Allen Carr's Easy Way To Stop Smoking

Ok here’s the deal: I am offering virtually nothing of any real value in this review. All I can say is the book came early and in the condition it was promised. But this is what I am going to do. I will be 100% honest either way. I have been a smoker for almost 40 years. I did quit for almost 5 years a while back, but like an idiot I started back up. In the spring I am going to buy a new truck. I figure if I can quit spending the approximately $80 per week I am wasting on cigarettes, there’s most of my truck payment. But even more importantly, I just ain’t ready to die. So I’m going to read this book and do whatever I can to make it this time. My promise is, I will update this review in 60 days either way. No b.s. either I’m off the butts or not. So check back in February. Wish me luck. Thanks for reading
Update: I’m gonna have to change it to 3 stars. I’m still smoking. But hear me out. I’m not saying that the book is worthless. It does have some really good information and helpful ideas. I’m just too damn weak I guess. Which is weird because I’m a recovering alcoholic. Can quit drinking but not smoking. Loser. 😬. No, I gotta try something more concrete I think. The book may very well work for you. I guess it has for millions of people. But that’s my issue with it. Seems like every other paragraph is telling you about all the people who have successfully quit after reading this book. Just started to wear on me after a while. Couldn’t even finish it. Worst part is, I feel sh*ttier than I did before. I despise failing. I think I have to say overall, it’s probably worth buying. It’s not that much money if it helps you. And hey, just know that someone who feels your pain is pulling for you.
Thanks for reading, I know I’m pretty long winded.

I bought this book nearly three years ago. It took me a full year to read. This is a reflection on me, not the book. Was I afraid it would actually work? Maybe. Smoking is something that has been deeply ingrained in my personality for 25 years, a fact I'm not proud of. After finishing the book, I'm still smoking, but not nearly as much. It has given me a lot to think about.

I think the biggest problem I have with the book is that it's a "one-size-fits-all" method. And of course it is. It's a book. If I could invest the time and money into going to one of their clinics, where I could receive feedback and have actual discussions, that would probably be far more effective. I find myself railing against the "this is all you have to do to quit. It's so simple!" ideas. Again, this is a reflection on me and my own hard-headedness. The thing is, the book is right. Deciding to quit and being happy about it really is the only way to quit successfully - whether you use nicotine replacement therapy, chewing gum, or mint candies, whether you chew on coffee stirrers or toothpicks or do deep breathing exercises. Everybody's path to quitting is slightly different because yep, we are each unique - even if we have the same problem. I found the judgy nature of "this is all you have to do" condescending and not terribly helpful overall.

I'm still quitting. I'll never quit quitting, and I encourage you to do the same. If you slip up and have a cigarette, NEVER think it's the end of the world. Just because you have a couple cigarettes at a party or something, don't think you have to be hooked all over again (something Mr. Carr insisted is going to happen.) Never quit quitting. This book will continue to be a loose guide to my path of non-smoking, but whatever you need to do to quit smoking, go ahead and do it. I'm avoiding the nicotine replacement therapies and other drugs because it's just not for me. I'm happy that I've cut down as much as I have and am not quite as dependent as I was. I will continue to work on my habit/addiction and continue to work on myself. I am a work in progress. I will pay attention to myself, my routine, and my habits and more importantly, I will forgive myself. Every cigarette I DON'T have is progress.

If this book has helped you quit, God bless you and congratulations. For those of us that it wasn't our miracle, keep us in your thoughts and keep reading that chapter about not being judgmental to smokers. That was another thing Mr. Carr was right about. That sanctimonious attitude doesn't help the rest of us at all. Be encouraging and patient instead.

Be gentle with yourselves, party people. We CAN stop smoking and we WILL.

I really wish I could join the glowing five star reviews and say this worked, I really do. My husband is so stubborn and views any attempt to get him to quit as “control” and he wouldn’t give this book a try past the first five pages. I’m stumped and running out of ideas. If we didn’t have a child, I wouldn’t care. But we do.

I read through it myself and it makes so many valid points and isn’t condescending at all, it’s so conversational even when heading off arguments. It does get a little sales pitch like at points, especially in the beginning which is what was odd puttting to my husband. It’s too bad that you can’t force someone to read it.

At the young age of 21, I had already accepted my fate of dying from a smoking-related disease. I had been smoking since I was 14 and exponentially upped my cigarette intake to 1 1/2 packs a day. I tried multiple times to quit, but I could never last more than an hour or 2.

I already had the smoker's cough of 50-year addict, and I had Bronchitis more than anyone I knew. My circulation was terrible, and I was always freezing. I was killing myself, and I was so depressed because I felt so powerless. My sister gave me this book in hopes that it would help me have an epiphany in regards to smoking. I read the first few chapters, then I stopped. I stopped because I was afraid to quit smoking, as most of us are (whether we know it or not). I pushed myself to keep reading it, and Allen Carr took the fear out of "giving up" smoking and reminded me that I'm not actually giving up anything!

This book was such a great read, and it really helped shine light onto all of the many reasons we keep smoking, which is the real mystery after all. I HIGHLY recommend it to anyone who is struggling to quit smoking! Even if you know someone who truly thinks they enjoy smoking, give them this book, and you will change their life. I'm not a review type of person. If a product works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. Because this book literally changed my life, I feel like I need to share the validity of the people's claims and tell you that this book works and Allen Carr is a rock star!

As of this writing, I'm 28 days as a non-smoker. It worked for me, and was nearly painless, as the book claims. I read the book over the course of a week or so, following directions as stated and found that I wanted to quit before actually finishing the book! I kept with the program however- and by 'program' I mean continued reading to the end and set my date and simply quit. I live in western NY state, so smoking requires either a second job or a ready source of fast cash. This book cost a little less than two packs of cigarettes, but in 28 days I've saved over 250 dollars. Talk about a good value!

After Chantix failed to help me quit smoking, I gave up trying to quit. Years later, while cleaning house, I came across this book, which I had purchased in the past but set aside and forgot about. I decided this book would be my last-ditch effort and committed to reading it.It worked for me, even when the thought of ME quitting smoking by READING A BOOK made me laugh, I clearly remember smoking my final cigarette, knowing it would be the last one, and having no physical withdrawals after that. Ever. Without nicotine replacements or drugs or anything else to "fill the void" left by cigarettes, so to speak. Cravings would hit me every now and then, seemingly out of nowhere, but my mind extinguished them effortlessly just as fast as they appeared, thanks to the tools Mr. Carr shared. NINE years later, I look back on my smoking self and can't believe the keys to escape the smoker's prison were lying in front of me all these years. I just never knew how to use them until Mr. Carr explained it to me. He a brilliant man. I truly believe that if you give this book a sincere shot and folllow Mr. Carr's instructions, there is no way possible for you to fail.

I find it interesting that most of the great reviews are almost the same length on here. This book is garbage. Save your money. My husband had a heart attack 3 weeks ago. He’s been reading this book since and all he’s doing is arguing why to not cut back and that he can’t quit cold turkey. All Allan Carr has given him is reasons to not bother trying to quit. He’s read many pages to me. I tell him that everyone is different, put the book away and do what works for him. But he thinks this author has all the answers. All this book has done is cause him more anxiety and will probably lead to another widow maker that will succeed this time. Do not buy this book. It’s not helpful and is actually harmful. Thank you.

See what I just did there? I gave you a choice and you decided to read the review. The review itself is not going to make you quit but I'll tell you about the book which works FLAWLESSLY...IF...you want to quit. That's why I worded the title the way I did. If you want to quit, you took the first step (reading my review) and basically that's the way the book works. It has you assess whether or not you want to quit first (and it's most likely that you do if you buy it)and then it gives you the steps to do so.

Now, the reason I'm here writing this review even though I quit last year is because I just wrote a "comment" on Yahoo about a smoking article which is basically a review of this book. Figured I'd do some "cutting-and-pasting-and-editing" and bring that review here. Honestly, I should have written this review a long time ago--if there's anything I can do to repay the Allen Carr organization, I will do it. As a matter of fact, if someone from Allen Carr HQ called me up and said, "I know you already paid for the book but based on the fact that it worked for you, we need to charge you another $1,000," I would gladly pay. Not only because $1,000 is less than 3 months of 1-pack-a-day smokes here in NYC but because this book saved my life and it WILL save yours.

Now that I think about it--it's not a bad idea for them to give the book away for free, with the one condition that if you quit you pay $1,000. People would be lining up to get a "free book". But they would line up with equal fervor to pay the $1,000. Anyway, here's my review:

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Today is my wife's first day of being a non-smoker since she was a teen. I quit last October and have not craved a cigarette since (we decided not to try and stop at the same time or else we might kill each other; we agreed that one of us would try the method I'm about to tell you about, then if it worked, the other would do so after a few months). Had someone told me beforehand that a BOOK would make me stop, I would have laughed in their face.

Here's the story: last year we were both fed up with not being able to stop and decided to look online for a hypnotist (which is what we thought was the one method we hadn't yet tried). So I found this great Web site for a hypnotist who gives seminars and had cured famous people such as Ellen Degeneres, Ashton Kutcher and the dude who owns Virgin, etc. But as I keep reading on the Web site I see it's not just ONE hypnotist--they have seminars all over the place so it must be a number of them. "Okay, as long as each is trained properly and the METHOD is guaranteed, it should be fine," I think. Then I read some more and see they are not hypnotism seminars at all--WHAT THE HELL?!?! I'm 99.9% sure that sitting in an audience listening to someone tell me not to smoke is not going to make me stop.

So I do more research and find out that the seminars are based on a bestselling book that I'd never heard of called "Allen Carr's Easyway to Stop Smoking". After reading reviews about the book I see it's had just as much (if not more) success than the seminars--and it's a lot cheaper.

Long story short: got the book, read it, smoked while I was reading it (as instructed to do), finished the last page, finished the last cigarette, never looked back. Yesterday my wife did her last page, last cigarette--no, actually, she had it on MP3 audios so she listened to her last track, smoked her last cigarette and I have NO DOUBT SHE'S DONE.

I know how the book works but if I told you the "mechanics" of it ahead of time you might start preparing excuses in your mind. Suffice it to say, there's no brainwashing and no shock tactics...there might be a slight bit of NLP...but that's not the real trick either. You have to read it and experience it for yourself, I won't spoil it. If you're not ready to quit, don't buy it and let it collect dust. But if you WANT to quit but can't, go to Amazon or a bookstore and get a copy. Read a page-a-day if you want to delay your non-smoking lifestyle. Read it in one day if you FEEL A STROKE JUST AROUND THE CORNER like I did. The book doesn't fail, I didn't fail, my wife is not going to fail and YOU WON'T FAIL.

The only thing harder to wrap my mind around than the fact that a book made me stop is the fact that I got sucked into the smoking trap in the first place. The Book is AMAZING!

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So that's the review. If you're still reading then I'm convinced you want to quit and you should BUY IT RIGHT NOW. ACTUALLY WAIT...before you buy, go to your Ebates account first to see if Amazon is offering cash back on books (Ebates always changes the Amazon categories that offer cash back).

If you don't know what I'm talking about (and at the risk of sounding like a commercial for Ebates), Ebates dot com is a site where you sign up for FREE, then when you have to go shop for something (like a toaster at Kohl's, or a book at Amazon or clothes at GAP) you start at Ebates, follow THEIR link to the site you want to shop at and ebates will give you up to 30% cash back. So, for example, if you spend $50 at the Gap and they are offering 12% cash back, they put $6 in your eBates account--CASH. Then a few times a year (I think 4) they send you a check (or send it to your PayPal).

There's no real catch other than an an email a few times a week in your inbox telling you who is offering how much cash back. I SUPPOSE the IDEA behind their company is that the emails they send out will tempt you into shopping and the companies you shop from pay eBates who give you a cut of their commission. But to be honest, whenever I get an email I just DELETE IT and avoid any temptation. But when I know I HAVE TO buy something, I first go to retailmenot dot com, see if there is a coupon code. Then I go to Ebates to link to the store where I am going to buy.

So let's say for example I need to buy $100 worth of stuff at Macy's:

1) First, I go to retailmenot and get (for example) a 20% off code
2) Second I go to my Ebates account and sign in and find the link to Macy's. The cash back might be (for example) 12%.
3) Then, at the Macys site, I buy my $100 worth of stuff, put in my 20% off coupon code and it's discounted to $80. AND THEN Ebates gives me 12% of the $80 I spent as cash back (because I used THEIR LINK to get to Macy's) so I get an additional $9.60 in my Ebates account. When all is said and done, it's like getting 30% off.

Anyway, that's the end of my Ebates commercial LOL. Oh, and just in case they are giving a referral bonus (which they do sometimes) if they ask who referred you, please use my email: ABANKSNYC AT YAHOO DOT COM. It's they least you can do for all my money-saving advice LOL.

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But getting back to LIFE-SAVING ADVICE...don't delay, buy the book. Seriously...you won't believe how EASY the cravings are to deal with (they teach you not to avoid them but to be conscious of them), how QUICKLY they pass, or (and this is the big revelation without me telling you too much) how much of your smoking is just a habit that is tied to other activities (eaating, sitting at your computer, etc.) and not actual cravings. Once you learn to recognize a CRAVING vs. a TRIGGER there will be a GIANT SMILE on your face and you will be DONE!!!

Husband started reading it, but it didn't seem to help at all. He felt light everything was common sense, but said that if he used common sense he wouldn't be smoking in the first place. He gave up on this about 2/3 of the way through.

I wish I could give this book 10 stars. It worked for me. I smoked a lot for a very long time. I followed this book to the letter and it really was easy. That was over three years ago and I haven't smoked since. I think it's a method of self hypnosis? Like it convinces you that quitting will be easy and therefore it's easy. It even gets you to enjoy the withdrawal of the first few days.

This book was recommended to me by another heavy smoker who it worked for. And when I quit, I lived with a roommate who smoked my brand. And it still worked. The key is to just buy in to the premise of the book and it will work.