Review of 'The Easy Way to Stop Smoking' by Allen Carr (ENG)

If you ask me what my favorite book of all time is, the one that changed my life, I will definitely say Allen Carr's "Easy Way to Stop Smoking." I was thinking about how I’d spend my one-year anniversary without cigarettes, and I decided that I would take my time to write a book review and share my thoughts and experiences from the past year and before that.

So, yes, it's been one year without cigarettes. I started smoking at the age of 14 (I'm now 31), and this marks my personal record, with the previous record being 8 months not too long ago. Every now and then, I've attempted to quit. Of course, we've all heard Mark Twain's quote, "Giving up smoking is easy. I've done it hundreds of times," or "Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times." The same goes for me. Over the last 5 years, I've fought smoking vigorously, but it always came back.

I recall reading "Easy Way to Stop Smoking" for the first time. A friend of mine recommended it, and naturally, I was skeptical. It seemed like brainwashing. Now I see all my smoker friends and family doing the same things I did back then – looking at this book with a sarcastic smile and thinking, "It could never happen" or "I can stop whenever I want" or "I like to smoke, and when I don’t like it anymore, I'll stop." I was lying to myself so hard.

So, I borrowed the book from that friend. She said, "You have to try it; it's incredible," and I responded, "Yeah, yeah, give it to me." I quit smoking after reading the first hundred pages. It felt like a miracle. Of course, I managed not to smoke for a couple of months, three at best. However, I now knew how food really tasted and how the air smelled. I understood that I had to continue the fight. I remembered life without cigarettes, and it was amazing.

But, as I mentioned, because I didn't follow some of the rules in the book and due to boredom, I started smoking again, losing one battle after another. It's incredibly frustrating to talk as if you’ve quit, only to return to being a smoker a week later – smelling like a rat's ass, an addict. A couple more failed attempts to quit occurred, and I gave up on quitting.

During a vacation last summer, we visited a bookstore in Varna, Bulgaria. I decided to buy the book as a birthday present for my partner. I bought the book, but several months passed before I resumed reading it. Once again, I didn't follow one of the author's recommendations. I stopped smoking before I finished the entire book. I believe the author advises the reader to continue smoking until the end, to become disgusted with the habit, to overdo it, but each time, I quit before the end. 

Now I don’t smoke, and something tells me that this time it's for good. I remember becoming disgusted with cigarettes again quite quickly and overcoming the fear of giving them up. Every time, I thought that quitting smoking would be painful and a form of punishment, a tough journey. I was lying to myself. Going without smoking is actually the reward; you feel better and stronger every day you don’t inhale smoke into your lungs.

Leaving nicotine behind is like emerging from a dark cave; you can finally enjoy everything along the way. I am not exaggerating when I say that giving up smoking transformed my life in such a positive manner. Now, I ran 21.1km in 2 hours; I am stronger, I sleep better, my motivation is growing, I smell good, my skin is amazing, my teeth are clean, and I no longer have to endure the cold to have a smoke. I am much calmer than a year ago, more rational. Everything tastes better, coffee smells and tastes strong, even alcohol tastes better (but that’s another subject we will explore together soon).

I can’t help but think of my friend who gave me the book back then and how grateful I am. Sometimes I wish my friends could recognize what I am doing by recommending this read. Even my mother, to whom I gave this book as a gift months ago, always finds an excuse, much like my friends, not to read it. Of course, many smokers will have problems with the book when they need to justify this horrible habit that is literally killing them. I've even heard friends trying to explain what he does in the book with the same sarcastic smile, totally missing the point. They were not smokers, but they might be now because they can't find a way out of it, and they are deceiving themselves. They are addicts.

But whenever I feel scared that I might revert and lose this privilege of breathing fresh air, I take a deep breath of it, just as I used to when I smoked cigarettes, but this time without the negative aspects. I open this book and revisit parts of it. In the past year, I read the book twice, and in the next couple of days, I'll go through it again. Allen Carr transformed my life. This book did it for me. I can't emphasize enough how significant this book is. The success rate is not 100%. My partner, the one I bought the book for, couldn't quit. Now I am encouraging him to try again, even though he read the book, he is still apprehensive about letting go of this terrible habit. Maybe it's not for everyone, but why would you choose to smoke when there is an option to quit?

Iliya Badev