Quit Smoking by Reading... No Kidding!

Just over two years ago, I was in my local Barnes and Noble picking up a birthday gift for a friend, when I walked past a display that featured a light blue book entitled, The Easy Way to Stop Smoking. I had to stop and take a look, simply because the claim seemed outrageous. I was a pack a day smoker who had "thought about quitting," and was going to "taper off and eventually stop," for the better part of a decade, but I was starting to be plagued by a really nasty morning cough that I knew I had to do something about. Trouble was, I had no real desire to quit. In fact, I loathed the idea of quitting and hoped some sort of magic, healthy cigarette would be invented at the 11th Hour to save me from a life without smoking.

For about $15.00, I purchased a copy of The Easy Way to Quit Smoking by Allen Carr after reading the dust jacket and realizing that I had heard of Allen Carr in an interview with a British actor who quit smoking after 33 years. I purchased the book, figuring I would keep it in the bathroom and occasionally read a page or two in order to prepare myself to begin thinking about quiting. I never finished the book. Two-thirds of the way through, I held my last cigarette and realized I did not want to be enslaved by a nicotine addiction anymore. I have never smoked again, and I have never had a relapse.

Allen Carr developed his method (which is the basis of the book) after suffering a 100 cigarette-a-day habit himself. Once he figured out how to stop without using pills, patches or any other chemical means, he devoted his life to teaching his method to others. Other than the book (which is wildly popular in Europe due to a high success rate), there is nothing else to purchase, and best of all perhaps, the book appeals to the reader's common sense and never employs scare tactics that do not tend to work anyway.

After my success with the book, I "paid it forward" by giving the book to a friend who was thinking of quiting. She has since quit (23 months ago), as has her mother (20 months). I don't know who has that little book today, but to think that single copy has changed at least 3 lives is pretty remarkable indeed.