Alan carr smoking how does it work

Still, these data support the provision of the ACt in companies. Peer Review reports. The method also has been published widely in book form. Only percentages of abstinence from cohorts of smokers who followed the training are published. Thus, although the ACt seems widely used, very limited evidence is available with regard to its effectiveness.

The best scientific design to test whether the ACt method incorporates effective ingredients is the RCT. For example, recruited smokers might be randomly assigned to an ACt condition or to a no-intervention control condition.

However, this is not always possible. In the present study we aimed to assess whether providing the ACt to smokers in companies is effective in stimulating abstinence from smoking. This implies that the test of effectiveness must be conducted within the setting of the companies, taking into account the demands and desires of companies that join the study.

For example, once companies are interested in the ACt, they want to be certain that they can offer the ACt to their smokers, and they find it less desirable to let their smokers be randomized or to be randomized as a department of a company to the ACt condition or a control condition. Therefore, we tested the ACt in companies in a quasi-experiment [ 5 ]. In a quasi-experiment the practice of the ACt is monitored and the changes are compared to the changes in an independently recruited cohort of smokers, implying that no randomization took place.

Therefore, the quality of such a quasi-experimental design primarily depends on the baseline similarity on relevant variables of the participants in the ACt group and those in the control group.

Therefore, in the present study, the most important demographic variables e. The composition of the control group further determines the exact research question the quasi-experiment will address. In the present study of ACt in companies, an independent control group might be recruited from other similar companies but also from the general population.

This is what the present study is about: A quasi-experiment in which smoking employees in companies are exposed to the ACt, while their abstinence rate assessed after 13 months is compared to that of baseline-matched smokers recruited from the general population. Participants in the experimental group were recruited between January and May through companies that decided to purchase the ACt for their smoking employees. Smokers could follow the training for free.

Smokers were first informed by their Human Resource department about an informative session preceding the actual ACt that was going to take place. This informative session was about the ACt but it was also mentioned that some scientific measurements would take place.

At the end of this session interested smokers could leave their contact information. They were then assigned to an ACt trainer who was given access to the e-mail addresses of the smokers. These addresses were used by the researchers to approach the smokers about two weeks before the ACt was given. This e-mail emphasized that their participation in the study was voluntary and that they could withdraw from the study at any time without penalty.

In the e-mail the three measurements were announced. About one week after they received this information e-mail, another e- mail with the link to the baseline pretest on-line questionnaire T1 was sent. Participants in the control group were recruited between January and April through general mass-media and social media throughout the Netherlands.

Interested smokers could e-mail to the address mentioned in the advertisement and they were subsequently sent an information e-mail with the same information as the smokers in the experimental group received.

One week after that, an e-mail with the link to the baseline on-line questionnaire T1 was sent. Via an informed consent option in the online questionnaire, participants gave their permission for participation. Participants in both conditions were not informed about the existence of the other condition, only about their own condition.

Between January and May we sent three times an e-mail with a link to an online questionnaire. The baseline questionnaire T1 was sent about one week before the ACt started.

The follow-up questionnaires were sent 2 weeks after the training took place T2 and 13 months after T2 T3. In the control group, smokers received the T2 and T3 on-line questionnaires, 2 weeks and 14 months after T1, respectively.

Except for the T1 measurement in the experimental group, three reminder e-mails were sent concerning each measurement: One after three days, one after a week and the final one after two weeks.

To schedule the CO-measurement, the participants in the experimental condition who reported on T3 to be abstinent were contacted. It was tried to schedule the CO-measurement within three weeks after the participants filled in the T3 questionnaire.

Financial compensation was offered to lower dropout rates. Participants were informed in the first e-mail that they would earn In the mail on scheduling the CO-measurement, participants were also informed that they would receive 20 euros, whatever the result of the test was. The ACt consisted of a one-meeting training including 5 to 8 smokers led by a trainer who was an ex-smoker. Trainers are trained to provide the ACt, following a loosely protocolled scheme in which they provide the trainees subsequently with different questions and answers the Allen Carr manual containing the protocol has not been made publicly available by the license holder.

When analyzing the content of the training, the following working mechanisms can be recognized: The core of the argument to quit smoking is that smoking tobacco has no real benefits; it is only smoking away withdrawal symptoms in an addicted body. From this premise it follows that when the body is no longer addicted, smoking has no beneficial effects whatsoever. This core idea is repeated in different words using different analogues.

Beliefs and experiences of the trainees regarding the benefits of smoking are restructured and challenged against the background of this notion. The aim is to make the smokers completely endorse the core idea, thereby fundamentally changing their perspective on their smoking behavior, including reappraising their past experiences with smoking.

This restructuring of the beliefs on the benefits of smoking can be conceptualized as an expectancy challenge, as is applied to lower alcohol consumption in several studies [ 6 — 8 ]. In smoking cessation, very few data are available on the effects of expectancy challenge [ 9 , 10 ]. Besides the expectancy challenge, other potential working mechanisms can be recognized in the ACt. One effect of lowering the perceived benefits of smoking is that the task of smoking cessation becomes easier.

This may lead to a relative increase in self-efficacy expectations, which is a reliable predictor of abstinence [ 11 , 12 ]. Furthermore, the trainer always is an ex-smoker, which makes him a model. In addition, the group process may support a climate of change.

Importantly, in the ACt protocol there is no explicit room for motivating the trainees to quit. Thus, the ACt does not try to motivate smokers to quit, it rather tries to lower the motivation to smoke. After the training, participants were in the opportunity to call their trainer by telephone for support to stay abstinent. Furthermore, they could visit a follow-up training on their own initiative for free in the year after their training.

As this was part of the package of the ACt, no data were gathered on the use of these facilities. To validate the self-reported abstinence, a CO-measurement was conducted among respondents who indicated to be abstinent at T3. These T3 respondents were contacted by mail to make an appointment.

The researchers would visit the company site and conduct the CO- measurement. This measurement was protocolled to take place in a sitting position, in a private room after the T3 abstinence was verified again by self-report. When the CO-measurement indicated a higher than expected CO-level, some additional questions were asked to check the reasons for the high level. The CO-level was considered to verify the report of abstinence when it was below 10 ppm, and when it was 10 ppm or higher it was considered to falsify the abstinence [ 13 ].

Before the measurements started, the apparatus was calibrated by the company from which it was purchased. The baseline questionnaire consisted of different chapters.

Firstly, demographics were assessed: gender, age, and level of education. Secondly, smoking behavior was assessed with a question on the number of cigarettes smoked a day, and another five questions that together comprise the FTND test. The pros of quitting assess the motivation to quit.

They refer to the reasons for smokers to quit and because they are related to personally valued outcomes they provide the energizing power that underlies behavior change. The pros of quitting were assessed using four short scales of each three items on the following topics: The expectations concerning positive long-term physical consequences of quitting e. The scales were shown to be robust predictors of future quit attempts during 9, 7, and 6 months intervals in three independent samples of smokers [ 14 ].

The mean item scores were used as the scale scores. They refer to the reasons to smoke; the expectation that smoking will have specific valued effects. The pros of smoking were assessed using a 9 item scale on the cognitive functions of smoking, such as weight regulation, relaxation, and coping with anger, and a 5 item scale on the positive affective experiences of smoking, for example, satisfying, likable and pleasant.

Realise that they will be envying you because every single one of them will be wishing they could be like you: free from the whole filthy nightmare. Never be fooled into thinking you can have the odd cigarette just to be sociable or just to get over a difficult moment. Remember: there is no such thing as just one cigarette. Do not use any nicotine substitutes. Substitutes that contain nicotine such as e-cigarettes or so-called Nicotine Replacement Therapy; patches, gums, nasal sprays and inhalators — are particularly unhelpful as they simply keep the addiction to nicotine alive.

Do not keep cigarettes on you or anywhere else in case of an emergency. Non-smokers do not need cigarettes. You are already a non-smoker the moment you put out your final cigarette.

In fact one of the many joys of being free is not having to worry about having cigarettes and a light on you, of ending that slavery. Life will soon go back to normal as a non-smoker but be on your guard not to fall back into the trap. Why not? Your success in quitting smoking depends very much on the method you decide to use.

You can make any task difficult by going about it the wrong way. Which method you choose to help you to achieve your goal is therefore very important.

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Take a few minutes to fill out our online consultation and we will get back to you with our personalised recommendation. Online consultation. There are a large number of books available to help you to quit smoking but the following are the highest rated on Amazon.

It has been a 1 bestseller in nine European countries. It outsells all other quit smoking titles combined. This book addresses the difficulties that women smokers face when trying to quit, and shows how his technique successfully resolves them.

Through following this method, you will not only be set free from your smoking addiction but you will also find it easy and even enjoyable to quit. Send them this page via email. Send an email. But he did not. He kept on and on, his failures mounting and beginning to haunt him. He developed a terrible cough.

Nothing worked; not the switch to cigars, not the promise to his wife. Then, on the morning of July 15 , Carr hit rock bottom. Getting into his car, he had a coughing fit, followed by a nosebleed. When the nosebleed stopped, he lit a cigarette. The nosebleed started again. His wife discovered him sitting in the car, bloodied cigarette dangling from his mouth. That same day, he saw a hypnotist, who did not cure him.

But later that day, he read a medical textbook, and saw the light. What Carr had seen was the central tenet of his Easyway method of quitting.

Smoking , he reasoned, rather than being pleasurable, was merely a device to get rid of withdrawal symptoms - "like banging your head against a brick wall in order to feel better when you stop". He gave up immediately, and started a clinic from his home in Surrey.

He eventually opened 30 clinics in Britain, and an empire of 70 more in 30 countries. His book The Easyway to Stop Smoking, published in , has sold several million copies. He also wrote books on how to stop smoking for women, on how to stop your children smoking and on how to control over-eating and alcohol consumption.

There is speculation that Carr's lung cancer, diagnosed last summer, might have been the result of working in his clinics - he spent years sitting in smoke-filled rooms, trying to tell people that their addiction was an illusion. When his cancer was found to be inoperable, he said he was less shocked than he might have imagined.