Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking

Two of the ideas you’ll keep

The Clif summary of Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking pulls out 7 insights. Here are the first two.

1. Nicotine addiction is a 'confidence trick': the tiny withdrawal pang smokers feel between cigarettes is the empty, insecure feeling that non-smokers never have, and the cigarette that 'relieves' it is the very thing that created it, so smoking merely returns you to the baseline peace non-smokers enjoy all the time.
2. Carr's core distinction is between the 'Little Monster', the mild physical craving of nicotine leaving your body, which is almost imperceptible and dies within days, and the 'Big Monster', the far more powerful web of brainwashing and belief in your mind that keeps you smoking.

The other 5 — and the full 11-minute summary — are in the app.

What’s inside: 8 chapters

The whole summary runs about 11 minutes, read or listened to.

1. The Man Who Smoked a Hundred a Day
2. The Easy Method vs. Willpower
3. Why Smokers Really Smoke: The Nicotine Trap
4. The Little Monster and the Big Monster
5. Exposing the Illusions: Stress, Boredom, Concentration
6. There's No Such Thing as a Casual Smoker
7. The Final Cigarette and Never Doubting
8. Free at Last: Life Beyond the Trap