Allen Carr's Easyway

luckylucky

I'm almost finished this book now so supposedly I have to quit drinking for good once I'm done. A positive thing no doubt if I can manage to do it and I think the book has been very helpful tbh. I read his Quit Smoking book about 7 years ago - I didn't manage to quit directly afterwards and I sort of had to adapt his approach a bit more to suit me, but I did manage it a year later and I think the book was a part of that though definitely not the whole part.

Anyway haven't smoked since and after the initital few months rarely thought about smoking at all. Hmm wonder will it be the same with alcohol.

Anyway just wondering what others have thought of this book and any thoughts of the best approach to the first few months of going from a regular drinker for the last 20 years or so to a non-drinker.

BroomBurner

I haven't read that book, have to say, but if you're giving up alcohol, I think you have to have the same attitude as towards giving up smoking. You just have to not want to do it anymore. You might have lots of reasons (family, health, mental wellbeing, just not liking how it makes you feel), but once you've made up your mind and want to stay off it, it'll become easier. Best of luck!

RealEstateKing

Smoking book did the job for me, so I just applied the same ideas to alcohol, and have been off it for a year now.

Basically , Carr takes the same approach to alcohol as he did to smoking: Both he sees as being like a pitcher plant that traps you in, even though you do not realise you are trapped, and so on.

He is right in a sense, but in the longer term of quitting drinking, you will eventually have to come to terms that where smoking really is just a filthy habit that is not fun in any way, you cant pretend that the occassional drink wasn't pleasurable as he tries to do:

Yes drink ruins some peoples lives, and for the most part creates much more unpleasant experiences than it does pleasant (5 hours of fun, vs 24 hours of hangover for me) , but even though I am happier off the drink than on it, I cant pretend that the sight of a frosty cold Pint of Bulmers on a Summer's Day, or a nice neat glass of Laphroig by a Christmas fireside doesnt appeal to me.

There is a big difference between nicotine and alcohol: Nicotine is a ratty little stimulant that does bugger all for you, and doesnt in anyway change the way your mind works. Once you get it out of your system you're amazed you ever had anything to do with it.

Alcohol, however, is a powerful mind-altering narcotic, one capable of completely changing the way your mind works. To put it another way: Even when you were a smoker, if someone had said to you "Hey, wanna come over to my house tonight and do nothing but smoke cigarettes?", it wouldnt haver sounded like such an appealing way to spend an evening. But if you say to a drinker "Hey lets go over to mine and do nothing but drink beer!" , you'd be like "Alrighty, sounds good to me!"

Thus when you give up alchohol, your behaviour has to change a little more than it does with nictoine: Sitting at the same table in the same pub with the same people for 5 hours was a lovely way to spend an evening when you were a drinker. When you're sober that seems like a really boring thing to do: As a sober person you wanna dance, or have an interesting conversation, or get laid or see a movie: You will no longer be content to just sit and do nothing. This is of course , a good thing, but sometimes you do perversely wish "I wish drinking a few pints was all I wanted to do with my weekend."

The difficult part is that we live in a country in which the lion's share of people think that getting arseholed out of your head on what is, lets face it, a fairly grotty little tranquiliser, is the pinnacle of human experience. As a non-drinker I do find myself avoiding the pub (But I love parties much more - I dance, I chat up girls, I meet new people, I play guitar, where before I just drooled into my glass).

As well as this: Carr makes no mention of the psychological issues that would have led you to drink heavily in the first place: Even though you will feel much better after giving up the sauce: Eventually you will have to deal with the issues that made you want to drink that much in the first place.

With those minor quibbles: Do it. There is no single thing you could do that will make you feel better than giving up drink. And if you've managed smoking its much the same way.

seahorse

RealEstateKing wrote: »

Alcohol, however, is a powerful mind-altering narcotic

I agree with every line of your post RealEstateKing, except for this one, which is false. Alcohol is a mind-altering depressant; it is not a narcotic.

leadinglady

The give up smoking book works and the give up drinking one might work if youre not an alcoholic. It wont work if you are an alcoholic and actually I find it a bit of an insult for him to suggest that anybody can give up alcohol this easily.

acorntoast

I read the Alan Carr smoking book, loved it - bought it for all my friends. Everyone quit smoking - Yay! Tried the quit alcohol book and the diet book, but I but I wouldn't recommend either.

As stated above he makes an argument that alcohol gives you nothing and that didn't wash with me, as everyone who has ever had a drink knows, it does change your mood and your behaviour.

I've given up drinking since, but I definitely don't see alcohol in that black and white "It gives you nothing" way. How I view it now, is that it's positives were that it temporarily gave me the semblance of things I wanted, a good night out with friends, relaxation after a day at work - however now that I have stopped drinking, I can see that achieving those things in other ways, without alcohol is simple to achieve.

I still go to the pub and out to dinner with friends (who drink), and it doesn't bother me in the slightest. I'm naturally a very giddy, talkative person and it seems like as people get a little drunk I just go along with them. In fact lots of people have remarked that it seems to make no difference to my sociability at all. This has been a really great thing to discover

Now for relaxation, I go to the gym.

dollyk

i have stopped drinking because i have decided to stop smoking, its onlt three days and honestly i have been woken out of my sleep with really bad sweats, thought i had a big problem stopping smoking but it seems my few harmless glasses of wine have effected me worse:eek:now im gonna stay off both, i know that smoking was stopping me from being healthy etc, but i didnt realise how good it feels to wake up with a clear headin fact i havnt woken up without a hangover for many years, how did i not see this happening.i know that the few over the norm at the weekend caused this, but didnt assosiate spl the two or three every night to relax ones...well great posts so far . have given me food for thought . thanks and happy new year all:D