Allen Carr's Easy Way to Quit Smoking: What's the Bottom Line, Pros and Cons? How many years did Allen Carr smoke? What disease and at what age did Allen Carr die? How to quit smoking with Allen Carr's method?
The name Allen Carr is not only known to smokers. The British anti-addiction and fear guru started out as an ordinary accountant, but his stressful job led him to smoke 100 (! ) cigarettes every day.
After 30 years of regular and unsuccessful attempts to quit smoking, Allen finally discovered an effective way, with the help of which he finally quit smoking.
Since then, Allen Carr's method has helped another 50 million people around the world. It is interesting that among them are not only smokers.
Allen Carr
The future fighter against smoking was born on September 2, 1934 in London.
Almost nothing is known about his childhood. Carr often began his memoirs at an age when he himself became addicted to smoking. It happened at the age of 18, when he was drafted into the army.
During his service, Allen Carr started smoking. After demobilization, he graduated from the Faculty of Accounting, and day by day, due to his intensive work, he started smoking more and more.
A heavy smoker, Carr often smoked several packs a day. His personal record (with a minus sign, of course) is 100 cigarettes a day.
Several times Carr tried desperately to quit smoking, but they were unsuccessful. Thus passed thirty years of cigarette slavery.
A significant day that changed the life of Allen Carr, and then millions of his followers, was July 15, 1983. On this day, a chronic smoker, passionately wanting to overcome his addiction, came for a session with a psychotherapist.
The treatment didn't seem to help. After leaving the clinic, Allen Carr immediately lit a cigarette. True, after a while I still found the strength to overcome the bad habit by inventing and testing myan easy way to quit smoking.
Carr's years of smoking and the years he spent attending smoking seminars in smoke-filled classrooms took a toll on his health. The anti-smoking activist died in the summer of 2006. The cause of death was lung cancer. Carr was 71 years old.
In an interview for Izvestia, which he gave a few months before his death, Allen Carr expressed his belief that he would have lived another twenty years if he had stopped smoking earlier.
Allen Carr's latest work was the book "The Nicotine Conspiracy". In it, he talked about how, under the influence of cigarette manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies, the media and government organizations support myths about smoking. That's how they make money both from people who smoke and from those who have decided to quit smoking.
Allen Carr stated:
"Smoking is the biggest shame of our society, even bigger than nuclear weapons. "
The easy way to quit smoking and more
Interestingly, Allen Carr adapted his method to treat other addictions:
- addiction to electronic cigarettes;
- alcoholism;
- drug addiction;
- obesity;
- craving for gambling;
- addiction to caffeine and sugar.
Carr's method has also been tested against debt and the fear of flying.
Over the years, Allen Carr has published books:
- "The Simple Way to Quit Smoking" (1985);
- "The Simple Way to Lose Weight" (1995);
- "How to help our children stop smoking" (1999);
- "The Simple Way to Enjoy Air Travel" (2000);
- "The Simple Way to Quit Smoking, Especially for Women" (2003);
- "The Easy Way to Stop Drinking" (2005);
- "The Simple Way of Living Without a Hangover" (2005).
The Allen Carr Center is recognized as the world's leading authority in the fight against addiction.
Allen Carr method
Allen Carr claimed that it helps to get rid of addiction painlessly without being held back by willpower. Carr did not intimidate his patients and did not use shocking images of internal organs and the diseases that smoking causes (smokers know this very well).
Instead, Carr explored and helped overcome the misconceptions that shape addiction. He analyzed the reasons that make him smoke and came to the conclusion that addiction is 1% physical and 99% psychological.
The first step Allen Carr advises those who want to quit smoking is to set a time and date to quit smoking.
Carr's method is to break your nicotine addiction by realizing that cigarettes are not helping you enjoy life. The "time X" approach increases the value of cigarettes, so it does not recommend reducing their number.
Smokers believe that cigarettes give them special pleasure. That it helps you cope with stress, live a full life, pull yourself together, relax, concentrate, find a common language and keep fit. They feel that quitting smoking will take away a part of themselves, an important part of their life, and they will feel that emptiness for the rest of their lives.
Allen Carr wrote:
"Cigarettes don't fill a void, they create one! "
At the same time, smokers still worry about how smoking affects their health, experience constant social pressure and the need to find time and place for a cigarette between tasks.
"Last cigarette"- the final exercise, when the smoker, smoking a cigarette, promises never to smoke again and remembers what exactly made him do it.
Of course, thoughts of cigarettes will come back from time to time, but Carr offers several exercises to do when the urge to smoke arises.
A 2014 study found that smokers who quit using Allen Carr's method were six times more likely to be abstinent from nicotine 13 months after their last cigarette.
Carr's method has been clinically proven in two randomized controlled studies. It does not require the use of any drugs or nicotine products, and there is practically no withdrawal from nicotine even with severe addiction.
Smokers note that after using Carr's method, they feel as if they never smoked. I can communicate with smokers even when they are smoking and not craving cigarettes.
Despite millions of positive responses, there are those whoAllen Carr's method did not help: some did not feel the effect, others broke down a few months later, others decided that "one will not do anything". . . . There are many other methods for them - domestic, foreign, and even artistic.