Summary of “The Easy Way to Stop

Smoking” by Allen Carr

How to overcome fear and stop smoking
easily

Written by Bookey
About the book
Can you believe that a single book can get you to
stop smoking? While it sounds impossible, 10
million people worldwide have successfully
stopped smoking with the help of this book. Allen
Carr's The Easy Way to Stop Smoking has been
translated into more than 30 languages, and over 9
million copies have been sold all over the world.
The method of stopping introduced in this book
doesn’t rely heavily on willpower. It’s a
self-contained system. By practicing the method,
smokers can quit in an easy, fast, and thorough
manner. This Bookey will introduce this method to
you, and help you quit smoking easily.
About the author
The author, Allen Carr, used to be a chain-smoker
for 33 years. He smoked up to 100 cigarettes a day.
Because of smoking, he started to have varicose
veins from the age of 30, and his hands were
covered with melasma before he was 40. He tried
to quit many times, but all attempts ended in failure.
Finally, he discovered an easy method of stopping
and succeeded in doing it. After that experience, he
quit his job in accounting to focus on writing books
related to quitting smoking, while also opening
up clinics to help smokers stop. About 10 million
people worldwide have successfully stopped
smoking with the help of his works.
Chapter 1: Overview
Hi, welcome to Bookey. Today we’ll unlock Allen
Carr's The Easy Way to Stop Smoking. Reports
from the World Health Organization show that
smoking harms the human body in many different
ways. Smoke generated by burning tobacco
contains more than a thousand harmful substances,
including at least 250 carcinogens and other toxic
substances. Smoking severely damages the
respiratory system, cardiovascular system, nervous
system, digestive system and reproductive system.
Millions of people die because of smoking every
year around the world. Moreover, the damage from
secondhand smoke is no less than active smoking.
It is especially harmful to children and teenagers. It
can cause asthma in children and sudden infant
death syndrome, and it can also worsen tracheitis
and pneumonia. As smoking is so harmful,
smokers who care about their health will start to
make an effort to quit. However, quitting smoking
seems to be one of the hardest things in the world.
Whether you smoke or not, you must know
someone who does, be it in your family, or among
your circle of friends and co-workers. Many of
them must have tried to quit, but they just can’t
manage to come through. They may have even
tried several times but still fail to give up smoking.
Smokers understand that smoking damages their
bodies. They cough constantly; their skin condition
gets worse; their blood pressure gets higher; they
develop lung diseases and even die of lung cancer.
But still, many comfort themselves with the
following thoughts: Aren't there many who smoke
but still live a long life? I'm not that unlucky! I
know smoking is not good, but aren't car emissions
more harmful? They damage my lungs even more
seriously than smoking! Not to mention, there are
so many commercials, movies, co-workers and
relatives around me that tell me: “It’s okay to
smoke.” “Taking a smoke break with colleagues is
so enjoyable.” “It makes you more attractive, more
manly.” “How come you don't smoke?” Well,
living in such an environment that reminds one of
smoking constantly, one can hardly resist smoking,
and one who smokes can hardly stop it for good.
Many people are of two minds about smoking.
They feel guilty when they smoke, knowing it's not
right, but when they are not smoking, they find it
unbearable and too hard to resist the temptation. So,
what makes stopping smoking so hard exactly?
How can one give up smoking for good? Allen Carr,
the author of this book, had smoked for 33 years,
he once smoked 100 cigarettes in a day, and he had
claimed that he would rather die if he couldn’t
smoke. After dozens of attempts to stop, he finally
found an easy way to stop smoking. He tells us that
the main reason why it is difficult to stop is because
smokers have fears deep inside their hearts. Only
by overcoming these fears can one quit. Next,
let’s find out the easy, fast, and effective way to
quit smoking in three parts. Part 1: Why do we
smoke? Part 2: Why do conventional methods of
stopping always fail? Part 3: How to easily quit?
Chapter 2: Why do we smoke?
Why is it so hard to stop smoking? Before we
figure this problem out, we must know first why
people smoke. Many people say that they smoke
because others do, or they believe smoking can
make them appear more manly and more attractive.
Some also say that smoking is relaxing, that it
helps them focus, and that it can also inspire them,
right? Many artists are accompanied by a cigarette
when they are making their artistic creations.
Carr points out that, in fact, smoking is absolutely
useless – yes, it does no good at all. All these
“reasons” mentioned earlier are simply illusions.
They are all misperceptions brought to you by your
surroundings. We could also call it brainwashing.
Why? Now try to recall why you first started to
smoke. People are shaped by their surroundings.
The influence of one’s surroundings is ever-present,
and the society glorifies scenes with tobacco,
intentionally or not. For example, in prime time
shows, you can often see the protagonists holing a
cigarette. During a moment of high tension when a
police officer is interrogating a suspect, both of
them need to smoke a cigarette to calm down. As
we watch scenes like this on TV, our subconscious
gets the hidden message: smoking relaxes people,
and it makes me more attractive. Besides, we see
discreet cigarette advertising in all kinds of sports
and other events. Our conscious mind may ignore
those cigarette ads, but our subconscious can’t
escape their influence. Even the packaging of
cigarettes is getting more attractive, luring us into
appreciating it. Gold-plated lighters have now
become a status symbol. Also, in personal
interactions, you are always influenced by tobacco.
We tend to believe that only those with a weak
mind get addicted to smoking, but that’s not true. In
fact, weak-minded people usually can’t stand the
cough, dizziness and nausea brought by the first
cigarette, so they give up immediately after one or
two puffs of cigarettes. Instead, it’s more often the
strong-minded people with high social status that
smoke. So, very often, we follow their examples to
smoke because we admire them. Sometimes when
we see someone who coughs as he takes his first
puff of a cigarette, we may even make fun of him.
In all these situations, our subconscious reminds us:
“It’s good to smoke. It’s something classy,
something noble.” You see, your surroundings
cheat you on the matter of smoking to the extent
that you start to cheat yourself. Here you might
want to tell yourself: “Well, I admit that I started
smoking under the influence of my surroundings,
but I do feel smoking can help me relieve stress
and negative emotions. It indeed makes me feel
relaxed!” But is that true? Probably not, because
that’s still your illusion, and why do you have such
an illusion? We have to see this issue from the
mechanism of smoking addiction. We all know
that cigarettes contain nicotine, but what is nicotine
anyway? Most of us may not know for sure. Many
know that marijuana and heroin are drugs, but they
do not know that nicotine is a drug, too, and it is
one of the most addictive drugs of all. Nicotine is
metabolized very fast inside the human body. Half
an hour after smoking, the amount of nicotine in
the blood will drop by 50%, and another half-hour
later, it will drop to 25%. As soon as one stops
smoking, the amount of nicotine in the blood
decreases fast, and one starts to feel bored,
flustered, empty, and restless. This is the so-called
withdrawal pangs. To relieve the withdrawal pangs,
a smoker can do nothing but light another cigarette.
Within just 7 seconds after lighting the cigarette,
those feelings disappear. That's the fundamental
reason why you have the illusion mentioned earlier.
For example, many people light a cigarette
spontaneously when they run into problems and
feel stressed, and they think that much of their
stress is gone as soon as they start smoking. But the
reality is like what we've just explained:
withdrawal pangs already happen BEFORE you
have stress, even if you don’t realize it. And
because of withdrawal pangs, smokers actually feel
more stress than non-smokers. Besides, smoking
causes great damage to the respiratory system,
cardiovascular system, nervous system, digestive
system and reproductive system. As the addiction
worsens, nicotine hurts your body more, and you
get more dependent on cigarettes. As a result, your
willpower and courage gradually leave you.
Paradoxically, smokers believe smoking can
increase their willpower and courage. Here’s
another example of withdrawal pangs in disguise.
Some people like to hold a cigarette between the
lips when they don't feel like doing anything,
because they think smoking can make them feel
less bored. In actuality, smoking does not make you
less bored. When one feels bored, boredom itself
can easily generate stress. And because such stress
is similar to the stress generated by withdrawal
pangs, the smoker's brain naturally associate it with
withdrawal pangs, which prompts him or her to
start smoking. When one cigarette is finished, the
stress is lessened, and the smoker mistakes the
cigarette for the relief of stress. However, in
actuality, nicotine makes one drowsy and less likely
to do anything that requires energy. Some people
also believe smoking can help them focus. As many
artists smoke when they create their artistic works,
people naturally associate smoking with
concentration and creativity. But the truth is that
they happen to have withdrawal pangs when they
are producing their creative works. The worse the
withdrawal pangs are, the more nicotine they need,
and soon after they finish one cigarette, they have
withdrawal pangs again, and they feel compelled to
light another one. But in actuality, toxins in
cigarette reduce the oxygen-carrying capacity of
the blood, resulting in insufficient oxygen supply to
the brain, which makes people less able to
concentrate. Non-smokers don't need smoking to
focus, because they naturally have a high level of
concentration. We’ve just learned nicotine is a
drug, and we don’t need drugs in our body.
Humans are one of the most complex organisms on
earth. After thousands of years of natural selection,
the human body has evolved to be able to
effectively distinguish toxins from foods. The very
first time one smokes, one often coughs violently,
with nausea and dizziness. That’s our body telling
us nicotine is toxic. It’s warning us to stop. Take a
step back, if natural selection wanted our body to
enjoy smoking, we would have had corresponding
physiological functions to protect us from the
toxins in cigarettes. But obviously the reality is not
like that, the human body’s first reaction to
smoking and withdrawal pangs speak for
themselves. So, accept the truth! Smoking is
entirely useless. This is not to say that smoking has
more negative effects than positive effects, but
rather, as every smoker actually knows it deep
inside, smoking has no positive effects at all. It
can’t make you more attractive or more manly, it
can’t relax you, it can’t relieve your stress, it can’t
get rid of your boredom and it can’t improve your
concentration. As a matter of fact, most smokers
know very well that smoking is bad for their health,
but they often just pretend not to see anti-smoking
campaigns. They do that because, on the one hand,
they refuse to face the inconvenient truth that
smoking causes serious damage to their bodies. On
the other hand, they just want to take their chances.
Smoking is one of the major causes of many
diseases, including heart disease, arteriosclerosis,
emphysema, angina, and asthma. Moreover, it
causes damage to the immune system. Some
smokers say that they are not concerned with their
health because they don’t cough. But in fact,
coughing is a mechanism that has been
incorporated into our body through evolution to
protect itself, and when we inhale harmful
substances, coughing can help remove foreign
bodies from our lungs. So, if you cough less or not
at all when you smoke, it means that your lungs
can't function normally to remove tar and other
toxins inside, and those substances can ultimately
cause serious diseases like cancer. Smoking is 100
percent harmful to the body, but the chance-taking
smokers just smoke one cigarette after another,
mistakenly believing they are lucky enough to be
safe. You see, smokers are just too lenient with
themselves when it comes to smoking. Let’s
repeat it again: Accept the truth! We must eliminate
these illusions and fantasies. You'll realize that
stopping doesn't require you to give up anything
other than smoking itself, as stopping has no
negative effects. You only have to give up the thing
that harms you. Generally speaking, three
weeks after you stop smoking, 99% of nicotine in
your body will have already been flushed out of
your system, and you are already free from the
physiological dependence on cigarettes. That is to
say, nicotine addiction is far less severe than other
kinds of drug addiction. As long as you make up
your mind to stop, you can absolutely free yourself
from its control. What you really need to do is to
overcome your fear. When you find out that life
won't get worse at all without cigarettes, all your
fear and illusions will vanish, and you won't feel at
a loss anymore. That's when you can pursue what
you really want – a free and happy life. OK, that
concludes the first section of this Bookey. In this
part, we talked about why we smoke, namely
misconceptions caused by social surroundings and
nicotine addiction. We also learned that, unlike
what many smokers believe, smoking does no good
at all, and stopping doesn’t require you to give up
anything in life.
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