smoking helps you calm down, think more or work harder.
All these arguments may seem convincing to you, but they collapse into one big "but": it was cigarettes that developed this relationship in you, and even so much that now without them you cannot collect your thoughts or complete a not very successfulday is the winner.
So, the real problem isn't quitting smoking. 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 freedom from a bad habit that you can find instead of sick lungs, bad breath and wasted money, not just wasted, but to your own detriment.
It's great to be a non-smoker
It is important to realize that it is not the smoker who wins by taking up cigarettes, but the nonsmoker by not having anything to do with them. A smoker spends money on his addiction, spends his health, time, acquires along the way other problems, and there are many of them, from the constant search for places for smokers and a restaurant "in which you can" to the delicate request of a partner to brush your teeth more often.
And the smoker gets nothing in return.
Is it worth the candle?
If cigarettes do not help you fight problems, but only create them, you will be able to part with it. You can try other techniques as well:
- Lilac bracelet method helps many people. Initially, it is aimed at developing positive thinking, but it also helps in the fight against bad habits.
- Other people use the 21-day rule - that is, according to statistics, it takes to acquire a positive habit or quit a bad one.
- Be sure to think of what you would like to spend the time freed from cigarettes and the money that has appeared. For example, set aside what you would have spent on them for a forgotten favorite hobby.
We wish you success. Don't let bad habits manipulate you and rule your life, there are things you need to give up even before you quit smoking.