Is there an easy way to quit?

Allen Carr was a chain smoker for 33 years, smoking five, if not six, packets of cigarettes a day. In 1983 he discovered his own method of quitting and helped many others to kick the habit, including Richard Branson, Leslie Grantham, Jerry Hall and Ruby Wax

Carr's Easyway clinics and books are the result of his own numerous attempts to quit. "I never wanted to be a smoker," Carr says. "No-one actually chose to become a smoker. Basically, we are in it because we fall into a trap that we just don't know how to get out of.

"Every time I tried to quit I was just miserable. In those days I believed there were real smokers like me and those who just played at it, and if you were a real smoker then you couldn't enjoy life or handle stress without a cigarette."

All this changed after his son bought him a medical book by the South African heart transplant specialist, Dr Christian Barnard. One of the articles explained that when nicotine leaves your body it creates an empty insecure feeling. The moment you light a cigarette the nicotine is replaced and you feel more relaxed than the moment before.

"I'd wiped out all the other reasons that smokers give for wanting to smoke, and as I was reading this article, it suddenly dawned on me that that was the only reason I smoked. When I was without cigarettes I got the panicky feeling, but when I lit up the panicky feeling left so I was fooled into thinking that each cigarette was giving me some sort of crutch or benefit. Once I knew that it wasn't a weakness in me, which I'd believed before, I knew I would never smoke again.

"The moment I put the last cigarette out, I knew I was a non-smoker. I knew I would never smoke again and it was so easy it was enjoyable.