0:03 Hello, my name is Damian O'Hara and I'm
0:05 an Alen Car's Easyway seminar facilitator.
0:07 facilitator.
0:10 Before launching into this webcast, I
0:12 wanted to take a couple of moments to
0:13 explain a bit about the format of this
0:16 presentation and how to get the best out
0:20 of it. The webcast is split into six
0:22 segments averaging around 40 minutes
0:25 each, adding up to a total of 4 hours.
0:27 If you can, you should watch the
0:30 segments in one sitting in sequence, one
0:32 after the other with a smoke break in
0:36 between. If this isn't possible, then we
0:37 recommend splitting the webcast into
0:40 two. Watch the first three segments
0:42 together and then later the same day or
0:45 the following day, watch the final three
0:48 segments. If you're able to smoke while
0:50 watching, that's great. Please smoke
0:52 right up until the final cigarette at
0:55 the end of part five. If you need to
0:57 leave the room to smoke, then our advice
1:00 is to watch the segment until it ends
1:03 and then go for a smoke break.
1:05 Some people find this instruction to
1:07 keep smoking a little bit odd, but we've
1:09 been working this way since we started
1:13 conducting our seminars in 1983.
1:15 We're not saying that uh smoking helps
1:16 people concentrate. If that were true,
1:18 then smokers would be smarter than
1:20 non-smokers. And clearly, this isn't the
1:23 case. It's more that it can be hard to
1:25 concentrate while you're constantly
1:27 being distracted of the need to smoke.
1:28 So, this is your first instruction
1:32 today. Relax and smoke. You've been
1:34 doing it for years. You can do it for
1:58 Now I thought I would start the session
2:00 today by giving you a brief overview of
2:05 who we are and what we do. Alan Carr who
2:07 developed this method uh Allan was a
2:10 smoker for over 30 years. In the summer
2:13 of 1983, after countless miserable
2:15 attempts to quit smoking, Allan
2:17 discovered a different way of looking at
2:18 smoking, a different way of thinking
2:21 about smoking. And he found that when he
2:23 thought about cigarettes and smoking in
2:26 this way, he had absolutely no desire to
2:29 smoke. Now, if you think about it, if
2:32 you have no desire to do something, it
2:34 doesn't really take willpower not to do
2:36 it because you don't want to do it in
2:38 the first place. So after years of
2:40 smoking five packs a day, Allan just
2:42 walked away from the whole thing, going
2:45 from chain smoker to non-smoker in one
2:48 day. At that moment, he understood that
2:50 he had discovered something extremely
2:54 special, an easy way to stop smoking.
2:56 Now what Allan found is that he if he
2:59 could accurately communicate the way he
3:01 had shifted his perspective with respect
3:04 to smoking then other smokers could use
3:06 exactly the same tools to shift their
3:08 perspectives with respect to smoking.
3:09 And of course these people would also
3:12 find it very easy to stop. Here we are
3:17 25 years later. We have over 150 centers
3:19 uh uh offering seminars in over 40
3:22 countries. Uh we see around uh 50,000
3:25 smokers every year in in our seminars.
3:28 Uh Allan's books based on uh the seminar
3:30 have been extremely popular all over the
3:33 world. His most uh successful book, a
3:34 book called The Easy Way to Stop
3:37 Smoking, has sold over 8 million copies
3:40 uh uh uh since it was published in 1985.
3:42 This is the book that Ellen Degenerous
3:44 often talks about on her show and uh
3:46 that Ashton Coocher and Lou Reed have
3:48 gone on record as saying help them quit smoking.
3:50 smoking.
3:52 Now Allan was not a doctor uh by
3:53 training. Of all things he was an
3:56 accountant actually and as such it took
3:58 him many many years to develop a
4:00 reputation within the medical community.
4:03 Uh uh but today the medical community uh
4:05 uh really sees or many of the med
4:07 medical community uh see Allen as being
4:09 one of the world's leading experts on
4:12 quitting smoking. Now the medical
4:13 community is very suspicious and and I
4:16 think rightly so of people from outside
4:18 who claim to have made breakthroughs in
4:21 these kinds of areas. So it took Allan a
4:23 long time to earn his stripes to develop
4:25 his reputation within the medical
4:28 community. But I think over the years uh
4:29 these doctors and dentists just kept
4:32 hearing these remarkable stories about
4:34 how very long-term, very very heavy
4:38 smokers, self-described hopeless cases
4:40 were finding it ridiculously easy to
4:43 quit smoking using this simple drug-free
4:46 uh approach. And uh as I said today the
4:47 medical community or me certain members
4:50 of the medical community are among our
4:52 biggest supporters apart from referrals
4:54 that we get from other people that have
4:57 attended the seminar. Uh uh our biggest
4:59 source of referrals are from doctors and
5:01 dentists. In fact um Allan's reputation
5:04 within the medical community progressed
5:07 even further really in 1997 when he was
5:08 invited to address the World Health
5:11 Organization. uh every year uh uh the
5:13 World Health Organization have a
5:15 Congress on tobacco control and uh at
5:18 the time Allan was the only person with
5:20 no medical qualifications that had ever
5:22 been invited to address this uh uh conference.
5:24 conference.
5:26 Now you know we're not a Microsoft or an
5:28 Intel or or one of these huge
5:30 organizations but Alan Car's easy way
5:32 has grown to be a global phenomenon and
5:35 the reason that it is so successful I is
5:37 is pure and simple because this method
5:39 is so effective.
5:42 Um, Abraham Lincoln uh once said that
5:44 you uh can fool some of the people all
5:47 of the time and all of the people some
5:50 of the time, but you cannot fool all of
5:53 the people all of the time. It just
5:55 seems obvious to me that you don't build
5:58 a business over a 25- year period that
6:00 has sold millions and millions of copies
6:02 of this book and and cured up to 10
6:04 million smokers without there something
6:07 being pretty special going on. The fact
6:08 that we offer a money back guarantee in
6:10 our live seminars, I think speaks for itself.
6:13 itself.
6:15 Now, when I first heard of Alan Carr, it
6:18 was 1985 and my mom gave me a copy of
6:20 this book, The Easy Way to Stop Smoking.
6:22 She gave me a a copy of this book for
6:26 Christmas. And um just what every smoker
6:27 wants for Christmas, a book on how to
6:30 stop smoking. Thanks a lot, Mom. Anyway,
6:32 uh I started reading this book and to be
6:34 honest with you, it absolutely terrified
6:37 me because right from the first
6:39 paragraph, it was very very clear that
6:42 this was a man that really understood
6:45 smoking. And he understood it not in the
6:47 way that doctors understand it or that
6:49 anti-smokers understand it, but the way
6:52 smokers understand smoking. And I found
6:54 this absolutely terrifying because I
6:56 thought if I finish reading this book,
6:59 I'm going to have to stop smoking.
7:01 So, I I I tossed it away on my bookshelf
7:04 where it stayed for 14 years before I
7:06 made my way to to one of Allen's uh
7:08 seminars. I mean, I feel like an idiot
7:10 because had I known then how
7:13 ridiculously easy it is to stop smoking
7:16 and how amazing life is as a non-smoker,
7:18 I would have devoured that book all
7:20 those years ago back in 1985 and been
7:23 done with the whole thing. But the thing
7:25 that bugged me about Allan uh uh was
7:27 this ridiculous claim that he used to
7:30 make. I I had seen even back in 1985 I
7:32 had seen Allan interviewed on TV many
7:34 many times and he always said exactly
7:38 the same thing that any smoker any
7:41 smoker can find it ridiculously easy to
7:44 stop that it's immediate and it's permanent
7:46 permanent
7:49 that there is no withdrawal there's no
7:51 weight gain there's no willpower
7:54 required there are no scare tactics you
7:56 know no pictures of diseased lungs or
7:58 fatty deposits clogging up your arteries
8:00 or anything like that. And in addition
8:03 to being easy, quitting smoking can be
8:05 one of the most enjoyable and one of the
8:07 most empowering experiences of your life.
8:10 life.
8:11 Now, you say that to a room full of
8:13 smokers and what kind of response do you
8:16 get? Yeah, right. But you know what? I
8:19 went from 60 a day to none just like
8:23 that in a seminar just like this. And
8:26 even today, all these years later, I
8:28 still look back on those first weeks and
8:30 months of being a non-smoker, as being
8:34 among the happiest of my life.
8:36 You see, even as a relatively young man,
8:39 I was such a heavy smoker and such a
8:42 terrible quitter that I had almost given
8:43 up trying to give up. I, you see, I was
8:46 what we call a serial quitter.
8:48 Every Sunday evening, I would try to
8:50 quit smoking. And I would say that
8:52 around 90% of my attempts to quit
8:54 smoking lasted a couple of minutes and
8:56 I'd find myself rumaging around in the
8:58 garbage looking for my smokes. So, you
9:00 know, I had even as a relatively young
9:02 man, I had more or less resigned myself
9:03 to having to smoke for the rest of my
9:05 life. And any of you who have reached
9:08 that point, you will know what a
9:10 profoundly depressing thought this is
9:11 that you're going to have to go through
9:14 the rest of your life smoking.
9:16 Then I attended an Alan Carr's easy way
9:19 to stop smoking seminar and in five
9:21 amazing hours the cigarette went from
9:24 being the center of my life to being
9:26 totally irrelevant.
9:28 I could not believe how easy it was to
9:31 quit or how amazing life was as a non-smoker.
9:33 non-smoker.
9:35 It just felt so good to get that monkey
9:38 off my back. It had been dragging me
9:40 down and holding me back my whole adult
9:43 life. It just felt absolutely fantastic
9:46 to be truly free and no longer
9:48 controlled by a drug that frankly didn't
9:51 even get me high.
9:53 My energy levels and my enthusiasm for
9:56 life returned and for the first time I
9:58 was able to build my life on the things
10:01 that I genuinely loved. Friends, family,
10:04 health, happiness, freedom. This is what
10:06 life's all about.
10:08 Eventually, it was my wife actually that
10:09 said, uh, you know, we should get back
10:11 in touch with these guys. And I did uh I
10:13 got back in touch with Allan to offer uh
10:15 uh my services and I was very very
10:18 privileged to be selected uh uh to train
10:20 as a a seminar facilitator and get the
10:22 opportunity to help other people make
10:25 this wonderful transformation.
10:28 Now when I first started doing this uh
10:32 uh I felt that certain types of smoker
10:34 would find it much much harder to quit
10:36 than others. Uh for instance, I felt
10:38 that lighter smokers would find it much
10:40 much harder to quit than heavier
10:42 smokers. Uh which actually sounds
10:44 counterintuitive, but if you think about
10:47 it for a moment, it makes perfect sense.
10:50 You see, very heavy smokers tend not to
10:52 have any illusion that they enjoy
10:54 smoking. They're just smoking cuz they
10:55 can't stop. And they're very aware of
10:57 this. Pleasure is nowhere in the
11:00 building, quite frankly. However, people
11:02 that smoke two or three or four
11:04 cigarettes a day, they look forward to
11:06 each cigarette like it's the most
11:08 precious thing on the planet. And
11:09 because this is primarily a
11:11 psychological addiction, I think that
11:14 makes that person just as addicted as a
11:17 chain smoker.
11:19 Over the years of doing this, I have
11:20 actually come to realize that there is
11:23 only one cause of failure using this
11:25 approach, and it's a failure to follow
11:27 the instructions. So your second
11:30 instruction today is to follow all the
11:33 instructions because if you do by the
11:34 end of this presentation you will be a
11:38 happy non-smoker and all you have to do
11:41 is follow the instructions.
11:44 Your third instruction is to accept and
11:46 to acknowledge that this is a technique
11:49 that works for all types of smoker and
11:52 that means you too. There is no type of
11:54 smoker for whom this won't work. I mean
11:56 think about it. We see over 50,000
11:58 smokers in our seminars every single
12:01 year. Please trust me when I tell you we
12:04 see every conceivable type of smoker and
12:07 it's effective for all of them so long
12:09 as you follow the instructions.
12:13 So what is this amazing magical miracle
12:16 quit smoking method? Well, uh over the
12:18 years there have been a number of
12:20 wonderful descriptions uh of this
12:22 technique. Uh some of the ones I really
12:26 like um Sir Anthony Hopkins the actor uh
12:28 quit smoking uh using Alan Car's easy
12:30 way and he describes it beautifully. He
12:33 says that being a smoker is like being
12:37 trapped in a very complicated maze and
12:39 even though you want to get out you
12:40 don't know where to start. You don't
12:41 know where where to look. You don't know
12:44 how to navigate your way out. He says
12:46 it's as if Allan has a map of this maze
12:48 and he can help you just navigate your
12:50 way out very simply. I love this
12:52 description. It's such a a wonderful and
12:55 accurate one.
12:56 Another description of this method. I
12:59 love uh a journalist was writing a piece
13:00 about Allen several years ago. They had
13:02 a great way of describing this. They
13:05 described it as a smoker's way to stop
13:08 smoking. I I I love that and it
13:10 resonates actually with many many many
13:12 smokers because you know, let's face it,
13:14 these days being a smoker in North
13:16 America, it's a it's a nightmare. You
13:18 know, everyone's on your case.
13:20 Everyone's in your face trying to
13:22 humiliate you and make you feel guilty
13:24 and stupid and basically trying to
13:27 terrify you into quitting smoking. And
13:29 of course, this doesn't work. And it
13:31 doesn't work because smokers aren't
13:34 stupid. Smokers are intelligent, strong
13:37 willed people who refuse to be pushed
13:39 around by these sanctimonious dogooders
13:41 who have never smoked a day in their lives.
13:43 lives.
13:46 This method is the absolute opposite of
13:48 of all of that sort of stuff. I mean, to
13:49 be honest with you, if you're looking
13:51 for a lecture on lung cancer and heart
13:53 disease, you're in the wrong place. That
13:55 stuff never helped me quit smoking. And
13:56 if it was going to help you, it would
13:59 have done it years ago.
14:02 This this approach, Alan Carr's Easyway
14:04 approach, I think, treats smokers with
14:07 intelligence and dignity and respect.
14:08 And quite frankly, there isn't a lot of
14:10 that being shown to smokers these days
14:12 in North America. So this is a very very
14:15 uh uh uh revolutionary unorthodox uh
14:18 approach but a very uh successful one.
14:20 But I think the best description that I
14:22 have ever heard of uh for this technique
14:24 is one of uh one of our previous
14:27 attendees described it as the opposite
14:30 of willpower. The opposite of willpower.
14:33 This for me is a fascinating concept.
14:34 Basically, what I'm saying is that if
14:37 you're able to assimilate everything
14:40 that goes on during this webcast, by the
14:42 time you end the reach the end of this
14:43 presentation, it would actually take you
14:46 willpower to smoke a cigarette. It
14:48 wouldn't take you any willpower
14:50 whatsoever not to smoke. You would
14:52 actually have to force yourself to light
14:54 a cigarette. Now, this is a huge claim
14:56 to make and and we need to look at this
14:58 claim in a lot more detail. But before
15:00 figuring out what the opposite of
15:02 willpower is, first you have to define,
15:05 well, what is willpower?
15:06 Now, by the way, I'm going to refer to
15:09 all other methods of stopping smoking as
15:12 willpower. Okay? Because you can slap a
15:15 patch on, you know, you can chew
15:17 nicotine gum, you can pop these pills,
15:19 uh uh you can go to hypnotherapist,
15:21 whatever. But if you still believe that
15:23 the cigarette gives you gives you some
15:25 pleasure or benefit or crutch, you're
15:27 going to have a desire to smoke. And
15:28 you're going to have to try to use
15:32 willpower to overcome that desire.
15:34 So, but but you know, going back to the
15:37 the question, what is willpower? Well,
15:39 for me, willpower is very easy to define
15:42 in a smoking context. It's where in our
15:44 minds we add up all of the terrible
15:47 disadvantages of being a smoker, the
15:49 health, the money, the smell, so on and
15:51 so forth, and we use these things to
15:54 motivate ourselves to abstain. And the
15:56 hope is that they will motivate you for
15:58 long enough that you'll be able to
16:00 abstain for long enough that one day
16:03 you'll wake up and the need, the desire,
16:05 the craving to smoke, whatever you want
16:08 to call it, miraculously disappears.
16:10 But those of you who have tried to quit
16:13 smoking using uh willpower before know
16:15 very well. It just doesn't work like
16:17 that. And this of course is why you hear
16:19 all of these horror stories who uh you
16:22 know from from people who have uh quit
16:24 smoking uh uh weeks or months or in some
16:27 cases even years ago still going nuts in
16:29 stressful situations pulling their hair
16:32 out you know having a larger huge desire
16:35 to smoke in in situations to enable them
16:37 to relax a and having to use huge
16:39 amounts of willpower to overcome that
16:41 desire even years after they've quit
16:44 smoking. I mean, I don't know about you,
16:45 but that doesn't sound like much fun to me.
16:48 me.
16:52 Now, when I was a smoker trying to quit,
16:54 I used to really beat myself up over my
16:56 inability to to do so. And I always
16:59 blamed myself. I thought that I was the
17:00 problem. I thought that somehow I must
17:03 be too weak or too stupid or too
17:06 selfish. Uh uh. But now I actually
17:09 understand smoking. Now I actually
17:11 understand quitting. I realized that I
17:13 was not the problem. It was the
17:16 willpower approach itself that was the problem.
17:18 problem.
17:20 Now, I'll let you uh in on a little bit
17:22 of a secret here. I don't actually have
17:26 any willpower. Literally none, you know.
17:28 So, I find it baffling that frankly I
17:30 find it baffling that anyone can quit
17:32 smoking uh using willpower because there
17:34 are so many flaws in the willpower
17:36 approach itself.
17:39 Now, I don't deny that people do quit
17:41 smoking uh using willpower, but as Alan
17:43 said, there are people that can make
17:45 love standing up on a hammock. It
17:46 doesn't mean it's the easiest or the
17:50 most enjoyable way, does it?
17:51 I think it's really important to
17:54 understand the weaknesses and flaws in
17:55 the willpower approach to quitting
17:58 smoking because it's really important to
17:59 understand that, you know, you're not
18:02 the problem here. The problem is the
18:04 willpower method itself. And I'm going
18:06 to illustrate this point by highlighting
18:08 a couple of the major flaws in the
18:14 The first flaw in the willpower approach
18:16 to quitting smoking is that many of the
18:19 things that we use to motivate ourselves
18:21 to quit smoking, they do make you want
18:23 to quit, but ironically many of them
18:26 also make you want to smoke. Now this
18:28 sounds uh illogical, so I I will give
18:31 you an example. Have you seen uh the
18:34 latest uh uh um sort of scare tactics
18:36 ads on on TV? The one I saw most
18:38 recently was the one with a woman
18:40 smoking through a a tracheotomy, a hole
18:42 in her her throat. Have you seen this
18:44 ad? Or well, even if you haven't seen
18:46 that ad, I'm sure you've seen uh tons of
18:49 ones like it. What's the first thing uh
18:50 uh uh what's the first thing you see
18:52 when you see an ad like this? All
18:54 smokers will agree after seeing an ad
18:55 like this, it's time to go for a
18:59 cigarette. I mean, talk about irony. The
19:01 American and Canadian Cancer Society
19:03 spending millions, in some cases tens of
19:05 millions of dollars airing these ads to
19:07 try to get people to quit smoking. The
19:09 first thing a smoker wants to do, go and
19:11 have a cigarette. I mean, does anyone
19:14 see the disconnect here? You see,
19:16 actually, when you understand smoking,
19:18 this all makes perfect sense. You see,
19:21 most smokers when they're confronted
19:23 with an image like this on TV, you know,
19:24 someone smoking through a hole in their
19:26 throat, they'll go into into a kind of
19:28 denial. you know, it won't be me, it
19:29 won't be me. You leave the room, you
19:31 change the channel. But you see, deep
19:34 down where you keep all the big stuff,
19:36 where you keep all the important stuff,
19:38 there's a part of you that knows very
19:40 well that could be me. And of course,
19:43 this provokes an emotional response
19:46 that's based around fear and anxiety.
19:49 Fear and anxiety are extremely stressful
19:51 emotions. And what's the first thing a
19:52 smoker wants to do in a stress
19:55 situation? Exactly. You got it. Go light
19:57 a cigarette. So this is the first
19:59 problem with the willpower approach to
20:01 quitting smoking. Many of the things
20:03 that we use to motivate ourselves to
20:06 quit in this case fear of death,
20:08 disease, disability and so on, it does
20:10 make you want to quit. But ironically,
20:12 it also makes you want to smoke because
20:14 it triggers this this fear response. And
20:16 because as smokers, we associate smoking
20:18 with stress relief is it makes smokers
20:20 want to smoke more and less at the same time.
20:22 time.
20:24 So, this is the first floor in the
20:26 willpower approach to quitting. The
20:28 second floor in the willpower approach
20:30 to quitting smoking is that it focuses
20:33 exclusively on all of the reasons that
20:35 you shouldn't smoke. The health, the
20:37 money, the smell, the secondhand smoke,
20:38 so on and so forth. The problem is that
20:40 we don't smoke for these reasons. I
20:42 mean, every smoker knows all of these
20:44 things about smoke. Yet, still they smoke.
20:45 smoke.
20:47 You see, I think when we look a little
20:50 bit closer, we can see very clearly that
20:52 willpower tries to solve the wrong
20:54 problem. It keeps telling you why you
20:56 shouldn't smoke, but you already know
20:58 that smokers don't need help
21:00 understanding why they shouldn't smoke.
21:02 I think smokers need help understanding
21:04 why they do smoke. You see, we don't
21:05 smoke for the reasons we shouldn't
21:08 smoke. We smoke for the reasons we do.
21:10 So, in a sense, willpower is worse than
21:13 useless. It defines the problem, but it
21:17 doesn't offer any solutions.
21:19 But the biggest flaw in the willpower
21:21 approach to quitting smoking and and for
21:23 me at least by miles, the biggest flaw
21:25 in the in the willpower approach is that
21:27 it perpetuates this idea that by
21:29 stopping smoking, you're giving
21:31 something up. You're losing something.
21:33 You're you're sacrificing something. Let
21:36 me uh let me illustrate. Let's pretend
21:38 I'm a smoker, okay? And this is my uh
21:40 final cigarette. Okay? So, I'm smoking
21:42 away, smoking away, smoking away. I put
21:45 it out. I am now a non-smoker using willpower.
21:47 willpower.
21:50 The problem is that when I was a smoker,
21:51 I felt that this thing gave me
21:54 something. Now, I'm a non-smoker. I
21:56 still believe it gave me something, but
21:59 now I'm depriving myself of that thing.
22:02 And so long as I feel deprived, I'm
22:04 going to feel miserable and vulnerable.
22:07 And as soon as I I I I'm in a in a a
22:09 so-called trigger situation, a situation
22:11 that I associate with smoking, I'm going
22:13 to have a desire to smoke, and I'm going
22:15 to have to try to use willpower to
22:18 overcome that desire. This creates a
22:20 conflict. Part of you wants to smoke,
22:22 part of you doesn't. And it's this
22:24 conflict that leads to the feelings of
22:26 of panic and anxiety and irritability
22:28 and so on and so forth that so many
22:31 smokers associate with quitting smoking.
22:33 Ironically, it is not physical
22:35 withdrawal from nicotine that creates
22:37 these symptoms. It's conflict that
22:40 creates these symptoms. And today, we're
22:42 going to remove this conflict. And when
22:44 you remove the conflict, you remove the
22:46 symptoms that are associated with that
22:48 conflict. And by removing these
22:50 symptoms, of course, you make it very
22:52 easy to quit. Now, don't expect to feel
22:54 the same way as you done when you're
22:56 trying to quit smoking in the past. This
22:58 time, it's going to be easy. You're not
22:59 going to feel deprived because you're
23:03 not going to use the willpower method.
23:06 You see, I think every smoker has a kind
23:08 of tugofwar going on, you know,
23:10 permanently being played out uh in their
23:12 minds. On the one hand, sort of pulling
23:14 you in this direction, you've got the
23:17 fear that it's killing me, it's costing
23:18 me a fortune, it's driving a wedge
23:20 between me and my family, you know, all
23:23 of the fears that as smokers we we we
23:25 live with sort of on a daily basis. But
23:27 then on the other hand, pulling you in
23:29 the opposite direction, there's this
23:32 perceived benefit or pleasure or crutch
23:35 or whatever you want to call it. Only
23:38 this is an illusion. I mean, it's a very
23:40 subtle illusion, but it's an illusion.
23:42 Think about it for a minute. Aren't
23:45 these benefits to smoking really no more
23:48 than thinly disguised uh fears? you
23:50 know, the fear that uh I won't be able
23:52 to relax, the fear I won't be able to
23:54 concentrate, I won't be able to cope
23:57 with stress. Actually, it's the fear
24:00 that I won't be able to cope with life
24:02 without my little crutch, without my
24:04 little friend.
24:06 Now, the irony of all of this is that
24:10 the fear on both sides of the tug of war
24:13 are caused by the cigarette.
24:15 I mean, non-smokers don't have any of
24:16 these fears. I mean, look at all these
24:19 smoker, non-smokers walking around the
24:21 the streets. They're not obsessing about
24:22 cigarettes. They're just getting on with
24:25 life. It's only smokers that have all of
24:27 these fears because smoking creates
24:29 these fears. And I think that one of the
24:32 sweetest things about not having to
24:34 smoke anymore is to be free of that
24:37 fear. The the constant niggling,
24:40 nagging, lowlevel anxiety and edgginess
24:42 that as smokers we live with our whole
24:44 smoking lives. In fact, we live with it
24:47 to such a degree, we think it's normal
24:50 to feel this way. It's not normal.
24:52 Non-smokers don't feel anxious and edgy.
24:55 It's smokers because smoking creates the
25:03 Now, it's time to begin to debunk some
25:04 of the myths that are associated with
25:07 smoking. And the first myth that I want
25:09 to deal with is the myth that smokers
25:11 choose to smoke. And I'm going to start
25:12 with this one because when I was a
25:14 smoker, it was one that that that
25:17 probably bugged me uh uh the most. Now,
25:20 I I do agree that uh uh uh uh uh we
25:23 chose to smoke those first cigarettes uh
25:25 most likely as a youngster, but tell me
25:27 this. When did you decide that you'd
25:30 smoke all day every day for the rest of
25:34 your life and never be able to stop?
25:36 You see, no smoker ever makes such a
25:38 decision. We smoked those first
25:41 cigarettes really as an experiment.
25:43 Maybe because our parents smoked or it
25:45 kind of seems that that that some of the
25:46 older kids, some of the cooler kids
25:48 smoke and we're just trying to kind of
25:50 emulate those. Little did we know that
25:52 those first cigarettes would put us in
25:54 these chairs today would put us in this
25:56 situation here today. And had we known
25:58 we never would have lit that first
26:00 cigarette. In fact, we would have found
26:02 it very easy not to light that first cigarette.
26:05 cigarette.
26:08 You see, the idea that many non-smokers
26:09 have that that some, you know, somehow
26:11 smokers are choosing to smoke used to
26:13 really bug me tremendously because on
26:15 the one hand, you have all of these sort
26:18 of sanctimonious non-smokers accusing
26:20 you of all sorts of ridiculous things.
26:21 You know, you're you're choosing to
26:23 pollute my environment, you're choosing
26:25 to expose my baby to secondhand smoke
26:27 and all of this kind of thing. And then
26:29 on the other hand, you have the tobacco
26:31 companies sort of saying things like,
26:32 well, you know, people are choosing to
26:35 buy our product. This is a choice that
26:38 they are making. But you know, and I
26:40 know that genuine choice went out of the
26:42 window years and years and years ago
26:44 with respect to smoking. And to
26:46 illustrate this point, I'm going to pose
26:50 a couple of fairly stupid uh questions.
26:53 First up, how many smokers do you think
26:55 are unaware of the health risks of smoking?
26:57 smoking? 50%,
26:59 50%, 10%,
27:00 10%, 1%,
27:02 1%,
27:05 probably even less.
27:07 How many smokers, how many of those
27:09 smokers do you think dispute the health
27:12 risks of smoking? Same number, probably
27:17 Have you ever worked out how much you
27:20 spend on smoking?
27:21 I used to tell myself, you know, couple
27:23 of bucks a day, something like that. But
27:24 I'll tell you what, when you smoke all
27:26 day every day for year after year after
27:29 year, that couple of bucks a day sure
27:31 does add up. The reality is that the
27:34 average smoker in North America has to
27:37 earn $250,000
27:40 in salary in order to finance a pack a
27:42 day smoking habit. Now, I don't care how
27:45 rich you are, $250,000 is a lot of money.
27:47 money.
27:50 So, back to this idea of choice.
27:52 This is the situation. We're sitting
27:54 here and we're saying that we we know
27:56 that smoking has been implicated in all
27:58 of these horrendous diseases and and
28:01 conditions that for the most part we
28:03 accept that smoking causes these
28:05 diseases and conditions. And we are
28:09 prepared to spend $250,000
28:12 of our own money exposing ourselves to
28:15 these risks. And people are expecting us
28:17 to accept that this is a choice that
28:19 they're making.
28:21 It doesn't make any sense. Who would
28:23 choose such a thing? I mean, do do you
28:25 think alcoholics choose to become alcoholics?
28:27 alcoholics?
28:29 Of course not. They start drinking
28:31 slowly. It takes over their lives, ends
28:34 up ruining it. I mean, when you started
28:37 smoking, most likely as a as a teenager,
28:39 a very young adult. Were you really
28:42 deciding that you would smoke all day
28:44 every day for the rest of your life,
28:46 never being able to stop?
28:50 Of course not. We fell into a trap.
28:52 Actually, we all fell into the same
28:54 trap. And today, I'm going to describe
28:57 this trap to you in great detail. And
28:59 this information will enable you to just
29:01 walk away from the whole thing. It's an
29:04 amazing opportunity to create wonderful
29:06 positive change in your life. But you
29:07 really need to be aware there are only
29:09 two choices on the table here. There's
29:11 no sort of middle ground.
29:13 You can either keep doing what you're
29:15 doing, smoke all day, every day for the
29:17 rest of your life, never being able to
29:19 quit, feeling like this or worse.
29:21 Because let's face it, it's not suddenly
29:22 going to get better, is it? It's just
29:24 going to get progressively worse. This
29:27 is one option. The other option is to
29:30 get this drug out of your life so that
29:32 you can begin to build your life based
29:34 on the things that you genuinely love.
29:37 Friends, family, health, happiness,
29:40 freedom. These are the only options you
29:42 have. There is no middle ground. You
29:44 either smoke or you don't. I I I suppose
29:45 it's a little bit like being pregnant
29:47 really. You can't be a bit pregnant.
29:49 You're either pregnant or you're not.
29:52 And so it is with smoking. You can't be
29:54 a non-smoker who smokes. You need to be
29:56 very very clear about what you're trying
30:02 Now I realize that uh many people
30:04 watching this webcast will be do doing
30:06 so uh uh under duress or pressure from
30:08 people they love their their friends
30:10 their family their kids their parents
30:12 their employers and so on and it it
30:14 would be wonderful if you could quit
30:16 smoking for all of these amazing people
30:18 in your life but in my experience you
30:21 can't. Your fourth instruction is to
30:24 stop smoking for the purely selfish
30:27 reason that you will enjoy your life 10
30:29 times more without dragging this ball
30:31 and chain with you everywhere you go.
30:34 You will enjoy life so much more with
30:36 this monkey off your back that for years
30:38 has been dragging you down and holding
30:41 you back from being the person that you
30:43 want to be and the person that you're
30:45 capable of being. That's why you should
30:48 do this. And your fifth instruction is
30:51 to abandon the usual feelings of doom
30:53 and gloom and misery and depression
30:54 usually associated with quitting.
30:58 Instead, think how amazing it will be
31:00 not to have your life dominated by a
31:02 drug that doesn't even get you high.
31:05 Imagine the freedom to go wherever you
31:07 want to go, do whatever you want to do,
31:09 see whoever you want to see without
31:11 constantly having to factor in your need
31:14 to smoke. These are amazing gifts that
31:16 you're earning for yourselves here
31:18 today. The gift of a a fuller, happier
31:21 life and the gift of true freedom. And
31:23 you should give yourself permission to
31:27 enjoy every minute of it.
31:29 Now, the vast majority of the smokers we
31:31 see in our live sessions, uh uh if
31:32 they're being honest with you, they'll
31:34 tell you, "Quite frankly, I wish I'd
31:36 never even heard of smoking, much less
31:38 stuck one in my mouth." But every so
31:40 often, you come across someone that
31:42 says, "No, no, no, no. I love smoking. I
31:45 love it. So, in part two, we'll begin to
31:47 look at some of the things that smokers
31:49 appear to enjoy about smoking. See you there.
