INTRODUCTION

How on earth do you follow up the best-selling quit smoking book of all time? The short answer is ‘with great care’. The rather longer answer is that you apply everything that has been learned and developed over the past 35 years in treating an estimated 30 million smokers in the USA and worldwide – that‘s 30 million smokers set free – and although you might find it hard to believe at the moment, you’re all set to make it 30,000,001.

You have in your hands the most up-to-date, cutting-edge, best-practice version of Allen Carr’s Easyway to Stop Smoking method. This will not only set you free from smoking, vaping/JUULing, chewing tobacco, ‘dip’, ‘snus’ and any other nicotine product but will also ensure that you find it easy and even enjoyable. Allen Carr’s original claim to that effect when he first published The Easy Way to Stop Smoking was met with extreme scepticism, but this special update of the method benefits from the extraordinary track record described in my opening paragraph.

But quitting smoking or vaping is not something that just happens overnight, right? Some people take months or even years and still don’t seem to be completely rid of their desire to smoke or vape. When I was a chain-smoker my attitude was, ‘Sure, quitting would be nice, but I don’t have the time right now and since I’ve tried every quit-smoking method under the sun without any success at all, what’s the point in even trying?’

I led a busy life, I had a successful career, and dealing with the pressures those bring, I felt that cigarettes kept me going as a kind of stimulant, that they were a tool which alleviated stress, helped me to relax, helped me to concentrate and acted as a treat or reward that punctuated my day (as a chain-smoker that was pretty much every 10 minutes!). I was completely convinced that, in spite of the obvious disadvantages of smoking, I was incapable of living my life without them. Like many smokers who consider themselves ‘hopeless cases’, I’d settled for what I considered to be a short happy life as a smoker rather than what I considered to be a longer miserable life as a non-smoker. My view was, ‘Even if I did manage to quit – what’s the point? Who wants to be miserable for the rest of their life?’

I was very fortunate that somebody did eventually hold the truth up for me to see. Twenty or so years ago, I attended Allen Carr’s original centre in London, England. I was almost defiant in my disbelief that he might be able to help me quit my 80-a-day smoking addiction. I actually attended under duress. I had agreed to go, at the request of my wife, on the understanding that when I walked out of the seminar still a confirmed smoker she would wait at least 12 months before nagging me about quitting again. No one was more surprised or delighted than I (or perhaps my wife) that Allen Carr’s Easyway method set me free.

If I had been more open-minded, I wouldn’t have been surprised at all. By the time I went along, Allen had already helped millions to quit through his seminars and books. The evidence was plain to see, but being a chain-smoker whose entire existence revolved around ‘the next smoke’, I couldn’t see it. I was easily the most hopeless nicotine addict I knew. In hindsight, I can say that part of me didn’t want to see it. It took my own personal life-changing experience to convince me.

For a third of a century, Allen had also chain-smoked 60 to 100 cigarettes a day. With the exception of acupuncture, he’d tried all the conventional and unconventional methods to quit without success. Eventually, like me, he gave up even trying to quit, believing: ‘Once a smoker, always a smoker.’ Then he discovered something that motivated him to try again.

As he described it, ‘I went overnight from 100 cigarettes a day to zero – without any bad temper or sense of loss, void or depression. On the contrary, I actually enjoyed the process. I knew I was already a non-smoker even before I had extinguished my final cigarette and I’ve never had the slightest urge to smoke since.’

It was a revelation to Allen, who immediately realized that he had discovered a method of quitting that would enable any smoker to quit:

Easily, immediately and painlessly

Without using willpower, aids, substitutes or gimmicks

Without suffering anxiety, depression or withdrawal symptoms

Without gaining weight

After using his smoking friends and relatives as guinea pigs, he gave up his profession as a qualified accountant and set up a centre to help other smokers to quit. He called his method EASYWAY, and so successful has it been that there are now Allen Carr’s Easyway centres in more than 150 cities in 50 countries worldwide. Bestselling books based on his method are now translated into more than 40 languages, with more being added each year.

It quickly became clear to Allen that his method could be applied to many other problems. The method has now helped tens of millions of people to quit smoking, stop drinking alcohol, stop taking cocaine and other illicit drugs, and to deal with sugar addiction, overeating and fear of flying, as well as gambling, overspending and digital/tech/social media addiction.

I was so inspired by Allen and what I saw as his miraculous method that I hassled and harangued him and Robin Hayley (now chairman of Allen Carr’s Easyway) to let me get involved in their quest to cure the world of smoking. Thankfully, I succeeded in convincing them. Being trained by Allen and Robin was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. To be able to count Allen as not only my coach and mentor but also as my friend was an amazing privilege.

Over the past 20 years, I have personally treated more than 30,000 smokers at Allen’s original centre in London as well as smokers throughout the USA and in every corner of the globe. It’s been my honour to lead the team that has taken his method from New York to Mexico City, from Los Angeles to Moscow, from Milwaukee to Singapore, to Sydney and to Santiago and beyond.

Tasked by Allen with making sure that his legacy achieves its full potential, we’ve taken Allen Carr’s Easyway from videos to DVD, from live seminars to apps, from computer games to audio books, to Online Video Programmes, alway pushing the boundaries to ensure that the method exists in new digital formats as they evolve.

Behind this phenomenal success lies one simple truth – a truth that Allen discovered by chance and passed on to tens of millions of people like me. What connects us all is that none of us expected to be changed in the way that we were. We were all sceptical, all harbouring the same illusions. There is a vast army of smokers and vapers out there still suffering their own private nightmare, believing that they enjoy smoking or vaping, that it provides them with some kind of benefit and that, furthermore, it’s hard or even impossible to quit.

The truth about smoking, vaping or any form of nicotine addiction is kept hidden from most smokers and addicts, and even from many ex-smokers. That’s why some who quit using only their willpower continue to crave cigarettes long after they stub out their final one. They believe they are making a sacrifice, and are doing without something that provides them with pleasure or support, believing that it helps them to control their weight, to relax, to socialize and to handle stress. Understanding the simple truth and recognizing how it applies to you is the key to escaping the nicotine trap and staying free permanently. But it takes a special method to do that.

ALLEN CARR’S EASYWAY IS THE METHOD THAT WORKS

This book, like all Easyway books, will help you to see the simple truth. It is designed to help busy people who smoke who are already coping with the demands of 21st-century life, and who appreciate clear no-nonsense guidance. It doesn’t rely on guilt, bullying, fear or scare tactics; as you will learn, all those techniques actually make it harder to quit. Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Quit Smoking gives you a structured, easy-to-follow method for quitting quickly, painlessly and permanently.

If you’re someone who vapes/JUULs, uses heat-not-burn products or buys traditional chewing tobacco, ‘snus’, ‘dip’ or any other nicotine product I’ve alluded to already, this book will work for you.

For the most part, in the interests of the flow of text, this book will refer to smoking, so vapers, JUULers, dippers and snusers shouldn’t be put off by the constant references to cigarettes and smoking – virtually every aspect can be related to the use of all nicotine products.

All you need to do is carry on smoking or using nicotine as normal while you read this book. The beauty of Allen Carr’s Easyway is that you don’t quit until you’re absolutely ready to smoke your final cigarette, JUUL, etc.

The responsibility for making sure that our books are faithful to Allen Carr’s original method is mine. It’s been suggested that I describe myself as the author of the books we’ve published since Allen passed away. In my view that would be quite wrong. That’s because every new book is written strictly in accordance with Allen Carr’s brilliant Easyway method. In our new books, we have merely updated and amended the format to bring it up to date and make it relevant for all those who wish to free themselves from addiction today. For example, we now need to provide guidance regarding the use of e-cigarettes, JUUL or the ingesting of nicotine in any form other than by cigarette, cigar or pipe. Nicotine addiction has developed at an alarming pace in the past 35 years.

We also need to cover issues that perhaps weren’t quite as prominent or as well understood when Allen wrote the original book.

Issues such as:

• self-harm

• the impact of smoking on metabolic rate

• how nicotine addiction causes depression and anxiety

• the connection between smoking and weed/grass

• the impact of social media, gaming and streaming channels

are all handled for the first time in this 21st-century version of the method.

Furthermore, issues such as:

• appetite and weight gain

• stress

• habitual smoking/nicotine addiction

• the continued influence of TV and films

are all handled in a more contemporary context as well as in more depth and detail than in the original book.

Essentially the method is as pure, as bright, as adaptable and as effective as it’s ever been, allowing us to apply it to a whole host of addictions and issues aside from smoking. Whether it’s alcohol or sugar addiction, gambling or junk spending, fear of flying, mindfulness, digital/social media addiction or even ‘hard drugs’, the method guides those who need help in a simple, relatable, plain-speaking way.

There’s not a word in our books that Allen didn’t write or wouldn’t have written if he were still with us today. For that reason the updates, anecdotes and analogies that are not his own work – that were contemporized or added by me – are written clearly in Allen’s voice to seamlessly complement the original text and method.

I consider myself privileged to have worked intimately with Allen on Easyway books while he was alive, gaining insight into how the method could be applied to every conceivable addiction or issue.

Together, we explored and mapped out the future evolution of the method. I was more than happy to have the responsibility for continuing this vital mission placed on my shoulders by Allen himself. It’s a responsibility I accepted with humility and one I take extremely seriously.

In truth, I didn’t know anything about addiction before I had the good fortune to meet Allen Carr. Not only did he free me from an addiction that would otherwise have killed me a long time ago, but he taught me everything I know about curing addiction: how it works, and how the Easyway method can tackle it, enabling anyone to quit smoking and quit nicotine easily, painlessly and without the need for willpower.

Having worked on Allen’s books for nearly 20 years, I still take pleasure in deflecting all the praise and acclaim straight back to the great man himself: it’s all down to Allen Carr.

I know from happy experience that the benefits of following this method can be life-changing. And now let me pass you into the safest of hands – Allen Carr and his ‘Easyway’.

John Dicey

Global CEO and Senior Therapist, Allen Carr’s Easyway

Co-author Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Quit Smoking