Allen Carr's easy way to quit smoking: what is its essence, advantages and disadvantages? How many years did Allen Carr smoke? From what illness and at what age did Allen Carr die? How to quit smoking using the Allen Carr method?
The name Allen Carr is known not only to smokers. The British guru of the fight against addictions and fears started out as a simple accountant, but his stressful job led him to smoke 100 (! ) Cigarettes a day 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 curious that among them are not only smokers.
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 the age when he himself became addicted to tobacco. This happened at the age of 18, when he was drafted into the army.
During his service, Allen Carr began smoking. After demobilization, he graduated from university with a degree in accounting and day after day, due to his intense work, he became more and more involved in smoking.
Carr, a heavy smoker, used to smoke several packs a day. His personal record (with a minus sign, of course) is 100 cigarettes a day.
More than once Carr made desperate attempts to quit smoking, but they were unsuccessful. Thus thirty years of tobacco slavery passed.
The significant day that changed the life of Allen Carr, and then millions of his followers, was July 15, 1983. That day, a chronic smoker, passionately wanting to overcome his addiction, attended a session with a psychotherapist.
The treatment didn't seem to help. Leaving the clinic, Allen Carr immediately lit a cigarette. It's true that after a while I still found the strength to overcome a bad habit by inventing and trying my own.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 with Izvestia, which he gave a few months before his death, Allen Carr expressed confidence that he would have lived another twenty years if he had stopped smoking earlier.
Allen Carr's last 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 both people who smoke and those who have decided to quit smoking earn money.
Allen Carr stated:
"Smoking is the greatest shame of our society, even greater than nuclear weapons. "
An 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;
- desire to gamble;
- Addiction to caffeine and sugar.
Carr's method has also been tested in the fight against debt and the 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 Easiest Way to Enjoy Air Travel" (2000);
- "An 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 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 limited to willpower. Carr did not intimidate his patients and did not use shocking images of internal organs and diseases caused by smoking (smokers know this very well).
Instead, Carr explored and helped overcome the misconceptions that shape addiction. He analyzed the reasons that lead him to smoke and came to the conclusion that addiction is 1% physical and 99% mental.
The first step that Allen Carr advises those who want to quit smoking is to set a date and time to quit smoking.
Carr's method is to break your nicotine addiction by realizing that cigarettes do not help you enjoy life. The "X time" approach increases the value of cigarettes, so he does not recommend reducing the number of them.
Smokers believe that cigarettes give them a special pleasure. Which helps you cope with stress, live a full life, pull yourself together, relax, concentrate, find a common language and stay fit. 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 for the rest of their lives.
Allen Carr wrote:
"Cigarettes don't fill a void, they create one! "
At the same time, smokers continue to worry about how smoking affects their health, experience constant social pressure, and the need to find time and place to smoke a cigarette between tasks.
"last cigarette"- the final exercise, when a smoker, while smoking a cigarette, promises never to smoke again and remembers what exactly prompted him to do so.
Of course, thoughts about smoking will return from time to time, but Carr offers several exercises to do when the desire to smoke appears.
A 2014 study found that smokers who quit using the Allen Carr method were six times more likely to abstain from nicotine 13 months after their last cigarette.
The Carr method has been clinically tested in two randomized controlled trials. It does not require the use of any medications or nicotine products, and there is virtually no nicotine withdrawal even in cases of severe addiction.
Smokers notice that after using Carr's method they feel as if they had never smoked. They may interact with smokers even when they smoke and do not have cravings.
Despite millions of positive responses, there are those whoAllen Carr's method did not help: some did not feel the effect, others collapsed a few months later, others decided that "nothing will happen to you. ". . For them there are many other methods: national, foreign and even artistic.