Open letter to Allen Carr

[fudd 0]

Dear Mr. Carr

Finally I’m free.
It all started with some colleagues at work. We talked about maybe participating in a bicycle race. A 600-km long one, known in Norway as the great test of manhood.
It was clear to me that it would be much easier to get through the race with the lungs of a non-smoker.
So I decided to quit (again) sometime during winter 2004. At new years eve I panicked. The thought of going through the whole process of cutting down on cigarettes one by one until I was ready to quit was unbearable.
The pain I would have to endure. I could not live with the terror of knowing I would have to go through the quitting process. I decided that this was my last night as a smoker.

The first day was easy. A real good hangover from the New Year’s eve party killed most of my desire for a smoke. At least until it was a few hours to bedtime. The next days I was desperate. Even tried to get my girlfriend to break up with me. I didn’t understand why then, but it’s clear to me now. In my desperation I started chatting on some Internet message boards about quitting. Everybody talked about how great Easyway was. Sure I thought, probably as great as the products they sell on TV-shop. Yet another hoax, promising to help you and take your money. Then more and more people talked about the book. About how fantastic it was. I searched the web for negative reviews, and found almost none. Then I got an email from a friend in New Zealand recommending me to read Easyway. Now I had to read it to find out what all the fuss was about. I thought the book was a motivation book. I thought it would give me more reasons to not start smoking again.

I started reading, and while I was reading it I had to fight the tears. Suddenly I started realizing why I smoked. I didn’t want to believe it. The truth was awful. I understood that I was brainwashed. That the nicotine was the drug that had done it to me. I could not imagine that it really could be that powerful. Surely it could be addictive, but no way could it mess with my free mind!
I hate what it did to me. I had been living in a prison without knowing it. I was free. Almost like Neo in The Matrix.
In ‘The Hitch Hikers Guide To the Galaxy’ Douglas Adams writes about a girl sitting in a cafe in London suddenly realizing why there is so much pain and misery in the world. She got the answer. She just needs to say it to the entire world, and everybody will be happy. All wars would stop. All violence would be gone…(Twelve seconds later the earth gets demolished by a Vogon fleet to make way for a intergalactic bypass, but that’s another story.)
I felt like I had this kind of a revelation. Hopefully the world wont come to an end.

Anyway….
I write this email to thank you, and to give you some feedback. The book worked for me, but I disagreed with some points, and I have broken one of your rules. I gave it away. I know I will never need to read it ever again. I know that.

Again and again in the book you tell about how cigarettes are discusting and that they can kill you. Each time it annoyed me a little bit more. I knew that, and you knew that it didn’t matter do me. Why bring it up again and again?
At about page 115 you tell the reader if he doesn’t smoke now to light up a cigarette and really notice how bad it taste. I almost stopped reading. No way am I putting nicotine in my body ever again. Not even if you tell me to. Do not tempt me. Why do you speak to the big nicotine monster in my head?
Actually I’ve never thought that cigarettes has tasted bad. It can give you a bad taste in the mouth after one, but I never actually thought it tasted bad. Didn’t think that the first time either.
Either way it does not matter. They can make cigarettes that taste like chocolate and smell like roses. I do not want it.

One aspect of smoking you don’t deal with in your book is smoking as an image. I had made smoking as a part of who I were. Being a smoker was part of my identity. Giving it up meant losing a part of whom I were.
I think you should cover a bit about how the nicotine monster not only sits in your stomach, but also infects your personality.

I was never afraid of dying from smoking. It never seemed like a stupid thing to do just because I could die from it. In my spare time I like to fall out of airplanes. It can kill me, but nothing makes me feel more alive. Nothing makes me feel freer.

I thought smoking made me free. I thought I was independent because everybody said to me I should stop, but I decided not to. It was a shock to find out I didn’t decide. It was a shock finding out that nicotine had taken my free will from me. It’s immensely great to have it back. It’s such a relieve to know I wont go through the rest of my life wanting a cigarette, but rather being happy not needing one.

Thank you for giving me my life back.
Thank you for my free will.

Sincerely

Lars Christian Nygård

There are only 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

[Tonto 1]

Gerb!

WAKE UP!

That Nicotine monster has been at your keyboard!

Nah. Really dude, best of luck kicking the habit. I'm so glad I never started. So many of my friends started when we were in the military. Hurry up. Wait. Smoke break. What the hell else do you do in a smoke break?

Hope you kick it this time.

t

It's the year of the Pig.

[fudd 0]

by the way Tonto....you were right. It's just to not do it.

There are only 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

[Plummets 0]

Went on the Allen Carr course (about 5 hours long) oh about 18 months ago.... Absolutely no problem whatsoever, recommended many friends to go, the ones that do go all stop smoking. The ones that won't go are to scared to as they know they will "give up" [although as you know there is nothing to give up].

The course is fantastic, you can even smoke during it !! I took 20 Benson & Hedges with me and ran out, which was fine as the lecturer gave me another 10 to get by.

If anyone wants to stop, go on the course you will. There are a dozen or so plces in the UK that do it. Cost's about £170 money back if you fail !

"Life is a bowl of deadly nightshade, stay way way out on the rim brother"