The Easy Way to Stop Smoking

What Hacker News says

1. telesillaJun 2026
   I disagree about the filler. People who read self help books are there for the journey, to feel they too can take on the challenge. Otherwise that brief document about how to fix yourself becomes something without substance, that can't be attached to real changes that are needed.

   The most effective self help books I can recommend are Easy Way to Stop Smoking, which needs all the preamble to get the message to your addicted brain, and Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. I'd posit that reading just one of his entries doesn't leave you with a lifetime commitment to stoicism.

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2. projektfuApr 2026
   It's a restriction on liberty but not an unjustified one. I agree that it gives cigarettes a "mystique" that they do not deserve to have one generation able to smoke if they like while another generation has to go outside the law to do so.

   When I was a smoker, I used to decry places that were less liberal about where I was allowed to smoke, and places with high taxes. As a former smoker, I know that the high taxes have enabled a lot of people to stop, and the restrictions got to a point where smoking was less "cool" and more "pariah" behavior. These influences helped me stop.

   If you didn't read "The Easy Way to Stop Smoking", go do so, and smoke/vape no more.

   If everyone appreciated how little value they receive from tobacco/nicotine and how easy it really is to quit, there would be no market.

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3. lanfeust6Jun 2025
   > Getting out of the physical fat trap, strictly speaking, is simple:

   Because it's CICO. Focusing on whole-foods can make you resistant to undesirable weight-gain, but losing substantial amounts of weight requires caloric restriction in some form or another. That isn't easy to adhere to, it needs to be done in whichever way is the most sustainable. Low-hanging fruit is to boost protein and fiber at higher-than-normal amounts for satiety.

   All of the programs/diets that don't have you track calories are just tracking something else as a stand-in, obfuscating restriction. If you go low-carb and hit a wall, what are you going to do next, cut out negative carbs? If you go low-fat, will you cut out fat that's no longer there?

   > The notion of two traps, a physical trap and a mental trap, comes from Allen Carr’s fantastic Easy Way To Stop Smoking. He states, quite convincingly, that there is a physical aspect to smoking (nicotine addiction) and a mental aspect to smoking (feeling that you need it).

   I think Carr's perspective is very strong advice for kicking a bad habit. However, "emotional" and/or binge-eating may benefit from more targeted therapy.

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4. aziaziaziApr 2025
   Congrats!

   I’m 50% of Allen Carr’s book [0] and it feels very promising.

   0 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Easy_Way_to_Stop_Smoking

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5. oh_sighJan 2024
   You can use the same techniques that other people use for other addictive things. Try browsing through a copy of Allen Carr's "The Easy Way To Stop Smoking", and then apply those lessons to social media or whatever your addiction is.
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6. antiframeNov 2023
   I once read a book called 'The Easy Way to Stop Smoking' and, as advertised, after finishing it I haven't had a cigarette or craving since. It was literally like magic and it's worked for two of my friends as well.
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