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Author: [[Allen Carr]] Full Title: Allen Carr’s Quit Smoking Without Willpower Category: #books Foreword I was the worst smoker on the planet. Smokers are notorious for burying their heads in the sand. You can only continue to do something that you know is harmful and degrading if you close your mind to the fact. As a result, nicotine addiction becomes a lonely experience. Ironically, for something that is supposed to be a sociable activity, it leaves smokers and vapers feeling they have a problem that is unique to them. But I can tell you now: YOU ARE NOT ALONE By the end of this stage you will have developed a real understanding of why you smoke, why you’ve been unable to quit until now, how smoking distorts and disrupts your behavior, and what action you need to take to begin your successful bid for freedom. All you have to do is follow the instructions. There is no need to stop smoking, or vaping, or using any other nicotine product, or trying to change your smoking pattern before you reach the end of the book. In fact, it’s important that you keep smoking or vaping as usual. Don’t be concerned if the idea of carrying on smoking for the time being makes you happy or if the idea of quitting by the end of the book makes you feel nervous, or anxious, or miserable. Trust that this book will answer every single question and resolve any doubt you might have. Trust that it will lead you to a new life as a happy nonsmoker. You have nothing to lose from that approach and everything to gain. Chapter 1 Why do you smoke? WHAT DO YOU UNDERSTAND BY “WITHDRAWAL?” Most smokers associate the word with the “terrible pangs and cravings” they suffer when they try to quit. In fact, the physical symptoms of withdrawal are so slight as to be almost imperceptible. Don’t misunderstand me: the really unpleasant physical symptoms you suffered when you may have attempted to quit previously were real. They’re just not caused by nicotine withdrawal; they’re a physical response to a mental process—of “wanting a cigarette,” but not being able to have one. The unpleasant physical feelings are real, but they are the result of a mental process—of wanting a cigarette and not being able to have one Think of a child having their favorite toy taken away from them; the physical symptoms it causes are real and measurable—red face, bulging eyes, anger, rage, an anxious, uptight, insecure feeling. Does that sound familiar? Doesn’t it describe how you’ve felt in the past when you’ve tried to quit smoking without success? But the child isn’t suffering from the physical withdrawal from a drug; he or she is experiencing a range of physical symptoms resulting from a mental process: “I WANT IT! I CAN’T HAVE IT! AAARGH!” “I WANT A CIGARETTE! I CAN’T HAVE ONE! AAARGH!” The response to that thought process is the uptight, anxious, churned-up, angry feeling you identify as physical withdrawal. So let’s take it a stage further. If you don’t want a cigarette, then you won’t have that “I WANT A CIGARETTE! I CAN’T HAVE ONE! AAARGH!” feeling.

AI Summary

Allen Carr’s Quit Smoking Without Willpower by Allen Carr presents wisdom from the contemplative traditions.

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