The grea nicot delus

Set yourself free from smoking this Stoptober with the help of Allen Carr’s bestselling guide to ditching the addiction

Allen Carr was a chainsmoker for more than 30 years. In 1983, after countless failed attempts to quit, he went from up to 100 cigarettes a day to zero without suffering withdrawal pangs, without using willpower and without putting on weight.

He realised he had discovered what the world had been waiting for – the easy way to stop smoking – and in 1985 published Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking, which has sold over 14 million copies and been translated into more than 40 different languages.

Nicotine addiction has developed at an alarming pace in the past 35 years so now Allen’s bestseller has been updated to help people quit all nicotine products – including vapes and e-cigarettes.

INTRODUCTION TO NICOTINE

When you smoke a cigarette, you inhale a drug called nicotine. You could replace the word drug with poison.

In its pure form, nicotine is a colourless, oily compound that is lethal to humans even in relatively small doses. It is the fastest acting addictive drug known to humankind.

Each puff on a cigarette delivers a dose of it to the brain, via the lungs, within just seven seconds – that’s faster than a dose of heroin injected directly into the bloodstream.

Nicotine is quick to enter the system, but it is also quick to leave it. As soon as you stub out a cigarette, the nicotine level rapidly subsides and the drug begins to withdraw from your body.

The amount in your bloodstream falls to roughly half after 30 minutes and to about a quarter after an hour. This explains why the standard pack contains 20 cigarettes and most smokers average a pack a day. After one hour, the withdrawal triggers the need for another cigarette. If you’re puffing your way through three or four packs a day, don’t worry. It doesn’t mean you’re more addicted, and it doesn’t mean you’ll find it harder to quit.

Most smokers worry about having terrible pangs and cravings if they try to stop, but the physical symptoms of nicotine withdrawal are so slight as to be almost imperceptible.

While it’s true that nicotine is an addictive drug that hooks you very quickly – just one cigarette is enough – luckily, it’s just as easy to get unhooked. That’s because nicotine leaves your system very quickly. Within eight hours of stubbing out a cigarette, you are 97 per cent nicotine-free, and within three days, you’re totally nicotine-free.

Why, then, do smokers find it so hard to quit? And why do smokers who have not smoked for months

SOLUTIONS Allen Carr