The Easy Way for Women to Stop Smoking

I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It is easy reading with a lot of information about smoking that I had heard before but much of which I had not. Dr. Carr really pinpoints the addiction to nicotine and how we have been socialized to think that smoking cures or assist us with our woes or stresses, when in reality it is the addiction to nicotine that keeps us down. I was able to quit and stop smoking for three weeks. However without thinking I picked up a cigarette and started the habit yet again. One cigarette led to another. I could not smoke one as the "monster" needed at least 2 and 4 a day became my habit. If you have not read the book you may think, "Oh you just smoke 4 cigarettes a day, that is great! Well according to Dr. Carr and my body it is not great as I am still addicted. I am now considering buying another book to assist me with gaining the control I need in my life. In summation The Easy Way for Women to Stop Smoking was an easy read and lead to a 3 week absence from nicotine. A good three weeks I might add! Dr. Carr has lead me to know that cigarettes do not assist me. I now want to try everything I can to finally be able to say I do not want or need cigarettes in my life. That is a big step, thus I give the book 5 stars!

I am now a NON-SMOKER. Might I add a HAPPY NON-SMOKER. I have smoked for 30 years and tried numerous times to quit and failed every time. Not this time and I knew when I quit it would be for good. This works and only cost about 2 packs of cigarettes. What are you waiting for? If it doesn't work you are only out the cost of the book. I can even be around people who smoke and no problems, no cravings, just happy. A few stars have even quit by reading this book. If you are reading this and a smoker you want to change so don't wait another minute. Note: I bought this for me and the regular Easy Way to quit smoking for my husband so this review will be posted for both books because I read them both. UPDATE 11/26/2013 I am still a non smoker and very happy. I did have a bad week awhile back but I just re-read a few quick points in book to remember the happy feeling I had when I first quit and I got over it. My husband saw how easy it was for me to quit smoking and finally read the regular book (actually listened to it on audio cd's) and quit smoking also. He smoked for more than 40 years (please note I did not nag or beg him to quit or to read the book - he saw how happy I was and wanted the same thing). This does work! I would love to work for this company - I believe in it that much. Update 9/27/2016: Still a happy non smoker. I try to tell everyone I see that smokes about this book. My husband is also still a non smoker. Cigarette smoke stinks!!!

This is a wonderful book. I was not able to stop smoking using only this book, however. One of the problems I encountered was that when I quit, I felt out of step and insecure. So my "quit" only lasted a half day. Allen Carr does not go into detail on handling the insecure feeling. However, I read the book again, bought a CD by Bob Griswold on quitting which you can listen to while you drive and got a prescription for Chantix from my MD. The CD was very important because Griswold actually tells you what to do when you get the insecure feeling which comes when you are quitting an addiction to nicotine. The Chantix makes it easier to get through cravings. And Griswold is right - the cravings don't last more than 15 minutes and after a while, you don't have them at all.

Edit: Just wanted to update, I've now been smoke-free for almost nine years. Thank you, Alan Carr! I couldn't have done it without you. I was really addicted to cigarettes. A 20 year habit, and even though I'd desperately wanted to quit for years, each attempt ended in failure. The most I'd managed was just a few months, and that was during my first pregnancy. Three weeks after my daughter was born, I was back at it again. My subsequent pregnancies I tried to quit, but never made it more than a few days. My husband is a vehement non-smoker, and I was desperately ashamed of my habit, and yet the urge was just too strong. Now in my late 30's, I knew I had to do something. If not for myself, then for my young children. My oldest really wanted me to quit. There was many a time I lectured her about not smoking, with a cigarette between my own fingers, using myself as an example of what not to do and explaining to her all the ways it had made, and was making, my life so much less than it could have been. My two youngest were starting to ask me questions that made me so guilty and uncomfortable, like "Mommy what's that?" and, "Can I put that in my mouth too?" And for our entire married life, I cringed everytime my husband kissed me because I knew he was totally repulsed by the lingering cigarette odor. So finally I decided this was it. Sure, I'd decided that before, but this time I was more desperate than ever. I went to my doctor and got a prescription for Welbutrin. I knew from an earlier attempt that it did help. You're supposed to take the Welbutrin for two weeks before you quit. I used those two weeks to read Alan Carr's book. (Thank you, Amazon, for making these reviews available. I never would have bought this book had I not read so many great testimonials about it.) What else can I say? The light bulb went on in my head in a major way! The only way to stop going through nicotine withdrawl was to quit smoking! Shocking, but true. Otherwise, my whole life was tied up in daily small battles with the "nicodemon": at the movies, out with my husband, in church, at family gatherings . . . the only way to be free of the torture of cigarettes was to give them up once and for all, and to realize that they were not helping me to relax, they were in effect keeping me at some level of tension every moment I didn't atively have one in my mouth! This is my analogy, but it is exactly what Alan Carr explains. Smoking is like having a bad case of poison ivy. When you scratch it, it feels better for a minute, but in the long run you're only helping the poison ivy to spread. The only way to stop itching is to get rid of the poison ivy! And as long as you continue to scratch you will *never* get rid of the poison ivy! You've got to resist the urge to scratch and allow your body to heal. Then you can finally be free once and for all. Once I really assimilated and believed that, along with many other equally startling revelations Mr. Carr explained, I ended up quitting before I had planned, and have remained smoke free for over 6 months. I am no longer a hypocrite or setting a bad example for my children, or blowing off questions I can't answer. And my husband is more than happy to kiss me now! ;-) Sure there are still times I want a cigarette, but thanks to reading Mr. Carr's book I can honestly say that I know I am happier and better off smoke-free than I ever was having even the most satisfying cigarette dangling out of my mouth. To bring back the poison ivy analogy: Remembering with fondness and longing how great that cigarette after dinner tasted is like remembering with fondness how good it felt to scratch that really itchy poison ivy! Sure it brought relief, but who in their right mind would want the torture of poison ivy just to experience the relief of scratching it? In order to truly enjoy a cigarette like you did when you were a non-smoker, you have to first get yourself re-addicted to nicotine. Otherwise, smoking is like scratching yourself when you're not itchy. Sure, maybe you could get some small (very small) pleasure from it, but at the risk--no--near *certainty*-- of your poison ivy coming back? No thank you! I truly don't think I would have gotten to this point if it hadn't been for Allen Carr's Easy Way for Women to Stop Smoking.

I did not read the Amazon version, I read the other book - the original "Easyway". However I did buy this one, the Kindle version, from Amazon, but after reading the other one in Romanian, my mother tongue, I felt I didn't even need this one as well. This is just my little tribute to Allen Carr... I bought the other one five years ago in Romania, right after I met my husband - he is a non-smoker so he asked me to quit. I carried it with me when I moved to the States. I read about 20 pages and forgot about it: I didn't really want to quit smoking, my wonderful husband loved me in spite of my addiction, so I put the book away, I buried it somewhere in my growing personal library (I'm an avid reader with an M.A. in literature, so I always buy books). Last November-December we decided to start trying for a baby. And I knew I couldn't do that if I continued smoking. I realized for the first time that I needed to quit smoking, that I needed to make a change, but then every time I smoked I felt terribly insecure and unsure about my decision. I must admit, I didn't really want to quit smoking. I thought I will never be able to do it, I want a baby, but I loved smoking so much and I felt I was such a weak person, I was about to read this book just to prove myself that I tried something else and it just didn't work. I even bought myself a huge supply of Njoy electronic cigarettes and I was about to smoke those even though I didn't like them just because I always needed my fix. And almost all the way through the book I had doubts, I kept smoking, and I had the feeling my life still depended on that awful cigarette. That until I got to the last part when he asks you to smoke one more time and describes everything you feel when you smoke. His description was so similar with everything I felt while smoking that cigarette, I realized all of a sudden that I must have been fooling myself my entire smoking life! I didn't like smoking, I was just another addict, and I needed to do something about that. So I went to my laptop and I wrote down the reasons I wanted to quit smoking and Carr's rules when quitting. And all of a sudden everything just made sense to me! I didn't want to smoke anymore! I still had a few pages left to read, I still had my "last cig" to smoke, but I decided I didn't need one, I didn't need any ritual to quit smoking, I gave all my Njoys to my husband and told him to throw them away, I didn't need to continue my addiction, with every minute that passed I was one step away from the cigarettes! It's been a month since that moment. I'm smoke free and I don't have any more cravings. I actually barely had any cravings except for like the first 3 days and then I would just take a deep breath like Carr recommends at some point and the cravings were gone. I started walking and exercising... walking helped me a lot in the first week, but after that week I just realized how much I just loved walking so I continued up to this day. Plus walking helps me feel less hungry. I lost 10 pounds since I quit because I did not use any substitutes, chocolate, or anything of that sort. I know I will never go back to smoking. I recommended the book to all my smoking students, and next week I am going to send my Romanian version back to Romania... my mother wants to quit smoking too now that she heard my story - she has been smoking for almost 30 years. I just know Carr's book CAN and WILL make her quit too. After that the book will probably go to someone else and the chain will continue. Thank you Allen Carr, rest in peace! Update: It's been almost 6 months and I am still nicotine free. I reached my ideal weight after losing 30 pounds in spite of the fact that I quit. I am an entirely new person, so much happier than before! I look younger, slimmer, I spent my winter without shivering near the corner of the office where I work trying to puff my life away, I didn't get any colds. I can't even believe that I used to be a smoker! Again, I recommend this book to everyone, it will set you free! Update 2, 12/28/2014. It's been more than two years since I quit smoking. I have now a wonderful 5 month healthy baby, a beautiful family, and I feel great. Yesterday near the entrance of a store I saw a mother holding her toddler with one hand and holding her cigarette with the other, and I tried to go pass her as fast as I could so that my baby in the stroller would not smell the cigarette smoke. Then I realized that mother could have been me. Thanks to Allen Carr I am not one of those mothers poisoning their bodies and their babies' bodies. So please read this book and stop smoking.

I read it and it didn't stop me from smoking but it does appeal to your common sense and make you think. I did quit smoking eventually and I can credit some of it to this book and the common sense way they explain it. I would recommend smokers reading the book because it gives you a lot of common sense ways to think about why you smoke and the way it changes your attitude about smoking. .

Okay let me start by saying...I had smoked for a long time (started at about 16-17 and continued off and on till I was about 40) The problem was smoking had given me asthma, drained my pocketbook, and even though I could quit for a while...with my husband and friends still smoking...all it would take was a night out and a couple of drinks and I was "dying" for a smoke. When MICHIGAN again raised prices to about $7 a pack and the whole state in a recession (pay cuts) I decided us spending $100/wk for smokes was not only crazy it was not going to work financially anymore. So with fear and trepidation I told my husband I was quitting and I expected him to quit too...(Every time we had quit we were at each others throats as we went through withdrawl) I was not looking forward to this at all! My girlfriend gave me the easy way to stop smoking to read...I had already quit for about 4 weeks and was using the patch during that time...But a funny thing happened while reading the book...it was a light switch moment in terms of being able to see clearly for the first time w/ regards to what smoking really was. I had resolved myself to the fact that I would quit, because of cost even though my health had suffered(asthma) but I knew that that would mean I would pine for cigarrettes the rest of my life and decided that was to be looked at as a penance for being so stupid as to start in the first place. But here is the great thing...I finished that book and as I closed it I knew...I mean KNEW I was and would be forevermore a NONSMOKER...the desire was gone...I stopped the patches early and have never even had a twinge of longing for a cigarrette!! Keep in mind, I quit and started again and again and again and the only difference is this book...I actually have got to the point that I forget routinely that I was EVER a smoker. What a gift...I have recommended this book to dozens of people and I know that probably half have taken it up and since quit the smokes for good!! It is a VERY easy read...to the point where I was getting a bit annoyed with the repetition of some of the ideas..."I get it, you've said this 4 times now in different chapters!" But I've come to realize that the repetition is necessary to get into your psyche...like studying and reading the same stuff over and over helps w/ retension...this is no different. If you want to quit, are thinking of quitting, or know someone who is...buy this book...I loaned out my original (never to see it again)purchased and sent out 2 more and bought another just to keep as a security blanket on my shelf in case I ever get the urge to smoke again. This particular book I'm reviewing I sent off to my mother (hence the Easy way for "women"...but I quit smoking reading the original) It's been about 4 yrs now since I quit?? I don't keep track...the past is in the past right? Good luck to you all and in the big picture if you try this and it doesn't work for you...the book costs less than a pack of smokes, right?

Unbelievable. I was a skeptical, heavy smoker for more than 20 years, and I've been quit now for more than two months. I tried and did not quit with many other methods. Allen's way WAS EASY. I swear. I've NEVER written a book review before, but felt compelled to share with others. In fact, I've even bought four other copies for friends. I had no withdrawals, no regrets and no cravings. I kept the ideas he said to keep in mind, and like magic, I quit and loved every moment of it. He tought me how to be and think like a non-smoker again (as we all are born). It does feel more natural. The key? Knowing, feeling and believing (which I found out was true) that being and feeling like a non-smoker, is waaaaaaaaaaay better than how I 'though' smoking made me feel (good). I can't explain any more than that, but it did change my thinking dramatically. He takes the way we all as smokers 'think' about ourselves and our smoking, and turns quitting into a positive. Not the negative that most smokers who want to quit, think of it as. By the time you're half way through the book, you are joyful at the excitement you have at how great you're going to feel when you quit. And it just continues! AND I DO FEEL GREAT. HE HELPS YOU TO THINK DIFFERENTLY ABOUT QUITTING AND TAKES AWAY THE FEAR. Go ahead, buy it. You will be elated that you did!