It really is easy!!
I smoked for 30 years. I long ago accepted the fact that I'll never be able to quit. After reading this book, I'M A NON-SMOKER!! I never would have believed it. I wish I would have found this book years ago. I strongly recommend this book. The worst that can happen is you're no worse off than when you bought it. All this book does is destroy all the myths and in the process show us how EASY it is to quit once we know the truth. You owe it to yourself or someone you love to buy this book. It's the best investment of my life!!
It works....
I used this book and the regular one. They are both good the other one was what I preferred it was a more updated version. I quit and am now so happy I have not gained one pound, that was my greatest fear. I was however active prior to quitting. I am now running and breathing so much better. The book works if you want it to work. You have to want to be a non-smoker more than a smoker.
FINALLY
With the help of this book, I was able to stop smoking after 28 years. Other reviewers can scientifically pick this book apart all they want...........but the fact that it actually works is what matters. Especially to longtime smokers like myself who are desperate to quit! I had failed 3 times over the last 3 years and gained about 40lbs. This time, I quit and there was NO weight gain. For me it was literally a miracle.
What do you have to loose? Buy the book.
and it's just that easy, really
I am 28 years old and recently married. I had been talking to relatives and friends about wanting to get pregnant for over a year. I knew I would have to give up my (12 year) smoking habit to have a healthy pregnancy. I really had never tried to or wanted to quit before. I thought I really loved smoking, but now I was going to have to find a way for this baby. So, I tried to quit once in December and lasted all of about 7 hours and then in January I tried again but I couldn't go more than a few hours. It seemed impossible. I really felt bad when family asked how the 'quitting' was going and I only could say it wasn't. It seemed to pronounce the fact that I was up *****s creek w/ no paddle. So I figured I was going to have to try Chantix or something. But I didnt really feel like thinking about it anymore. Out of the blue on a random Friday -at the end of January, I got a mailing envelope from my cousin Jenny. (shes 3 years older than me. she had actually given me my first cigarette, oddly enough. she was never a real smoker though, and that was 12 years prior when we were kids) Anyways, so I read the back cover, and got really excited. I had never heard of this before, and I don't like to read, but I got excited to read it.
So I started reading the book- Friday Jan. 30th. I read it for about 2 or 3 hours that night. Our mother in law was visiting and I excused myself but "I was trying to quit" with this new found method. I chained smoked the whole way through the book. Saturday night again I was excited to read more, and got closer to the end. By Monday night I knew I would reach completion and was really really excited about it. By Monday I was sure that this was going to work. This book was not like any thing I have ever experienced. Anyways, so yes, about 11:30pm Monday night, I forced my husband outside with me for my quitting ceremony, and that was it.
It truly worked, just like it said. I followed what he said, kept an open mind, and freedom from smoking has been mine since Feb 1st 2010. I have recommended it to everyone that asks how I quit. Its the EASIEST and BEST thing YOU could ever do for yourself. I smoked heavily for 12 years, and if it was that easy for me - surely it can be just as easy for you- why wouldn't it be?
easier said than done
The Easy Way for Women to Stop Smoking: A Revolutionary Approach Using Allen Carr's Easyway Method was published almost simultaneously with my own book, Life After Cigarettes: Why Women Smoke and How to Quit, Look Great, and Manage Your Weight. Because Life After Cigarettes is not prescriptive but rather encourages women to find stop-smoking and weight-management strategies that fill their own needs and preferences, I was hopeful that this book could serve as a useful companion piece to Life After Cigarettes.
And quite possibly it can. Certainly the personal testimonials and celebrity endorsements the program has garnered suggest that many have happily succeeded using this method. That said, it must be added that the easyway approach does not play well with others. Indeed, an alternative phrase it adopts is "The Only Way." Unsuccessful quitters are dismissed as having failed to understand or correctly apply easyway principles. Medications like nicotine replacement products, Zyban, and Chantix, which have repeatedly been shown to double quit rates in highly dependent smokers, are off limits to easyway quitters.
A little background: This book is a reissue of a book originally published in 1985, updated by an easyway therapist (Francesca Cesati) and purporting to focus on issues of particular concern to women, especially weight. (I say "purporting" because it actually includes surprisingly little specific information on managing weight, instead simply rejecting the weight-suppressing effects of smoking as "myth.") It is what might be called a guru-based (rather than research-based) program, representing the vision of Allen Carr, who was able to quit using a method he developed on his own after many years as a 100-cigarettes/day smoker. Like most stop-smoking gurus, he became an enthusiastic proponent of his own method. Unlike most, he was also an astute businessman who devoted the remainder of his career to developing clinics and books for treating smoking (and subsequently other addictions, weight loss, and even worrying) widely marketed for use by individuals and in corporate settings around the world. Sadly, he died of lung cancer in 2006, but his clinics and books continue to propagate his message and his program.
I don't for an instant doubt the sincerity of the easyway people. I also don't doubt that the easyway approach has helped many smokers who might otherwise have been unable to quit, and that is all to the good. It is full of testimonials that will ring true for many, many smokers and includes bon mots that some will find comforting (e.g., "Remember: you've only stopped smoking, not living!"). I do, however, have two serious reservations:
1) The success claims do not meet the usual scientific standards for evaluating smoking intervention outcomes. As is typical of self-help books, The Easy Way has received five-star reviews from smokers who succeeded in quitting using its principles (and as noted above, there are many) and one or two stars from those who didn't. Although these reviews, especially those that provide enough detail to allow determination of how relevant they are to the reader's own situation, can be very helpful, they are no substitute for trials with well-defined outcome measures in which would-be quitters are randomly assigned to either the easyway method or a control condition, abstinence is biologically verified (by measures of a nicotine metabolite or expired carbon monoxide), and findings are peer-reviewed prior to publication. These studies have not been done, but less rigorous attempts by independent observers to evaluate easyway outcomes do not support the superiority of the method over alternative methods.
2) A number of the premises on which it rests are factually just plain wrong. The title alone includes two - first, that it is easy for most smokers to quit, and second, that it is easy to avoid any weight gain. There is no evidence from data in the scientific literature on patients in clinical trials, self-quitting in population-based samples, or any other type of study that stopping smoking and avoiding subsequent weight gain are easy. So unless you are willing to accept the claim that there is only one easy way, Allen Carr's, and that if it wasn't easy for you, you just didn't "get it," then the title doesn't live up to its promise. To add just one more example, the book states that nicotine is not addictive, despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary.
Despite these concerns, let me emphasize that The Easy Way works for those for whom it works, and if you're one of them, I'll never knock it - any more than I would knock other approaches that have not (or not yet) been fully tested. If, after perusing the reader reviews, you find that you resonate with the experiences described by successful quitters, then by all means invest in the book. But please don't buy into the implicit easyway dictum that if this doesn't work for you then all is lost - and that you yourself are to blame. There are many paths to quitting and to controlling weight; as Life After Cigarettes makes clear, you need to find the one that works for you, whether it be the easyway or someotherway.
(Note: This review is adapted from a blog post on the Life After Cigarettes website, for which a link can be found on my profile.)
(37 reviews)
