Easy Way to Stop Smoking (11 page)

Increasingly, smokers are being pushed outside into the cold by society. Anti-smoking by-laws increasingly restrict where
and when we can smoke. This bothers smokers, but it doesn't stop them. Ironically, these types of restrictions can make it harder, not easier, to quit. The reason for this is that these days it is impossible to light up whenever you want. As a consequence, smokers go through periods of enforced abstinence throughout the day. As I mentioned, many ‘special' cigarettes come after a period of abstinence during which the ‘itch' to smoke has grown and grown. When at last the smoker can scratch the ‘itch' and light up, the relief is enormous. In effect, these types of smoking restrictions make smokers believe that every cigarette is precious, and that the most important thing on the planet is the next cigarette. However, to a non-smoker it is obvious that the only thing the smoker is getting from the cigarette is temporary relief of the aggravation of needing to smoke.

As an aside, it is interesting to note and also ironic that cigarettes only seem precious to us when we aren't smoking. When we are smoking, we take it for granted and we're barely even aware that we are doing it. It's only when we can't do it that it seems so precious. What a ridiculous state of affairs...

This trend of increased restrictions on smoking is set to continue. Already it is virtually impossible to smoke anywhere in California, and despite the many millions of dollars spent by tobacco companies fighting the establishment of smoking by-laws, thousands of municipalities across the country have implemented or are in the process of implementing similar smoke-free legislation. Gone are the days when you could just light up in a friend's home or a restaurant. Many smokers even have a self-imposed restriction that they won't smoke in their own home. Smokers assimilate these restrictions into their routines out of necessity, but surely the question we should be asking is: ‘Why?' What is it that the cigarette gives us that is so wonderful that we are prepared to give up our freedom and be treated like a second-class citizen?

I hated being dominated and controlled in this way. I was in control of every area of my life except for smoking. The cigarette was deciding where I could go, what I could do, when I could do it and with whom.

I remember that during my smoking days, every time I went to church, it was an ordeal. Even during my own daughter's wedding, when I should have been standing there a proud parent, what was I doing? I was thinking, ‘Let's get on with it, so I can get outside and have a smoke'.

I can also remember playing indoor bowls in the winter and pretending to have a weak bladder in order to nip off for a quick smoke. No, this wasn't a fourteen-year-old schoolboy but a forty-year-old chartered accountant. How pathetic. And even when I was back playing the game I wasn't enjoying it. I was looking forward to the finish so that I could smoke again, yet this was supposed to be my way of relaxing and enjoying myself.

I can't even begin to remember how many meals smoking ruined for me. It's funny that we tell ourselves that we enjoy the one after a meal, but the truth is that smoking ruins meals because all you can think about is wolfing down your food as quickly as possible so that you can get back to smoking.

To me one of the tremendous joys of being a non-smoker is to be free from that slavery, to be able to enjoy the whole of my life, not spending half of it not smoking and wishing I could and the other half smoking, wishing I didn't have to. This is a tremendous burden that the smoker carries around with them and it feels wonderful when at last it is lifted from your shoulders.

I
cannot repeat often enough that it is the brainwashing that makes it difficult to stop smoking. Many smokers don't realize this so they need to use variations of the willpower method. The more brainwashing we can remove before you start on your wonderful new life free from the slavery of smoking, the easier and more enjoyable you will find the process.

One of the biggest areas of brainwashing is money. Occasionally I meet someone whom I think of as a confirmed or hardcore smoker. By my definition a confirmed smoker is somebody who can afford it, doesn't believe it injures their health and isn't worried about the social stigma (there are not many about these days).

I do not look for confrontations with smokers—I was one and remember all too well how defensive I would get when the subject of smoking was raised—but they often approach me.
If it's a young man, I say to him, “I can't believe you are not worried about the money.”

Usually, his eyes light up. If I had attacked him on health grounds or on the social stigma, he would feel at a disadvantage, but on money—“Oh, I can afford it. It is only $x a week and I think it's worth it. It is my only vice or pleasure,” etc.

If he is a pack-a-day smoker I say to him, “I still cannot believe you are not worried about the money. You will need to earn over $150,000 in your lifetime to finance your addiction. What are you doing with that money? You are not even setting light to it or throwing it away. You are actually using that money to ruin your physical health, to destroy your courage and confidence, and to suffer a lifetime of slavery, bad breath and stained teeth. These are all priceless and irreplaceable. It's like paying an assassin to kill you. Surely that must worry you?”

It becomes apparent at this point, particularly with younger smokers, that it is the first time they have ever considered smoking as a lifetime expense. For most smokers the price of a pack is bad enough. Occasionally we work out what we spend in a week, and that is alarming. Very occasionally (and only when we're thinking about stopping) we estimate what we spend in a year and that is frightening, but over a lifetime—it's unthinkable.

The confirmed smoker with whom I am having the discussion almost always counters with the encyclopedia salesman trick. “I can afford it. It is only so much a week.” I know this trick well, having used it myself for years. I then say, “I will make you an offer you cannot refuse. You pay me the cost of one year of smoking right now and I will provide you with free cigarettes for the rest of your life.”

If I were offering to take over his $150,000 mortgage for $2,000, the smoker would have my signature on a contract faster than you could say ‘Philip Morris', and yet not one confirmed smoker (and please bear in mind I am not talking to someone like yourself who plans to stop, I am talking to someone who
claims to have no intention of stopping) has taken me up on that offer. Why not? Is it because, deep down, like every other smoker on the planet, even ‘confirmed' smokers would really rather be non-smokers?

Often at this point in my consultations, a smoker will say, “Look, I am not really worried about the money aspect.” If you are thinking along these lines, ask yourself why you are not worried. In other areas of our lives we go to great trouble to save a couple of dollars. We clip coupons. We wait until our favorite stores have a sale. We make sure we claim every last cent on our taxes. Yet here we are spending tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars for the privilege of poisoning ourselves to death.

The answer to the question is this. Every other decision that you make in your life will be the result of an analytical process of weighing the pros and cons of various courses of action and arriving at a rational, fact-based decision. From time to time we may get it wrong, but at least the process will be a rational one. Whenever any smoker weighs up the pros and cons of smoking, the answer is the same: ‘STOP SMOKING! YOU FOOL!' We can do this exercise a thousand times and a thousand times the answer would be the same. We have two options at this stage: to sacrifice the cigarette, or sacrifice rationality. So we sacrifice rationality. We sense that we are not smoking because we want to or because we like it, but because we think we can't stop. We have to keep our head in the sand and believe the brainwashing, because otherwise we feel stupid being a smoker.

Try to take your head out of the sand for a moment. Smoking is a chain reaction. Withdrawing from your first cigarette made you smoke the second. Withdrawing from the second made you smoke the third and so on. Actually, the first cigarette you ever smoked cost you everything you have ever spent on cigarettes. That was one very expensive cigarette! Equally, your
next cigarette will cost you everything you will ever spend in the future on cigarettes. If you do not break the chain, you will be a smoker for the rest of your life. Now estimate how much you would spend on smoking for the rest of your life. The amount will vary from individual to individual, but for the purposes of this exercise let us assume it is $50,000.

You will shortly be making the decision to smoke your final cigarette (not yet, please—remember the initial instructions). All you have to do to remain a happy non-smoker is not to fall for the trap again. That is, do not smoke that first cigarette. If you do, that one cigarette will cost you $50,000.

If you think that this is a trick way of looking at it, don't kid yourself. Just work out how much money you would have saved if you hadn't smoked your first cigarette.

Actually, this is the only sensible and accurate way to look at the true financial cost of smoking. Just think how you would feel if a check for $50,000 from a competition you'd won were to arrive in the mail. You'd be dancing with delight! So start dancing, because with the decision you have made to escape from the smoking trap, you have just saved yourself $50,000.

This is a great deal of money, and you should quite rightly celebrate this windfall, but the truth is that a substantially improved financial status is the smallest and least important of the gains you earn when you break free from smoking. You are also giving yourself the gifts of life and freedom. These are truly priceless, and they just aren't available to smokers.

During the withdrawal period you may be tempted to have ‘just one more' final cigarette. Of course that ‘one more' will lead to another and another and soon enough, you'll be back smoking as you are now. It will help if you remind yourself it will cost you $50,000 (or whatever your estimate is). Would you spend $50,000 to get re-addicted to a drug that doesn't even get you high?

If you are ever in the company of ‘happy' smokers who tell you how much they enjoy it, just tell them that you know an idiot called Allen Carr who, if you pay him a year's smoking money in advance, will provide free cigarettes for the rest of your life. Perhaps you can find me someone who will take up the offer?

T
his is the area where the brainwashing is at its peak. Smokers think they are aware of the health risks. They are not. Even in my case, when I was expecting my head to explode at any moment and honestly believed I was prepared to accept the consequences, I was still kidding myself.

If in those days I had taken a cigarette out of the pack and an alarm started to sound, followed by a voice saying, ‘OK Allen, this is the one! Fortunately you get a warning and this is it. If you smoke another cigarette your head will explode,' do you think I would have lit that cigarette?

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I would
not
have lit that cigarette. In addition, I would have been immensely relieved to have received the warning and happy that my head was not going to explode.

I did what every smoker on the planet does throughout their smoking lives: I closed my mind, prayed it wouldn't be me, kept my head firmly in the sand and hoped that I would
wake up one morning with no desire to smoke. Smokers can't allow themselves to think about the health risks because if they do, even the illusion of enjoyment disappears.

This explains why the shock tactics used by the media on the Great American Smokeout are so ineffective. It is only non-smokers who can bring themselves to watch these horrific ads. It also explains why smokers, recalling Uncle Fred who smoked forty a day until he was eighty, will ignore the millions of smokers who are cut down in their prime because of this poisonous weed.

I frequently have the following conversation with smokers (usually the younger ones):

ME: Why do you want to stop?

SMOKER: I can't afford it.

ME: Aren't you worried about the health risks?

SMOKER: No. I could step under a bus tomorrow.

ME: Would you deliberately step under a bus?

SMOKER: Of course not.

ME: Do you bother to look both ways when you cross the road?

SMOKER: Of course I do.

Exactly. The smoker goes to a lot of trouble not to step under a bus, and the odds are hundreds of thousands to one against it happening. Yet the smoker risks the near certainty of being crippled by smoking and seems oblivious to the risks. Such is the power of the brainwashing.

I remember one famous British golfer who wouldn't travel to the US to play because he was afraid of flying. Yet he would chain-smoke round the golf course. Isn't it strange that if we felt there was the slightest fault in an aircraft, we wouldn't go up in it, yet we accept the one-in-two odds that smoking will
kill or disable us? And what is our reward for taking this truly staggering risk? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

Smoking is easily the biggest cause of preventable death in the world. It is estimated that every year around 5 million deaths are caused by smoking (including over 450,000 in the US). Sometimes it can be difficult to even begin to get our head around something on that scale. To give you a comparison, this is like having a September 11th every four hours, twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year.

Another common myth about smoking is the ‘smoker's cough'. Many of the younger people who attend our seminars are not worried about their health because they do not have a smoker's cough. Some say that smokers who
don't
have a cough are the ones who should worry the most. A cough is one of nature's fail-safe methods for expelling foreign matter and poisons from the lungs. The cough itself is not a disease; it is a symptom. When smokers cough it is because their lungs are trying to get rid of the cancer-triggering tars and irritants contained in tobacco smoke. When they don't cough, the poison remains in their lungs, and this is when they can cause cancer and the many other horrendous diseases associated with smoking. Smokers tend to avoid exercise and get into the habit of shallow breathing in order not to cough. I used to believe that my smoker's cough was going to kill me. In truth, by expelling much of the filth from my lungs, it probably added years to my life.