Allen Carr - Easy Way To Stop Smoking (Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking - Allen Carr)

Member Name: DavidJay

Product:	Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking - Allen Carr
Date:	14/10/09 (22 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Convincing, no-nonsense, seems to work...

Disadvantages: Still not especially "easy", whatever the hype.

The story is this - some time ago a man well on his way to obliteration was smoking 100 cigarettes a day (a 30-odd year habit), was besieged by incredible headaches and chest-pains as a result, and was altogether fairly sure that his brain was set for exploding back his eyes sometime in the not too distant future.

One day, for whatever reason, the man realised how incredibly, unutterably easy it would be to stop smoking and be done with all of these torments. So he did.

Next thing anyone knows, Allen Carr, for it is he, is organising clinics up and down the country to help other smokers kick the habit - although, rightly, he won't call it that - and charging a fair old sum for the privilege. But it seems to work. Everyone: your uncle, this woman from work, Anthony Hopkins and David Frost - who could stare down Nixon but God forbid he should ever have glanced askew at a Benson and Hedges - are being weaned, or better yet yanked, off the fags on account of this man Allen Carr and these clinics. Or books. Or DVD's. Or audio programs.

Like Paul McKenna, Carr insists that if his course doesn't help you quit, it's because you're scared to listen to him. Listen to him, and he'll fix you. It's that easy, and sure enough this "easiness" is the primary selling point, it's what's propelled his books to the top of countless bestseller charts year after year, and, ultimately, it's what ensured he died in comfort (environmental if not physical: Carr sadly died of lung cancer not so long ago, but only after enjoying an age of smoke-free, healthy, wealthy living).

As a writer, Carr is compelling. He's no-nonsense, and if he repeats himself quite a bit - the old "smoking is like banging your head off a wall all day so as to feel better when you momentarily stop" chestnut is wheeled out a good half-dozen times - it's perhaps because, as he says, smokers, indeed addicts of any sort, are not altogether given to listening.

That said, what Carr does not peddle are scare stories, "idiot!!!" hollers, promises of wealth, or anything else. What he tells you is, simply, you're killing yourself to keep returning to a state where you would be anyway, if the addiction to nicotine were removed. That's it.

Yet it's very very convincing, and although I'm too chicken to go totally cold turkey - I have a patch on, which Carr advises against, and with convincing cause - I've been quit for a week or thereabouts and Carr's book has proven a vital aid in that time.

I don't know if it's the miracle cure he claims. It's a bit like when Derren Brown announces he's gonna stick you to the sofa. If you deliberately look the other way to spite him, well, you won't be stuck. But if you're looking the right way, and if you're open to what Carr's throwing at you, it might just do the trick. And really, what the hell have you to lose?

Summary: An immense help, but it still requires a fair degree of willpower, whatever the claims.