This is because their attention is diminished while they continue to believe it is traumatic and extremely difficult to quit and continue to maintain the belief that they are dependent on nicotine.Īnother assertion unique to Carr's method is that willpower is not required to stop smoking. A further reason for allowing smokers to smoke while undergoing counselling is Carr's belief that it is more difficult to convince a smoker to stop until they understand the mechanism of "the nicotine trap". He further asserted that withdrawal symptoms are actually created by doubt and fear in the mind of the ex-smoker, and therefore that stopping smoking is not as traumatic as is commonly assumed, if that doubt and fear can be removed.Īt Allen Carr Clinics during stop-smoking sessions, smokers are allowed to continue smoking while their doubts and fears are removed, with the aim of encouraging and developing the mindset of a non-smoker before the final cigarette is extinguished. So that smokers, when they light a cigarette are really trying to achieve a state that non-smokers enjoy their whole lives. He asserted that the "relief" smokers feel on lighting a cigarette, the feeling of being "back to normal", is the feeling experienced by non-smokers all the time. In this way the drug addiction perpetuates itself. ( July 2017) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)Ĭarr teaches that smokers do not receive a boost from smoking a cigarette, and that smoking only relieves the withdrawal symptoms from the previous cigarette, which in turn creates more withdrawal symptoms once it is finished. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. He claims that these two realisations crystallised in his mind just how easy it was to stop and so then enabled him to follow an overwhelming desire to explain his method to as many smokers as possible. Second, his son John lent him a medical handbook which explained that the physical withdrawal from nicotine is just like an "empty, insecure feeling". First, the hypnotherapist told him smoking was "just nicotine addiction", which Carr had never perceived before that moment, i.e. There were two key pieces of information that enabled Carr to stop later that day. However, it wasn't the hypnotherapy itself that enabled him to stop – "I succeeded in spite of and not because of that visit" and "I lit up the moment I left the clinic and made my way home.". He qualified as an accountant in 1958.Ĭarr finally stopped smoking on 15 July 1983, aged 48, after a visit to a hypnotherapist. London-born Carr started smoking while doing National Service aged 18.