I Smoked 250,000 Cigarettes. Here’s What Finally Made Me Stop
A Financial Times journalist spent 35 years hooked on nicotine. Here’s what happened when he finally visited Allen Carr’s Easyway.
In a recent Financial Times feature, HTSI editor Alex Bilmes wrote about 35 years of nicotine addiction – around 250,000 cigarettes, then a switch to vaping he assumed was progress. It wasn’t. He’d simply moved from one dependency to another, vaping almost constantly throughout the day. Patches, gum, hypnotherapy, apps: he’d tried it all, and nothing had worked.
Then he spent a day with us at our Easyway headquarters in Raynes Park. He hasn’t touched nicotine since.
Curious about why the method had succeeded where so many others had failed, Bilmes later spoke with Allen Carr’s Easyway CEO, Paul Baker. He stated that he wanted to know what kind of “voodoo” was being practised in Raynes Park. Paul’s answer was simple: there is no magic and no trickery. The method works by challenging the false beliefs people hold about nicotine and addiction. Once someone truly understands that cigarettes or vapes aren’t giving them anything of value, “there’s no willpower required.”
Paul also discussed why vaping can be even harder to stop than smoking. Because it is widely perceived as the safer option, many people become comfortable continuing the addiction rather than ending it. As Paul explains in the article, switching from smoking to vaping is like jumping from a 10-storey building instead of a 20-storey one. It may be less harmful, but it isn’t safe.
The goal was never to trade one dependency for another, it’s to go straight from smoking or vaping to being free.
Find out more about Allen Carr’s Easyway to Stop Smoking here.
