Allen Carr's simple way to quit smoking: what is the essence, advantages and disadvantages of him? How many years did Allen Carr smoke? Of what disease and at what age did Allen Carr die? How to quit smoking with the Allen Carr method?
The name Allen Carr is known not only 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 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 stopped smoking.
Since then, Allen Carr's method has helped another 50 million people around the world. It is curious that among them there 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 smoking. 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 in accounting and day after day, due to his intense work, he began to smoke more and more.
A chain smoker, Carr often smoked several packs a day. His personal best (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 cigarette slavery passed.
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 a session with a psychotherapist.
Treatment didn't seem to help. After leaving the clinic, Allen Carr immediately lit a cigarette. It's true, after a while I still found the strength to overcome a bad habit by inventing and testing my ownan easy way to quit smoking.
Carr's years of smoking and years spent attending smoking seminars in smoke-filled classrooms took their 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, released 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.
Allen Carr said:
"Smoking is the greatest shame in our society, even greater than nuclear weapons. "
An easy way to quit smoking and more
Interestingly, Allen Carr has adapted his method to treat other addictions:
- addiction to e-cigarettes;
- alcoholism;
- drug addiction;
- obesity;
- desire for gambling;
- 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 Easiest 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 on the fight against addiction.
Allen Carr Method
Allen Carr claimed to help get rid of addiction painlessly, without holding back 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 push him to smoke and came to the conclusion that the addiction is 1% physical and 99% mental.
The first step Allen Carr recommends to those who want to quit smoking is to set a time and date to quit smoking.
Carr's method is to break the 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 the number of them.
Smokers believe that a cigarette gives them a special pleasure. Which helps to deal with stress, live a full life, collect yourself, relax, concentrate, find a common language and keep 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 the void, they create it! "
At the same time, smokers continue to worry about the effects of smoking on their health, experience constant social pressure and the need to find time and space for a cigarette between jobs.
"The last cigarette"- the final exercise, when a smoker, smoking a cigarette, promises never to smoke again and remembers what exactly prompted him to do so.
Of course, thoughts about cigarettes will return from time to time, but for this Carr offers several exercises that need to be performed 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 studies. It does not require the use of drugs or nicotine products and there is virtually no nicotine withdrawal even in cases of severe addiction.
Smokers note that after using the Carr Method they feel as if they have never smoked. They can interact with smokers even when they smoke and don't crave cigarettes.
Despite millions of positive responses, there are thoseAllen Carr's method didn't help: some did not feel the effect, others broke a few months later, others decided that "nothing will happen from one. ". . For them there are many other methods: domestic, foreign and even artistic.