Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking
Ratings5
Average rating4.3
I'm not a smoker myself, but after learning that the workshops Allen Carr started have an 80-90% success rate among even multiple decade long chain smokers, I was curious to find out what the ideas were. At times the book felt like it was repeating itself, particularly in the beginning, but I began to realize after a while that that's kind of the point: there's really only one (maybe two) fundamental ideas here, but numerous situations in which to apply them (and caveats to beware of), and it's obviously important to get the message across as clear as possible.
As a non-smoker I can't give my personal opinion on the effectiveness of what this book preaches, but some of the writing is vaguely reminiscent of strategies I've read are used during research into psychedelic therapies for anxiety, depression and, of course, drug use, which was interesting to note. Both share common themes of focusing on the individual's conscious relationship to the substance along with their gut feelings and thoughts that arise from interacting with it, while avoiding any focus on reducing the mechanism of addiction to something purely chemical or neurological. They heavily emphasize obtaining a certain mindset/outlook on the matter and downplay (or outright dismiss, in this book's case) the necessity of willpower in achieving freedom from addiction.
If you're a smoker looking to quit, it's obviously worth a try - not long, to the point, and backed my numerous success stories. If, like me, you're just intrigued by the psychology behind it, I'd say it's worth the time for a quick read, too - who knows, maybe you'll find yourself helped by similar ideas to these in a different situation some day.
I'm not a smoker myself, but after learning that the workshops Allen Carr started have an 80-90% success rate among even multiple decade long chain smokers, I was curious to find out what the ideas were. At times the book felt like it was repeating itself, particularly in the beginning, but I began to realize after a while that that's kind of the point: there's really only one (maybe two) fundamental ideas here, but numerous situations in which to apply them (and caveats to beware of), and it's obviously important to get the message across as clear as possible.
As a non-smoker I can't give my personal opinion on the effectiveness of what this book preaches, but some of the writing is vaguely reminiscent of strategies I've read are used during research into psychedelic therapies for anxiety, depression and, of course, drug use, which was interesting to note. Both share common themes of focusing on the individual's conscious relationship to the substance along with their gut feelings and thoughts that arise from interacting with it, while avoiding any focus on reducing the mechanism of addiction to something purely chemical or neurological. They heavily emphasize obtaining a certain mindset/outlook on the matter and downplay (or outright dismiss, in this book's case) the necessity of willpower in achieving freedom from addiction.
If you're a smoker looking to quit, it's obviously worth a try - not long, to the point, and backed my numerous success stories. If, like me, you're just intrigued by the psychology behind it, I'd say it's worth the time for a quick read, too - who knows, maybe you'll find yourself helped by similar ideas to these in a different situation some day.