Meet the smokers who quit through Carr seminar

A world-renowned quit smoking seminar recently came to Bermuda to help ­islanders put out their deadly habit once and for all.

The Allen Carr  Easy Way To Stop Smoking seminar, which took place at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess, was sponsored and ­organized by local ­asthma charity Open ­Airways.

It was led by Damian O’Hara, president of the North America branch of the Easy Way seminar.

The late Allen Carr smoked a hundred ­cigarettes every day before discovering an easy way to give up, in 1983.

Since then this method has helped millions of smokers to quit, through reading his ­bestselling book The Easy Way to Stop Smoking or attending his international seminars.

Each year 50,000 smokers in more than 40 countries successfully kick the habit through this method.

This week the Bermuda Sun asked two participants to share their experiences of kicking their habit for good.

‘I look forward to telling all my family I quit the evil weed’

- Name: Penny Cornell

- Age: Late 40s

- Occupation: fund and ­corporate administrator.

I must admit that ­quitting smoking for the umpteenth time round was not as bad as previous ­attempts. 

I’ve used everything from patches to hypnosis, willpower and Zyban ­(medication) and the ­disgusting chewing gum. All previous attempts have left me miserable and feeling as though I’m ­missing out on something and also pounds heavier as I increased my food intake to make up for the lack of a cigarette to suck on.

After attending the Allan Carr seminar on January 22, I came away feeling a lot more positive and not nearly as stressed as I thought I would be when I put out that ‘last cigarette’.

My reasons for quitting were numerous — I was fed up with feeling like a leper and having to smoke furtively when going on holiday or nipping outside to a dark corner to have a cigarette when socialising with friends at a pub or restaurant. I was fed up with standing out on the corner of streets looking like a right plonker as I froze my bits off to have that cigarette that I’ve just spent the last hour craving. I was fed up with having to avoid getting too close to anyone after a cigarette as I didn’t want them to smell that horrible stale smoke on my clothes or breath. I was also starting to get a smokers cough which I ­hated and was struggling more and more to keep fit and run without dying — and ironically I hated ­myself for getting home ­after a good run and having a large glass of water and a cigarette.

The first few days were not as hard as I thought they would be. I missed the first cigarette and coffee each morning but within a matter of days I was over that. I didn’t really have a chance to miss the cigarettes at work as I’ve been hugely busy. At times I do get very frustrated where I need to drag myself away from my PC just to clear my head but don’t have the cigarette break excuse anymore. The ladies washrooms just don’t have the same appeal as standing outside socialising with a few other smokers and ­unwinding as I used to.

The worst times I believe are in the evenings. I get home from work and used to love lighting up and ­having a glass of wine and sitting outside with my husband to unwind after a hard day at work. We have both decided to give up ­together and I must admit I was very dubious as to whether or not my husband would quit as he was what I call a ‘determined’ smoker who used to enjoy it. But, he has totally surprised me with his determination to do this. His father passed away just before Christmas with cancer, more than ­likely a by-product of being a smoker in his youth up to his mid 50s and I think this fact alone spurred him along more than anything else.

Struggles

We have had our ­struggles since giving up. The main thing for both of us is the small squabbles. We have been married now for over ten years and have a brilliant and harmonious marriage but I can honestly say we have squabbled more over the past couple of weeks than we have in all our time together. The most memorable squabble being over an egg would you believe! I am fortunate to have a husband that does 95 per cent of the cooking and a great cook he is too. My five per cent contribution is usually beans on toast and if I’m feeling really creative I will melt some cheese on top.  But my ­husband’s cooking is excellent and every day he ­creates a new dish for us to try. Well, one day last week he fried an egg up for me, except that it wasn’t “over easy” and was runny on top and I just couldn’t bring myself to eat it. My husband became very upset and that was it — ‘he was never cooking for me ever again, I was an ungrateful spoilt madam and I could do my own blooming cooking in the future’.  Well, my response (being less than calm myself at that point) was to fight right back and argue that after 13 years together you’d think he knew I didn’t like my eggs runny. How bloody stupid is that? Arguing over a fried egg!

We never ­argue, it was actually quite ­unnerving for me, but then it got me to thinking. Is this what ­normal non-smokers lives are like? Do they squabble constantly — is my marriage not so ­normal after all? And now that we’ve both quit are we now amongst the ‘normal’ people who squabble with their spouse. ­Ludicrous I know, but perhaps it’s getting used to life without the cigarettes and the habit and that once we’ve settled down “properly” into the routine of ­being non-smokers, hopefully the silly rows will die out. We did talk together about the squabbles, and realized that it was a ­result of quitting smoking and since that talk we are slowly getting back onto the even keel of our wonderful marriage again.

There are still a few situations we haven’t faced together as non-smokers. We haven’t been on a full night out yet with friends who smoke. We’ve got a few sets of friends — mainly divided into smokers and non-smokers. We’ve enjoyed time together with our non-smoking friends but to date haven’t quite tempted fate to go out with our smoking friends and I think for now we should keep it that way until we are ­confident in our ability to drink and say no. In the meantime we continue to enjoy a glass of wine at night after work — there are some habits that we just refuse to break.

Weight

I haven’t put on a huge amount of weight yet. I’ve purposely ­increased my attendance at the gym and have opted to have some additional training sessions in order to push myself that bit harder. I figure that if I feel ­better about my body I will be less inclined to overeat. The money I save on not buying cigarettes is helping to pay for this. My goal is to get out and do a good run without feeling like I’m dying at the end of it — additionally I won’t be inhaling on a cigarette as I gasp to catch my breath post run.

I’m also looking forward to seeing our daughters, our grand children and my mother in law and proving to them that finally we have quit the smoking habit and are free of the evil weed for good.

I will say though, that as a ‘non-smoker’ the one thing I will not become is a sanctimonious ‘ex-smoker’. I will not preach and moan at those who continue to smoke, I will not be doing the exaggerated cough as I walk by a smoker, I will not publicly berate them for the habit. As an ex-smoker, I understand totally how hard this habit is to break. What I would do though is encourage any smoker who really feels that it is their time to quit, to seriously consider either attending an Allan Carr clinic or try and read the book. The clinic is money well spent as it focuses your mind for the day whereas the book will require your willpower to read it through to the end and finish it and, if you are like me, you’ll reach that last chapter and think “oh my god, it’s going to work but I don’t want to quit just yet” and then refuse to read the last chapter putting it off to another day.

I’m hoping that I will come back to you in a month’s time and tell you that I’m still smoke free but for now, it’s one day at a time. I can honestly say I don’t want another cigarette and long may that mantra continue.  


‘It was smoking that brought on the anxiety’

- Age: 28

- Occupation: Account manager

I signed up for the Easy Way ­seminar because I wanted to change my life.  

I’m 28-years-old and have smoked for the better part of ten years. I’ve never been a “heavy” smoker — sometimes I smoke a few a day, ­usually more on weekends, sometimes days without but I smoked enough to want out. After the ­majority of cigarettes I actually felt sick in addition to feeling guilty, embarrassed, stupid and trapped.

I didn’t know what to expect ­going into the seminar. I’d tried to quit several times before, all ­attempts were obviously ­unsuccessful.

My biggest worry was whether I’d be able to resist the temptation to smoke on a weekend, with a drink of choice in hand.

I’d heard that this method of ­quitting smoking wasn’t about ­hypnotizing us, showing us pictures of black lungs or warning us that smoking causes cancer — everyone knows that and we do it anyway. I’ve seen family and friends die of cancer and that didn’t stop me from smoking, in fact, the anxiety, ­depression and stress of those situations made me want to smoke more.  However, less than an hour into the seminar I quickly realized that those situations didn’t bring about those feelings that made me want to smoke more — it was smoking that brought about those ­feelings in the first place and thus it was the last cigarette I’d had that made me anxious, depressed, stressed, etc.

See, Damian (O’Hara) taught us that smoking, like most things in life, is more mental than anything else. We, as smokers, have ­convinced ourselves that we need to smoke to relieve stress, fight ­depression, combat anxiety, etc. Essentially, we need to smoke to feel normal. And, if we view ­

non-smokers as normal, we need to smoke to feel like non-smokers do.  The feelings caused by smoking are the feelings we try to overcome by smoking. When you think about smoking like that, being a smoker makes no sense.

As I write this, I have gone 18 days since the seminar as a non-smoker. I still think about smoking, which we were told is normal, but I think about it differently.  When I see someone smoking I’m not thinking about wanting one, instead I’m almost pitying that person for the slave they’ve become to a drug that in reality is doing absolutely nothing for them — as Damian put it, it’s a drug that doesn’t even get you high. Smoking is a waste of time, a waste of money and really a waste of life. I’ve spent ten years being a slave to it, but it took me six hours of this seminar to finally realize that.