Episode 2 featuring Global Superstar Comedian - Nikki Glaser

Episode 2 all of the Allen Carr's Easyway podcast features the  Dr. Charles Nel who is one of the longest serving Allen Carr practitioners having started 23 years ago. Dr. Charles Nel talks about his experiences as a smoker, how he came across Allen Carr's Easyway and how he successfully quit smoking using the book. Dr. Charles Nel then started his franchisee in South Africa and he shares his experiences of his activities there. We also have the amazing Nikki Glaser who is talking more with Natalie Clays about her understanding of smoking and drinking since she changed her way of thinking having used the Allen Carr programme and finally in this episode we have our regular feature, the Addiction Central segment answering questions from listeners with queries about the method. 

If you’d like your questions answered drop us a line on pod@allencarr.com with whatever you’d like to say or any questions that you have.

Transcript

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What was so interesting to talk to you about today was reminding myself why these books worked. Because it has been so long since I read these books. It was 2009 for the smoking one. I haven’t drank since 2011 for the drinking one. I haven't needed to read the books again. Hi and welcome back. This is the second episode of the Allen Carr’s Easyway Podcast. My name's Colleen Dwyer. I'm a senior Allen Carr’s Easyway therapist. I'm the presenter of our series of online video programs and I'm your podcast host. You’ll get to know me more as we work through the podcast episodes. In the meantime, I'm going to tell you more about what you can expect from today's episode. So we have the second part of our interview with the amazing A-list comedian Nikki Glaser, and she talks more about how she quit smoking with Allen Carr’s Easyway and then also later went on to quit alcohol with our program. Nikki is a standup comedian and she's also brilliant actress, podcast radio and television host and the star of the 2022 reality show Welcome Home, Nikki Glaser. The first part of this interview with Nikki was in our first episode, and this is the continuation. It's also great to be joined by Dr. Charles Nel, who is one of the longest serving Allen Carr’s practitioners, having started 24 years ago. Dr. Charles now directs all seminar activities across South Africa and he is supported by his fabulous team in South Africa. And we spoke about his experiences as a smoker, how he quit smoking and his Allen Carr journey. As always, we have our Addiction Central segment with regular contributor John Dicey the CEO of Allen Carr’s Easyway, who is coauthor of Allen Carr Books and an senior Allen Carr’s Easyway Therapist. And he has helped literally millions of addicts to freedom over the last 25 years. John and I will be answering questions from listeners who have specific difficulties or queries about the method. And we'd love to hear from you about how you've been successful with the method, but also if you've struggled or failed. So drop us a line on pod@allencarr.com with whatever you'd like to say or any questions that you have. That’s pod. p o d at a l l e n c a r r dot com. And we look forward to hearing from you and we could be answering your question in the next episode. And remember, the segment is called Addiction Central. So that means that we're happy to answer any questions that you have about any addiction. And even if we don't actually feature your question in a future episode of the podcast, we will personally reply to every single question we receive, providing you with detailed advice and guidance. So don't forget, get in touch on pod at Allen Carr dot com and do also check out allencarr.com and see the host of Addictions and Issues, that Allen Carr’s Easyway has now been apply to. So here I am talking with Dr. Charles Nel I am Dr. Charles Nell and I used to be a dentist and I had a dental practice in London and I smoked 40 a day only because I had to do 8 hours worth of dentistry a day. On the weekends it was more, but I was a committed smoker. And then I remember getting hold of Allen Carr’s book and reading it in a nutshell, stopping it. It was at that time that I saw that started clinics open in various countries. One was Holland. And as much as I had a very good practice in Chiswick, I didn't enjoy the industry. It really just became about the money for me. And I applied for the franchise in South Africa for Allen Carr to do the clinics from Robin Haley and I came back to South Africa. I think the end of 97 and I was successful in terms of the application round about 1999 or possibly a little bit early before that. But I started clinics in 1999 in South Africa and long story short, I was the the master franchisee for the region, South Africa. And it was slow to begin with the but of course I was committed to the project and certainly the solid belief that the easiest and best way to stop smoking was using Allen Carr’s Easyway. I then started applying to Discovery Vitality in South Africa, which was the insurance company that had 80% of the market. And it was clear that if I was going to do anything in South Africa to become a member of them or partnered with them, and the application to get to speak to them to become a partner took a number of years, but eventually became partnered with them. The market itself started to grow and it grew. I think at one point in South Africa we were doing possibly the third or fourth largest numbers in the whole organization, and the organization subsequently got much bigger worldwide. And I've continued to do those sessions very enthusiastically because I think I found my I found my, my vocation. I liked being a teacher and certainly teaching something that I believe in and that I believe is a is a fantastic product, is a wonderful motivation. So I continue to run clinics in South Africa and we have been doing them here in South Africa for over 23 years. That's where I started and that's how come I'm still an Allen Carr therapist and enjoying every minute. I must tell you. Now, actually, how old are you when you started Charles? I started smoking committedly when I was in the army, the infantry, when I was 17, and that's when I became a hardened smoker. Prior to that was just weekend smoking. My mother was very strict. She wouldn't let me smoke, but certainly I thought to myself, if I'm old enough to go to the army, I'm old enough to smoke. And that's what I did. Yeah. And what was that in South Africa then? Yeah. During during my youth we had conscription where the children were required to go to the army to go and fight in the war between Angola and the insurgents that were trying to take over south east Africa. So we were in South Africa involved with a Vietnam like situation, obviously not with the same level of casualties at all, but it was what happened to the youngsters at the time. But fortunately, all gone now. And I'm happy to say South Africa have become independent. And you played your part in that. So that's good. Well, a very, very small part I spent most of my time hiding in a hole in the ground and hoping I could go home. If I'm truthful. Ahh bless you. So then, gosh. So you were smoking for how many years? Well, I would say from 17 to the age of about 33, but I became a heavy smoker because effectively if I was awake, I was smoking, and if I wasn't smoking I wasn't happy. What I do remember about smoking is I ran a private dental practice in Chiswick, in London. And you imagine as a dentist quite difficult to smoke. But I was quite innovative in my my attempts to get around the problem and one of them was to smoke with a pair of pliers so my hands wouldn't smell and it was always outside with the smoke drifting away from me and obviously with masks. And as soon as you if your clothes don't smell of smoke and your hands don’t smell of smoke and you're wearing a mask and you brush your teeth, the clients, even non-smokers, are quite comfortable and as soon as you put a pair of gloves into someone's mouth they couldn't smell anything anyway. They just feel the gloves. So I managed it then. But no, I was very, very deeply in the trap and I had accepted I would spend the rest of my life smoking and I had a great perception that I enjoyed every puff. Yeah. What were the ones that you thought you'd be like.. really, that you'd really miss? I kind of thought I would miss every one of them, but the ones I thought I enjoyed the most really were after meals. And I think the reason was if you’ve had something that tastes lovely in your mouth and then smoke a cigarette, the cigarette tastes far better. So with anything that affected the taste of the cigarettes they were they were the ones I thought I’d miss the most. But I really if someone said to you, Which one are you going to miss the most? I would have just said all of them. I was that frightened to be without cigarettes. And yet in the event after meals you were fine and it wasn't an issue and you didn't need them or miss them. In terms of whether I missed them after I stopped, it was, I think, just the fact that I never smoked since about 19.. 1993 is a testament to the fact that I've never had a desire or craving to smoke because I'm the kind of personality that if I did get a craving to smoke, I would smoke. But I never have. I've never missed them. And just when I saw I wonder, I'm wondering whether it's my experience or all the years I spend reading Allen Carr. But whenever I think about myself smoking, I just feel overwhelmingly relieved that somehow I was able to learn how the trap worked from Allen because once you understand how the trap works and that it really is possibly the most sophisticated con trick on the planet, then I think is when you can become truly free and never think about smoking and you never miss it at all. So like Charles, when you were a smoker, so you smoked about 40 a day and you came across the book, were you just like browsing in the bookshop or did someone kind of say, ‘Hey, Charles, give this a read.’ It was a charming lady Doctor in Chiswick I was still in England at the time. And she said to me, ‘Well you're overweight and you smoke too much’ and obviously she said, ’Well, why don't you try Allen Carr's book To Stop Smoking?’ I thought it was very funny, but I ended up in an airport and I was trying to kill time and there was this book and I picked it up. What intrigued me about it was that in the front of the book it said, You must not stop smoking. And I thought, Well, here we go. This is the book the lady talked about or the doctor and I've got a flight and I was flying to South Africa. I'll buy the book and I will read it, and at least by that time, be telling my wife I was attempting to stop smoking cause I had no intention of stopping whatsoever. I really enjoyed smoking. I had no problem with being a smoker. I read the book and at some point I managed to smoke my last cigarette on the airplane and of course I never smoked again. And that is how I started with Allen Carr. And I subsequently used to buy books and give them to all my smoking friends and a number of them stopped and a number of them didn't read them because as you know, there's a lot of fear with stopping smoking, but certainly I found them an integral part of my life and anytime I met a smoker. And it was then that I discovered he started to do clinics and then I felt that this has got to be what I would like to do for the rest of my life. And it turns out I was right. So do you remember how you felt on having that final cigarette and how you felt when you when you quit? I have spent a bit of time thinking about why I smoked. And like most smokers, I've managed to work out what I thought was going on. To read Allen's book and to find out factual what was going on - was an enormous revelation and it was the... myths about what I believed about smoking were destroyed. And certainly that is the beauty of his method. And I think that for the vast majority of smokers, if you start to understand, understand factually why all these supposed benefits that smoking provides are illusions and how that comes about, then the fear of stopping goes. And so when I extinguished my last cigarette the fear of stopping had gone. And that is what the Allen Carr method does it removes the fear of stopping and removes the desire to smoke. And so I was confident and relieved when I smoked my last cigarette. I think I know the answer, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Charles Did you get like any cravings? Did you like miss cigarettes? Did you have to, you know, use some willpower to quit? Fascinating to find that, because I was thinking about the withdrawal in the right way every time I got an empty feeling, which I think is mostly what people get called cravings, I understood what it was just realized it wasn't painful and I thought it extraordinarily easy and basically confirmed what Allen in his book had said, which I had fun. I couldn't really expect it to be so, but it was so. And I found it easy and enjoyable, just like he did, and simply because I understood what was going on. And so no, it was ridiculously easy, in fact, because I had tried many times to stop before having said I was committed smoker, I still tried to stopped and managed to stop once for six months. and it was a miserable. So, a revelation, but factually right. And you thinking about it the right way. The withdrawal is easy and a joke and nothing to be frightened of. I was going to ask you as well, based on your dentistry background, because we get a lot of people come along who've been recommended by the dentist. So what how does smoking impact your your dental issues? Well, the smoking is a major problem in all health areas, but specifically in dentistry, because notwithstanding the issue of staining, which is what the people see, smoking interferes with the bone health around teeth and 90% of teeth are lost because of loss of bone. So if you want to keep your teeth and of course now in living for 100 years, you want to keep your teeth lifelong. And it certainly is easy specifically with the way we can restore teeth. And now when you've lost them, you can replace them with implants. But bone health is paramount for good dental health, and one of the number one enemies for undermining bone health is smoking. So that's why dentists are very, very keen to prevent that in terms of trying to as the number one attack on making the dentition as long lived as possible among smokers. So like from when we first started doing the seminars and the operation in South Africa to now 23 years later, like have you seen the attitudes to smoking in South Africa shift or not much? I think if I had to answer the question about how attitudes have changed in South Africa towards smoking over 23 years, I would have to say my experience is that it doesn't matter what happens around nicotine addicts or smokers. The dynamics of the addiction remain the same. So people are addicted to nicotine, have a belief that they need the drug, and they also have a fear that they will never be happy without it. That remains constant. So I am of the belief that no matter what governments, countries and fashion do, nicotine addiction is fundamentally the same today as it was 100 years ago. And I think that's a common truth, and that's been my experience of 23 years. Brilliant. And what I was going to ask you, why did you think you'd be doing now if you hadn't have quit smoking? I, I would not absolutely not have been doing dentistry. I do think possibly I would have been doing some kind of business. But I, I've often wondered why I like doing Allen Carr’s so much. I must say that the logistical side became an irritation because in South Africa because the the people that can afford Allen Carr are so thinly distributed there are only 6 million of them. We were doing a lot of traveling, specifically flying and I found that very difficult. But I understood that one of the reasons that I enjoy doing Allen Carr so much is that I think it's just, you know, you get your life long, vocational teachers. And I think that I am a teacher. And if you can teach something that you know a lot about and that you believe in, then it becomes enjoyable. And I would like to emphasize, I don't think smokers have changed things around them might have changed, but people are going to continue thinking you can't live without cigarettes and nicotine is what we manage. And the removal of the fear of stopping and changing that view is what we manage. And well, I'm afraid we have to not afraid. I'm happy to say Allen Carr was the person that managed to make make sense of the con trick and to see the true simple fact, and that is what we're teaching our clients and that's what's made us the most successful in the world. So I really have enjoyed that. Charles Just like hearing about how it worked for you and your experience in quitting smoking and then running the operations in South Africa and your stint in the Army. I didn’t know that. So that was good to know. I see you with new eyes now. Yeah, well, I was I was the best hider in the hole in the ground. And I'm surprised they didn't leave me there in fact. Well, thank goodness they didn’t so you can do the work you do in South Africa. Yes. No. Well, I feel blessed. Blessed and privileged to have been part of the Allen Carr organization for so long. And I'm currently in good health. And I must say that if it wasn't inspiring and I didn't enjoy it then I wouldn't do it, and so I feel thank you to Allen and to all of you and the worldwide organization. I'm greatly honored to be part of it and for so long as well. And I don't see that changing in the next relevant years for me because of the enjoyment I get from it. Thank you so much, Charles. I really enjoyed our chat and here is Natalie Clays talking with Nicky Glaser. Hi there. I'm Nikki Glaser. I'm comedian and I also am a non-smoker and non-drinker because of the Allen Carr Easyway method. What was so interesting to talk to you about today was reminding myself why these books worked. Because it has been so long since I read these books. It was 2009 for the smoking one. I haven’t drank since 2011 for the drinking one. I haven't needed to read the books again. It works like that. It's something I have to re-up and revisit and struggle with the no no checking-in every day like, in AA you've got to check-in every day. Its torture. It's it's not a program. I have to keep up. And that is what I love about it so much. And that is why I think people just need to give it a shot. What have you got to lose? You'll get your money back if you do a seminar. It's a six hour seminar on Zoom yet. I mean I wish there would have been seminars on Zoom when I quit, but you know, the book for me I zipped through it. I buy it I bought that book - you guys owe me - I bought that book for so many people. Whenever I go to my Amazon, the first thing is like Allen Carr book and it's like because I bought it for so many people that I mean I go, let me just buy it for you have it on your shelf for when you're ready. I know you're not now and you think you want it, but just the second your daughter maybe cries to you about maybe quitting, pick the book up and just start reading and you can smoke while you read it. I mean - what? There's no excuse not to do it. The only excuse is you might quit and that fear of quitting. But I promise you, whatever you're imagining... your fear... your life being without cigarettes it's it's not what you're going to imagine you're actually.. You're imagining that plane ride you take in the whole time you're craving a cigarette You're picturing that your life after quitting smoking is going to be that plane ride that you recently took that you couldn't smoke during. It's not going to be that you're not going to be white knuckling it. Freedom. This is like freedom from a drug that controls your life that you've clinging on to. And this is actually freedom where you don't even have to think about it. You don't have to think about it. And you're actually, like, happy. You're you're not like, I can't have a cigarette, you're like, I'm non-smoker again.. Which you were before you had your first cigarette bitch. Sorry to call you bitch But you if people go, no, I'm a smoker. You were not born a smoker. Yeah, maybe your mom smoked while she's pregnant, but that, you know, that's not your fault. You didn't come out craving a cigarette so you can return to that place that you were normal. Basically, you're getting back to normal. A normal. A normal is being a non smoker. And cigarette companies want you to think it's hard. That is part of their propaganda. So when you tell yourself it's too hard, i can't quit all the times you quit before and tried to and you failed and you feel like a failure because it's hard. It's hard. It's because you were using the wrong methods and you were using methods surreptitiously developed by cigarette companies to make you convinced that to keep you hooked on nicotine. nicorette, the patch. They don't want you to quit. They want you to be dependent on the patch and the nicorette gum. How are they going to stay in business if you aren’t hooked on gum the rest of your life? We all know someone who chews gum incessantly, which I used to be addicted to gum just to prevent whatever compulsive behavior. I mean, being addicted to anything. You're going to be a slave to it. This is really going to release you. How do you guys make money? Because people don't keep coming back. No, we don’t want repeat clients. That's it. We don't want repeaters. There's enough smokers, though, that you guys, I think, have enough clientele out there. And I think it's still 34 million in America. In America, 34 million Yeah. And they're so ashamed at this point. I mean, there's you you know, people used to smoke inside and it was okay on planes. And now you walked on the sidewalk and you're like, buddy, you don't even walk past the sidewalk. I mean, smokers are living in a world where it is not making them more social. I remember that part of the book that's like if you think smoking cigarettes is like a thing you do with your other smoker friends, it's become more social. If you really look at it, you're leaving the party to go smoke. You're leaving. I smell bad. You’re conscious of the smoke? All of the people. Yeah. Constant worrying about how I smell, how my car smells, how my hands smell. Constantly, you know, worry about how many cigarettes do I have left? How do I get to the how do I get my these people I'm driving with to stop at 7-Eleven, but they don't know that it's stopping for cigarettes because that's embarrassing. So I'll make up another need that I need to get this thing. It's like it's constant lies. Planning, it's planning and it's consuming and you've just you just you've got to. It's it's consuming. Yeah. And so there is another way. If you haven't heard about the Allen Carr method before, I hope you try it out. It's essentially not talking about all the reasons not to do it, because we know we've seen the pictures of the lungs. We know the cancer. We know all the things the surgeon general's warning that's not doing enough for us. It's it's targeting. Why do you do it? And then looking examining that a little bit more closely, because usually you're hearing from nonsmokers, why do you want to do it? And you go, well, you don't understand because you don't do it. And so, yeah, I think that was the thing that sort of working for me. I do remember though, reading the smoking book and feeling the urge to smoke, going away, you know, like as I read it and it freaked me out because I was suddenly like, I'm not ready. I had to put it down because I felt I felt my urge to smoke or my desire to smoke going away. And I didn't. It was too scary to me. So I put the book down and I waited until I knew that I was really wanting to be done because I was like, this shit works. Oh no, I feel it working and I don't like it. I'm just too scared and I had to step away from it because I, I knew something magical was happening where it was like, nothing shocking. Nothing's like scaring me straight. It's not like, oh, it was just a subtle thing of, like, I just don't really want a cigarette and it was like, ‘Oh no, wait! What does that mean for my future?’ I think that's the thing is people just need to be a little bit more open minded that your way there might be another way. There’s even a money back guarantee I mean.. That was his first kind of thing that he did differently is that if this book doesn't work for you, I'll pay you back. Well, the seminar’s the money back. Okay. But basically, I mean, the reason we do it is, nobody wants the money back, but it's a way you can try without risk. It's like saying, Hey, you've got nothing to lose by giving it a go. You can't lose. Yeah. So it's not about.. nobody wants the money back really but it's risk free. Though I get that like I think that sometimes I would maybe be reluctant to try something that is I know is the way that's going to work. Because what if it doesn't work? Then it's my last. Hope. That kind of thing. That's how I felt when I went. I was I was terrified because, like, I tried everything else and I just thought, my goodness, if this doesn't work, I'm done like that. Yeah. Kind of added this extra layer of panic and worry about it. But what's the thing that you keep with you? Because I think there's so much information that you get and different people keep different images that you guys evoke, different kind of just on brainwashing, like moments where you just go, Oh, this thing. I think the whole time that's not true. Is there something that stays with you that you get from the seminar that you went to that kind of stays with you more than other things going? Well, I don't even remember. Because it was such a non event that you just had it. It was such a nonevent. It was like on the one hand, it was completely life changing. You know, it changed it changed my life. I mean, I live in America now because of Allen Carr’s Easyway. I'm here with you now. I'm here with Nikki Glaser because I smoked and because of Allen Carr. So it was kind of like a huge event, but a real nonevent. And it's not one thing I remember them saying that even stuck with me. I just remember leaving and being a bit feeling a bit dazed and a bit lost as it just kind of processed. And then as a days went by and I still thought about smoking, I just couldn't think of one good reason. Yes, I'd like why would I want to do that? How great is it, though? And I think this is one of my favorite things about the book, the seminars is that you don't have to quit before you go. Well, they're not going to ask you to quit on the first day. You can smoke while you read the book. You can drink while you read. I mean, don't be drunk while your reading the books so you can retain it. But the end of the book, if I remember correctly, asked, you know, go have a cocktail, see if you want one. Go for a cigarette, the last cigarette. The seminar, as we currently say, please smoke w’re like please smoke, we want you to smoke. And then at the end of the day, you have, you know, your last one. And by then you're just you're done. You just you've done it because you just can't see any reason to smoke anymore. And there isn't this. That that the feeling that every smoker at every drinker's dreading of like I'm going to be like constantly like this, like I need a drink, I need a cigarette. Like you cannot because you've never been open to this methodology. You don't even understand that you could maybe not be in a chronic place of dread and wanting and just like missing out. And I can't go to parties anymore and people always go to me. People always say to me about drinking, which was a huge hurdle for me to quit drinking. I work in comedy late nights. That's how I'm paid, is in drink tickets like. So I'm going to be at bars, I'm going to be around drunk people. Like how I'm like, Well, how will I be fun anymore? How will I have fun? How will I be fun? How will I how will I have relationships? Alcohol helps me get comfortable enough to even tell a boy I like him. Or, you know, I'm very awkward when it comes to sex and stuff like that. Like alcohol has helped like those situations. And my point that I was make that I got from Allen Carr, is it currently in my act is that alcohol makes you stupider, it doesn't make you brave this whole thing of like liquid courage. It is a that's a complete misconception. Alcohol makes you more stupid. It makes you just it deadened your brain. Over time, if you drink chronically, you will get wet brain. You will become mentally incapacitated. So if if alcohol made you, you know, courageous firefighters would be getting loaded before they ran in the building. And that's highly discouraged. I believe in the firefighter community. They get drunk before they run in a building. But if it gave you courage, why wouldn't we be getting them drunk, too? Why would we get police officers drunk before they run into, you know, to do a hostage situation? It's because it doesn't give you courage. It makes you stupid. And that's why it was easier for me to, you know, say things that I've always wanted to say but I couldn't say more or go on stage. It made me stupider now. And some people go, Well, I need that. I need that to to, to face my fears. What you need to do is face your fears in a way that is not dependent on you, you know, having a traumatic brain injury know that. I mean, like it's crazy that we convince ourselves alcohol does anything except makes us dumber. Do you find Nikki like in your industry do people like raise their eyebrows and question why you don't drink anymore is it like expected of you. Well it's yeah there's a disappointment because I seem cool you know, I seem like someone you'd want to drink with. She's cool, she's fun. She tells the truth. I mean, someone who gets on stage and talks honestly about all the embarrassing things, but that's only something a drunk person would usually do. You don't see people do that unless they they drink normally because why would you admit these things? That's private stuff. Like you only loose lips do that. But I found a way, you know, to access those kinds of, you know, truths and honesty without without alcohol. So people sometimes are like, oh, what about you shot after show? And I go, Oh, I don't drink. And they go, ‘What!’ And there is the disappointment that I feel from them of like, it’s the same thing I get when people think I'm Jewish. Because my I, Glazer and I have a lot of Jewish friends who are like, So you're Jewish? And I'm like, no, I’m not no. Like what? And I'm like, I'm sorry to let you down. I want to be. But it is that same thing of like, I can still but I can still have fun. And I like to prove to people that if people go, How do you have fun? They go, Well, you know, when I'm out drinking with a bunch of people drinking, and the second I'm not having fun, I go home. And then what you realize is that all the times you thought you were having fun, which, by the way, you don't really remember that much, it's not even that clear what you were even talking about or what you were doing. You go, I wasn't really having fun. It was just stupid. Stupid people have fun. I think it's easy to make a dumb person have fun. When you and I just go home and I do something that is fun to me, or I find people that are having different kinds of fun. Yeah, that's normally that.

I think it's like 10: 33:55

00, 10 p.m. is the cutoff of when the people get to that level of drunkenness where it's just like it's it's time to go now and it’s when the sober people, go home. And then I have no judgment of those people. I mean, I think that a lot of people who drink don't want nondrinkers around because they feel like judged about, whereas it's not so much about judgment. I just I get it. I was doing that. It feels good. There's a part of you that feels really good to just let go and get stupid for a while. But I think that once you get comfortable enough with yourself and you realize that the things that alcohol is allowing you to do, dance, be more social, being more comfortable with yourself, that's all achievable without it. It's just you. You haven't you haven't done that. It's uncomfortable that you might have to, you know, go on a date and not drink. Like, what would that be like? But I found myself in so many relationships, sexual relationships that were facilitated by alcohol. And when you took away the alcohol, nothing. I couldn't get to a place where I was attracted to this person. I want to get close to them. And it wasn't because alcohol made like it made me access is part of myself where I was comfortable with them. I just wasn't ever. And I was using this as a tool and when you pare this away you go. We don't have anything except drinking. So do you find that you're much more able to be your natural self without that mask of alcohol that changed you. Yeah, I think that I would find I don't really like when people say that. Oh, the truth comes out in your drink, because for me it was not the truth. I would often tell people and make plans, tell people I loved them, that I didn't love like to girls, that I did not like. I would do the opposite. And I love you so much. Like, why don't we hang out more? And then I have plans that I didn't even wanna make didn't even remember making. I felt like it wasn’t an authentic version of myself and and I hated that I couldn't remember things. And I think that people go, well I don't blackout - you brown out. You don't remember things as clearly. And I think that that was part of that was the real impetus for me to stop drinking was because I was blacking out so much so quickly, because there's a great John Mulaney joke about it that he used to blackout after a couple beers because he was such a bad blackout that his body learned like We know where this is going we're going to shut down early. Like why? Why stay open where we know this is where that's going to end. So I was blacking out after a couple of beers and I was starting to in my sober life, not tell my friends stories because I assumed I already told them when I was drunk because I was getting too many of like you told me that last night. And and they would think like you blacked out, then there would be this judgment. So I found. Myself. Changing my personality when I was sober to compensate for what an idiot I was when I was drunk. And that's when I was like this. It's just becoming too exhausting to keep up with this person that I unleash when I'm drunk. And I don't want I need to she needs to go to bed. Like I just need to get and all of my relationships, all of my romantic relationships were based on drinking and that and a lot of my friendships, I mean, I did I'm not going to say that like, no, all of your friendships will be the same if you quit drinking or quit smoking. If you don't realize how many of your relationships are, just that's all you have in common with that person, which is not a deep friendship. And I think those were the friendships that kind of went away. And it wasn't that. It was like, Oh, I miss them. It just went away gradually. Almost like the desire to drink goes away. It wasn't like there wasn't like I had to put a line in the sand like ‘I can't hang out with you anymore!’ You just don’thave fun with them anymore because you're not drunk and you had to get drunk to have fun with them. So I think for me, I just like to tell people about the Allen Carr method because it's simple. You get to do the thing that you're trying to quit while you read. There is no judge. It's very non-judgmental, it's very loving. It's very like, I don't know. I just found the way that Allen Carr wrote the smoking book. I just felt taken care of. I felt seen. He was a smoker. I didn't feel, I wasn't just I wasn't being admonished for what I was doing. He was understanding, he's empathetic. I think that's a thing as well. Like, you know, every one of us was that person. So we were the smoker or the drinker. I think we've been there. We get it. So there's no judgment. It's like we know what it's like. But we have we've we've all got that experience. And I think it's just so important for if you're out there and you are a smoker or, you know, someone who's a smoker or you know someone who has a problem drinking or vapor. Oh, my gosh. They I mean, vaping is your your latest foray. There's all the phone calls you get now that kids get phone calls. And meanwhile, some kids are like 21 and they're trapped in that already. That how do I get out of that? And vaping is honestly possibly more of a problem because they're not constantly confronted with ‘It smells!’ ‘Oh, you got to go outside.’ People are vaping. I have relationships with people, good friends that have been vaping for years and I don't even know it because you can do it so secretively. And I think that makes it so much more harmful. When you can get away with it, you can do it in public. It doesn't smell. Yeah. So these people are constantly confronted with the shame of being a smoker that, you know, smokers feel because of the smell and the dirtiness of it. And a lot of them say it's worse because the fact they can just do it anywhere, any time, so discreetly, it's it's just this constant thing you know? So you're having just as much success with the vaping program as you have with the smoking. Yeah, I mean the seminars and the seminars.. there's actually been a recent book, and the book is purely just about vaping. So that’s a fairly recent publication, but in the seminars we address both, you know, whether it's.. they’re just different ways of delivering nicotine you know whether it's a cigarette, a vape, Juul, patch, gum these weird tea bags Snus you know - they're just ways of putting nicotine into your body and we kind of make sure that they're all addressed in seminars. In fact last week I think it was two weeks in New York our facilitator said that for the first time ever the majority of people in the class were vapers not smokers. It's changing. It's really good that there is this movement now for, younger kids, to realize that vaping is harmful in its own way. And it was an alternative to smoking that was supposed to be healthier. Books are the things that set me free in my life and I would not be able to have the career I have, the relationships I have if I still drank and smoked. It's just without question that they were I mean, my life is before and after I quit drinking, really. And I wouldn't have been able to quit drinking if I hadn't quit smoking first, and seens how it works. Because you wouldn't have been open to it? or.. No and it's just... Smoking was just made me you know drinking you do it once and every every other night or whatever it is every night. There are times where you're sober and you go, I'm not drinking, so I'm still in control. Smoking is something that you're doing so often that you're constantly beating yourself up. You're in a you're depriving yourself of oxygen. You're just in a bad mood all the time. You don't even know it. So I think smoking, quitting smoking freed up my brain to have the space to even let in the acknowledgment that, you know, drinking wasn't doing much for me either. So you can be a non smoker, you are a non smoker who just happens to smoke. You were born a non smoker, you were born a non drinker and people that drink and smoke still and make you feel like, you know, oh, you've changed. Oh, you're weird now and oh, now you're all spiritual and you think you're better. They're they're they want to quit too. Deep down they do. And you're you're just. And then you have the gift to give that after that. And it's awesome. I'm making no money from this. I have no stake in this. I'm just doing this because it worked for me. And I want other people to be free of it, too. That's it. That's all this is. This is. And I'm not saying this as like I'm just a good person to do this. I'm just saying, like, that's how much how passionate I am about. This I don't I just I don't want anything from I just want you to try it. So please try it or don't. I really don't care. I do care. I want you to be happy, but like, it's not going to change my life if you try it ort not, but it will change yours. Yes, absolutely. So anything else you think we should have? Oh, gosh it works all drugs and work all go to allencarr.com and there's a gosh there's caffeine there's sugar there's debt, there's gambling. There's emotional eating. Yeah. Everything from fear of flying. Flying, yeah. Oh that that's one where people go, ‘Well that's not an addiction!’ You wouldn't think of it. But I, I don't have a fear of flying. But as I've sent so many people that book as well who do have a fear of flying because I'm like, I know this would work. This guy this guy nails it. So try that out. And it's and that makes sense to me because the the fears we have a flying are irrational and they're based on lies we kind of tell ourselves and like, yes. So once you just disprove any fear that they have, like this really isn't going to happen, then you're free of it. Yeah. So yeah, I think people are scared to be free of things. Scared of, yeah. That's, that's good because I think they're giving something up and this will be nothing to give up and that's. There's nothing to give up. I love that that is true because you just don't want to be told you can't have something. We all have that leftover anger from being kids and not being able to like do what we want and have all the candy we want. And so we feel like being told we can't be a smoker anymore. It just like brings up all those feelings again. But I want it and I'm an adult. I can do what I want. It's not going to feel it. No because if you didn't want it, but could have it, which is where we're at. Then it's easy. Like I can have it, but I don't want it. There's nothing good about it. So yeah, it really does work. It really works. So try it. Try it Just try it. This is addiction central. Addiction central. We want to hear your success stories. Answer your questions and provide advice. If Allen Carr’s Easyway hasn’t worked for you, this advice is free of charge. We'll answer every question we receive with no exceptions. Contact us now at pod@allencarr.com Fabulous so we're here. Addiction Central Episode two. How exciting. With Dr. Charles Nel. I spoke to him earlier and the second part of the interview with Nikki Glaser. So, so that was good. Oh yeah. No, it's great to have those guys on. And so we've had quite a few emails in. The more the merrier though, because as we discussed last time, we'll answer all of them. So we might only be able to feature a selection of them on the podcast, but so we had some in after episode one. I decided we should only do sort of first names really. I mean, I did ask, you know, people to say, let us know whether you should we should use your full name or whatever. But just let us know your first name and where you’re from, you know, city and country. That's it's kind of nice to know. So Ray from New York, ‘I'm planning to quit and I've heard Allen Carr says not to substitute how will I know if I'm substituting? Ray doesn’t say, whether it’s alcohol or smoking or cocaine or whatever it is. So we're just I think the advice is the same. Isn't it? What you think? Yeah, I reckon so. It's a really good question actually, because you think well when you when you quit any of these substances, it frees up a whole load of time and resources and what have you. And so you're going to use those in other ways. So you're going to spend your time doing other things. And then you think, Oh, is this a substitution? But of course, no, it's not. It's not substitution. If you're doing something that you genuinely enjoy and you know, you're you're happy to do it. But yeah, you've got to be very careful that you don't start thinking ‘Ah - I'm not allowed to do X, Y, Z, therefore I'm going to treat myself in another way’ That, you know, that is kind of the wrong way of thinking, isn't it? Yeah, that's a that's a funny one isn't because it's not a classic case of substitution. I always think of that as being the lap of honor. You know, people are so pleased they got free where it's smoking or whatever. And they think ‘I've done brilliantly, you know, I'm going have a whatever cream cake to celebrate or whatever else or you know, I've done so well brilliant I deserve a reward, you know, that kind of thing. So that's that's one thing is I think that's quite as long as people are wary of that, you know that's sort of okay. I think the classic substitution is really isn't it. I suppose I can't smoke so I'll have this instead or I can't drink so I’ll have this instead.‘This instead’ would normally involve eating or drinking something. I think most people know. I mean, really a very few sort of accidental sort of cases of substitution. So just do what you normally do. If you normally have a biscuit with a cup of tea, have a biscuit with the cup of tea. It's really if you just notice that you're doing something instead of it, it's worth being aware of that. And funnily enough, it doesn't even have to be a calorific thing either. Sort of. Some people said, Oh, carrot sticks or the most common one I come across within the sort of social media groups we help with. Oh, you know, if I want a cigarette I'm just going to have a glass of water instead. And it's sort of, well, on the one hand you think, ‘What harm can that do?’ But on the other hand, that’s substituting and to substitute it requires someone to think, ‘I can't do this, I’ll do this instead.’ And the fact is that that's kind of willpower. So really the idea is, you know, you might notice you're not smoking any more or whatever drug it is. That's cool. The reaction to it should always be‘That’s great. I feel great !’ rather than,‘Oh, I can't do it, I'll do this instead.’ There's a kind of subtle difference. I think that's where some people do fall down. They're going to come up with this, whether it's a lap of honor or whether it's literally, I can't do this or do this instead, even if it's not calorific, it can create and then perpetuate a feeling of deprivation, you know, that moves us from ‘Great I don't smoke anymore!’ to ‘I can’t have this I’ll have this instead’ and ‘this instead’ kind of never measures up once you're in that frame of mind. Does that sound about right in the sense of cover that quite well I think together we've answered that I think yeah this sort of going sorry. What I was going to say so one of the you know, let's say you have a cigarette or whatever with a coffee. What's really nice when you when you quit smoking is to experience the cup of coffee without the cigarette and so that you can really see that the cigarette didn't do anything to improve the coffee. And you can't really do that as well. If you're having a substitute, you know, like you can't really break those mental associations if you're thinking, Oh, okay, I want to have a cigaret, so therefore I'll have a biscuit or you know, whatever, then you're not really demonstrating to yourself that actually the cigarette didn't do anything, you know, because you're kind of muddying the waters a bit by having a biscuit. That’s a great point as well. Actually, what I found because as well as being a chain smoker, I was always drinking coffee, you know, whatever office I was working, driving, you know, there was a coffee machine in the corner. And what I found was I've actually stopped drinking it, not because it bothered me, but I had no idea that part of the reason I was drinking so much coffee was like, I know it's a medical medically correct term, but it was almost a sort of lubricate the smoking sort of you just smoking so much. It kind of got I had no idea that was what was going on. I just thought I like coffee sort of thing. So. So I didn’t stop drinking coffee. It just kind of went from sort of something ridiculous, like ten cups a day to a cup or something like that. So this is interesting, and I think that's something something for people to keep an eye out that the great changes you go through, which I least. The. End of the day is not life changing ism. But actually I suppose it is if you take ten cups of coffee a day, probably not doing yourself any good really on top of the smoking and everything else. So now that's, that's a good one. And I think there are a few other aspects about substitution that always come up in, in the live seminars. And we put as many of them as we can in the book, in the books as well. So now I think I think we've we've touched on enough there. I think that, you know, good advice, I hope that’s useful for you Ray. Right I don’t know - have we got time for two or three more I thought we could do some quickfire stuff and when we get some feedback that people are going to give us on pod@allencarr.com, you know, people want more in-depth stuff or lots more sort of quick hits. So we'll see how things develop. This is from Patricia from the Algarve in Portugal. Nice. I bought the Allen Carr book, but I've already stopped smoking a couple of weeks ago, I didn't realize you were supposed to smoke or reading it. Would it still help me? That's another good one. One. What do you think? Yeah. Yeah, it's quite a common one. It comes up. Yeah. Because people if they've, they've actually stopped the substance and then one of the first things they read in the, in the book is you must carry on. Then it's like, oh my goodness, what am I or what am I meant to do? And well, we say don't. You've done you've cut the physical supply off. Well I suppose actually John, it depends on how long you've quit for. So Patricia has quit for a couple of couple of weeks. So actually the body's kind of done its job of getting rid of the, the drug and we just kind of got to make sure that the head can catch up with that. So I wouldn't say that Patr petition should start again. That would be unhelpful, but rather just, you know, keep an open mind, rely on your kind of memory of what it was like when you were puffing away in those cigarets. And and you'll be fine. You just need to make the decision at the end and you don't don't actually follow the instruction to have the final one. That's what I would say. John. I think actually spot on. I think you're entirely right. And, you know, tried and trusted over sort of many years this has come up quite frequently. I wouldn't normally say if it's sort of a week or two or whatever. And if you're happy not smoking but just, you know, you you're feeling deprived or whatever, just read the book is. It's great to do that. As you say, ignoring instructions to to carry on smoking or smoke a cigarette thinking about it or whatever at those moments just going, okay, I'm fine. Just just carry on. When it comes to the final ritual or the final cigarette at that point, it's great just to confirm that you've already smoked that. And that applies to all the addictions, whether it's sort of alcohol or cocaine or cannabis or whatever, whatever else it might be. If you've already if you've already got rid of the drug and I just want to tackling the mental aspects of it, we definitely, definitely don't need to take the drug. I think the funny thing is, you know, if somebody, you know, goes to shop, buys a book and on the way home they stub out their final cigarette and then they start reading the book when they get home. I think at that point that's slightly different. And I think there there is a danger of someone, you know, being sort of preoccupied thinking about, well, have I stopped or haven't I did they go through a ritual final cigarette or not? They. So I think I think we'd always I'd always say at that point, look, you had a cigarette an hour ago, you know, carry on for the time being, read the book and and there you go, I think and I say I think that's the the ideal answer to that good anything try to think I think I think that's a question. A question that's perhaps raised sometimes in the live seminars we get because people carry on smoking and stuff during the live seminars, they laugh a little bit and they say, Oh, if you came along for another drug, another seminar do you have to keep taking that drug the whole way through? Do you have a ritual of the final.. ? Though I read you have a ritual of life. They have visions of people just getting sloshed or, you know, whatever in the seminars. But no, you don't. Or some people think it's a bit of a gimmick that we say, ‘Oh, you can carry on smoking the whole way through.’ As though it's just, you know, a fanciful thing, but it does serve a purpose, you know, which is, if someone's a smoker and they're being denied a cigarette then they, it's a very distracting thought process, like you say. And that means that they're not listening to the the content of the of the method. So that's that's really where we're coming from. But we don't encourage you to say drink whilst you're reading the alcohol book because you need to be in a clear state of mind in order to rationalize and make sense of the, the arguments and to kind of think it through. Yeah. Allen and I had a very long discussion about the alcohol because it was it seemed a natural thing to do. Well, we, you know, we smoked throughout the the smoking sessions. So surely the the alcohol seminar should be right and a Cris Hay a senior sort of Allen Carr therapist who is such a big important part of of the alcohol program we all had a great chat about it and I think we were unanimous in the end. We just thought the hang on, these sort of it's too much like a party, people turning up like serving drinks. Now looking back on how long ago was 20 years or something, it seemed like quite a radical thing to do from an Allen Carr point of view saying no, don't drink while you’re doing the alcohol method or even the alcohol book. But time was proven us absolutely right. You know that that's not helpful when people are dealing with alcohol. We say in the book with a book, say carry on drinking until you finish the book, but don't ,, You must read the book sober. So it's not a which you know, somebody can do that an hour or a day or 2 hours a day or 3 hours. That's great. But but really to to once you involve alcohol or anything else, then you're you're not you're not taking on board the information you need to take on. It's a very good point that actually it's you right there again, back in the day when when we both started out as therapists, we used to have smoking in the room. You know, you have 12 smokers in the room and smoking away. And the ventilation was brilliant and sort of smoke. We book it or whatever else. It seems unimaginable now, but it was a real key, important thing because for myself as a smoker, a chain smoker, you know, if I've been told you can't smoke soon as you walked in and feel a red flag, you know, run away. So it was when the laws changed, it was a big move, another big key decision. What should what we should do about that? For a while, we got special dispensation because of what we're doing and treating addiction. But in the end, it was it was really driven by the smokers coming along and they really didn't want to be in smoking rooms anymore. We had special smoking rooms and we found it sort of pretty much all of them were going outside to smoke and we'd introduce smoking breaks as well. I suppose we used to have one break in the middle, if you remember then. But when the smoking breaks came in, that was quite radical. We were so careful of not making any changes because so, so protective of the the success rate. Again, we thought long and hard about it. I thought we have smoking breaks every 45 minutes to an hour. Have people go outside and then come back and start again. And the success rate didn't slip one bit, which was great. So many people thought that, not Allen Carr, but so many clients thought it was some kind of aversion therapy. Yes, smoke loads and loads and loads by 5 hours later you’re like, you're sick of it and won’t smoke again. But that doesn't actually work, I tried that a few times. I was a chain smoker so it's very hard to actually try that because I was already smoking one after another after another. But no let me just check - did we answer that question. Yeah, I think we’ve more than covered that. Okay. We've got time for a couple more. Paul from Evesham, UK. I've read the book twice I've read the book twice now and I'm still smoking. Am I broken? Definitely not, Paul. Don't worry about it at all. It's just some people quit with the book. Some people quit after reading the book ten times. I'd never recommend they do that. I mean, look, I reckon I could’ve read it a hundred times. It wouldn't work for me. I knew there was something in the book as Paul must do is read it and he's sticking with it. Sometimes you just need a little bit more help. I did, and that was in the form of the Life seminar I think we touched on this the last the first episode, so I don't want to go into too much about it. But if nothing else, there are several things I’d advise Paul to do. 1) make sure if you're going to read the book again, get the most up to date version of the book. Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Quit Smoking and it's just it's is there's more in-depth stuff in than in any previous version of the book which which will which is essential really. And that's based on all the years and years of our experience here in the therapy room. The other thing I would say get some advice from us is free of charge. There are certain things we you know, the advice we give to people is all very similar, but we take into account what happened previously from persons that we want to hear. Well, when you previously did the book just not work at all or did it work for a while or whatever. So the more information people give us, the more the more advice we can provide. And we’re just saying to just get that advice, it doesn’t cost anything. It’s easy you can get we can give it via pod@allencarr.com or on the website allencarr.com on this there’s a contact aspect click on that and that and it you answer a questionnaire and we get back to people really quickly. So you’re not broken. Paul You’re absolutely fine if you can’t afford a new book. We’ve still got advice. You know, we’ve really the idea isn’t, oh, you’ve got to buy this or that or whatever. If you want to carry on reading the book, version of the book you’ve got that is absolutely cool the advice is really important and it’s one of those things. It would be better with the latest version of the book that's that's all I’ll say there or you know, take the lazy way, the easy way, literary the Easyway is a live seminar but okay one last thing one last thing from oh I haven’t got the person’s name written down I had it on my phone although I can't really consult my phone while we're doing this and that would be wrong. Well, so I just jotted it all down on a page. How do I stop thinking about it once I've quit? Again this doesn't say whether it's to do with smoking or vaping or alcohol or cocaine or anything like that. But that is a great question, isn't it? What do you say? Well well, it's it's not how much you think about it. It's really it's what you think about it, isn't it. So I mean, obviously we think about it a huge amount considering that this is what we, you know, we've chosen today with all of our working lives. So, yeah I mean, I'm perfectly happy thinking about it because, you know, genuinely, every time I think about all the substances that I've taken in my past and quit with the easy way, I just feel like I'm free of it and I'm happy. I'm happy that I don't have to do it. I feel great. Even like 20 years after quitting smoking, for example, I still get a kick out of the fact that I don't do it anymore. So yeah, bring it on. I'm happy to think about it. I think what the person is saying is that maybe they're having issues with thinking about it and that's a problem, you know. Well, yeah, yeah. There's a quite a lot in, in the emails and in I'm pretty sure I haven't mentioned it. I will give you a give you a shout next week in the next episode. And the interesting thing was they, they’d taken them on board the, what we call the ‘IWAC’ I want a cigarette I.W.A.C. So they had read the most up to date version of the method. But the whole point of that segment is to really explain it. It doesn't matter that you're thinking about cigarettes sort of just something had clicked with them. So and that's quite often where seminars help. It's just, you know, you can ask the question and you get the answer straight away, but it it so the important is to not to try and not to not think about them. Don't try to not think about them, I'll get it right. Because if you do that, you think about them even more. It’s this as simple as that? Allen Carr always used to say, I think we still use the same example. If I say, ‘Don't think about an elephant now’ you're going to think about an elephant. So it's trying not to think about it that causes a problem being comfortable with thinking about it. That's the real key. And to do that, I think as long as you understand why you smoked, why you found it so hard to quit in the in previous attempts and you get nothing from smoking, then it's actually really easy to think about it. That's that's the point where, you know, the habitual thing is interesting isn't it. Know if you, if you get off the bus on your way home from work and you’re always in the habit of lighting a cigarette as soon as you got off the bus then the habitual element of that as you step off the bus.‘Well I'd light a cigarette now’ now at that point rather than worrying about it and thinking.. And that's a really bad thing to think. You just cut yourself a bit slack, I think. Hang on. Great, I'm freeI don't do that anymore and feel good about it. It’s when you think it's a bad sign, it’s when you think that it really means you must want a cigarette that it becomes an issue. So we do talk about a lot of that in the newer editions of the book, the live seminars, the online video program and what have you. So I think that's I think that's a kind of a complete enough answer that you've got nothing more to add. It's just really being comfortable that you're going to think about it. Yeah. And, and a thought isn't a craving, you know, just getting, like you say, that old habitual, you know, memory of a time where you used to smoke. That doesn't that doesn't mean something hasn't worked or like I'm broken or, you know, this, this means I have a deep seated desire to to do. The thing is, it's just an old thought, you know, it's just kind of easy to shrug it off as you would any other old associated thought that you might have when you make a change in your life. So yeah, it's just been cool with it is that. Yeah it takes takes the mind a bit of time to catch up with what's happened and it's no it's no not really any different to and if you move the furniture around in a room I used to do that all the time when I was a kid in my bedroom for the first couple of days, it's a bit weird. You go in there and nothing’s where he thought it was. It it it it it's not a bad thing. It's just one of those things. But while your brain catches up with what's happened. It's okay for the thoughts to come into mind and and and it's how you respond to them that matters. But. Okay, is that is that a wrap? That's a wrap for the second episode. That's fabulous. always want to know about other things. We talked about sort of sound quality, picture quality, whatever else, any feedback, any feedback at that time. Let us know how we can sort of get things performing better and better each week from that point of view and questions, feedback and whatever. Yeah. And if, when people put their questions in, it would be helpful if we knew the substance, you know, their background and the substance of the so we can tailor it. I know the answers are going to kind of overlap regardless, but still it would make it a bit more, you know, bespoke. Yeah. Now there are, there's, there are some differences there aren't they. But I think also it'll help other people sort of how the method works for so many different sort of areas, which is which is great. Well, John. Thank you very much. John, thanks very much. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this episode. So that's Dr. Charles Nel, Natalie Clays, Nikki Glaser and John Dicey. Next time, we'll be speaking with Panos Tzouras. He is another fabulous, Allen Carr’s Easyway practitioner in Greece, and John Dicey will be answering your questions. So until then.