The Easy Way for Women to Stop Smoking: A Revolutionary Approach Using Allen Carr’s Easyway Method
- ISBN13: 9781402765506
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Now women can kick the cigarette habit, too, using a version of Allen Carr’s revolutionary Easyway (TM) Method created expressly for them. Carr’s The Easy Way to Stop Smoking sold nine million copies worldwide; his method succeeds because it helps smokers eliminate the psychological craving for a cigarette even before they throw away that last pack. Filled with inspiring stories and quotes from real women who have battled nicotine addiction, this follow-up addre… More >>
The Easy Way for Women to Stop Smoking: A Revolutionary Approach Using Allen Carr’s Easyway Method
March 11th, 2010 at 5:59 pm
I was not impressed at all with Allen Carr’s Easy Way for Women to Stop Smoking! I read the book all the way through, and when I finished, the only thing I could think was that Mr. Carr is making a lot of money, but not producing a good product. It did not help at all with me. Just saying I am a non-smoker doesn’t get it with me! That is basically the premise of the whole book. Don’t waste your time reading this book if you really want to quit. I went to a doctor and got a prescription for a pill that really seems to be working. I have smoked for 30 years a pack a day. I quit, but not because of Mr. Carr!
Rating: 2 / 5
March 11th, 2010 at 8:12 pm
This book is the same message he used in his former book on smoking. So if your looking for anything new, don’t waste your money
Rating: 1 / 5
March 11th, 2010 at 8:41 pm
Unfortunately, despite reading this book twice, I still smoke. Allen Carr says that once you read the book and understand the message you will loose the desire to smoke. I wish this was true.
Rating: 1 / 5
March 11th, 2010 at 8:43 pm
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.)
Rating: 2 / 5
March 11th, 2010 at 11:19 pm
I recently quit smoking (yeah!) and this book was recommended to me as part of my quit “tool kit”. Mr. Carr’s insightfulness did help with the paradigm needed for my quit to be successful. About half-way through the book, however, I found it became repetitive. The message is made very clear in the first few chapters. You either get it or you don’t. For your quit to stick, YOU have to make it happen.
Rating: 3 / 5