Allen Carr's Simple Way to Quit Smoking: What's the Point, Pros and Cons? How many years did Allen Carr smoke? What disease did Allen Carr die of and at what age? How to quit smoking with the Allen Carr method?
The name Allen Carr is not only known to smokers. The British guru of fighting addictions and fears started out as an ordinary accountant, but his stressful job led him to smoke 100 (! ) cigarettes a day.
After 30 years of regular and unsuccessful attempts to quit smoking, Allen finally discovered an effective method, with the help of which he finally quit smoking.
Since then, Allen Carr's method has helped an additional 50 million people around the world. It is interesting that there are not only smokers among them.
Allen Carr
The future anti-smoking fighter 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. This 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 college with a degree in accounting, and because of his intensive work every day, he began to smoke more and more.
As a heavy smoker, Carr often smoked several packs a day. His personal record (with a minus sign, of course) is 100 cigarettes a day.
Carr made more than one desperate attempt to quit smoking, but to no avail. Thus passed thirty years of cigarette slavery.
The 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 to see a psychotherapist.
The treatment did not seem to help. When he left the clinic, Allen Carr immediately lit up. True, after a while I still found the strength to overcome a bad habit by inventing and testing it myselfan easy way to quit smoking.
Carr's years of smoking and the years he spent in smoke-filled classrooms at smoking seminars 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 with Izvesztiya, which he gave a few months before his death, Allen Carr was confident that he would have lived another twenty years if he had quit 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. This is how they make money from smokers and those who have decided to quit smoking.
Allen Carr stated:
"Smoking is the biggest shame of our society, even bigger than nuclear weapons. "
An easy way to quit smoking and more
Interestingly, Allen Carr has used his method to treat other addictions:
- addiction to electronic cigarettes;
- alcoholism;
- drug addiction;
- obesity;
- desire to gamble;
- caffeine and sugar addiction.
Carr's method has also been tested in the fight against debt and fear of flying.
Over the years, Allen Carr has published books:
- "The Easy Way to Quit Smoking" (1985);
- "An Easy Way to Lose Weight" (1995);
- "How to Help Our Children Quit Smoking" (1999);
- "The Easy Way to Air Travel" (2000);
- "The Easy Way to Quit Smoking, Especially for Women" (2003);
- "An Easy Way to Stop Drinking" (2005);
- "An Easy Way to Live Without a Hangover" (2005).
The Allen Carr Center is the world's leading authority on addiction.
Allen Carr method
Allen Carr claimed that it helps you get rid of addiction painlessly, without the need for willpower to restrain yourself. Carr did not scare his patients or use shocking images of the internal organs and diseases caused by smoking (which smokers know very well).
Instead, Carr explored and helped overcome the misconceptions that shape addiction. He analyzed the reasons why he smokes and concluded that addiction is 1% physical and 99% mental.
Allen Carr advises people who want to quit smoking as a first step to set a time and date to quit smoking.
Carr's method is to break nicotine addiction by realizing that cigarettes do not help you enjoy life. The "X time" approach increases the value of cigarettes, so it does not recommend reducing their number.
Smokers believe that cigarettes bring 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 yourself in shape. They feel that quitting smoking will deprive them of a part of themselves, an important part of their life, and they will feel this emptiness throughout their lives.
Allen Carr wrote:
"Cigarettes don't fill the void, they create it! "
At the same time, smokers are still concerned about the effects of smoking on their health, they experience constant social pressure and the need to find time and space for a cigarette between tasks.
"Last cigarette"- the last exercise when a smoker vows to never smoke again and remembers what exactly made him do it.
Of course, thoughts about cigarettes will return from time to time, but Carr offers several exercises to do when the urge to smoke appears.
A 2014 study found that smokers who used the Allen Carr method were six times more likely to be abstinent from nicotine 13 months after their last cigarette.
The Carr method has been clinically validated in two randomized controlled trials. It does not require any medication or nicotine products, and there is virtually no nicotine withdrawal, even with severe addiction.
Smokers note that after using Carr's method, they feel as if they never smoked. They can interact with smokers even if they smoke and don't want a cigarette.
Despite the millions of positive responses, there are those who doAllen Carr's method did not help: some did not feel the effect, others were ruined after a few months, others decided that "nothing will happen right away". . . . For them, there are many other methods - domestic, foreign, even artistic.