Anyone read Allen Carr’s books about how to stop smoking? Well they work, but it’s hard to explain all these methods to my Taiwanese girlfriend. I’ve tried to find his books in Chinese but I can’t, anyone know where I can find them? Or a stop smoking clinic that uses the method in Taiwan?
you mean this?
A Chinese version of the book “The Allen Carr’s Easy Way To Stop Smoking” is available here:
http://www.books.com.tw/exep/prod/booksfile.php?item=0010496926
But I am not sure how good the translation is and how effective it is for Chinese smokers.
The method (not methods, it’s just one simple method) is heavily relying on explaining how smoking works in order to show the smoker how pointless it is to do smoking. The method should work with every type of smoker regardless of nationality cause the reasons why people smoke are always the same. But language can be a bit tricky, and while Westerners find it usually easy to understand what Allen Carr meant, Chinese speaking smokers might struggle to grasp some of the things he says in his books or a therapist says in a session. If you talk to smoking friends try to avoid talking too much, try to avoid convincing them or persuading them to stop. You can’t force the issue. The more you try to make someone stop the more he/she will resist or he/she might stop only to please you and then later start again or, even worth, smoke secretly. All you can do is reminding smokers that it is actually quite easy to stop when they want to (and when doing it the right way, for example reading Allen Carr’s book) but that it is not going away by itself (it’s an addiction after all).
(Btw. I did work as an Easyway therapist briefly in the past, so if you have any questions about the method, feel free to ask.)
Don’t think there is a clinic in Taiwan. There is one in Hong Kong as far as I know, but not sure whether sessions are held in Chinese or not.
Awesome! Thanks. Kind of a knowitall though, eh? Haha.
That’s okay, I have a question then. How do I get rid of the illusion that I once enjoyed the buzz. He writes that it’s an unpleasant dizzy feeling, but you know kids, we enjoy feeling different than normal. I feel like that’s the only dangerous thing I have lingering in my mind. Right now it’s not a problem, because thirty seconds of buzz for a lifetime of misery is not a good deal, but I would rather get it down to no advantage at all.
If your girlfriend is a smoker and you want her to read the book. I wouldn’t worry about the sentence you previously mentioned. I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have had that ‘dizzy feeling’ for a very long time…
You mean the feeling of suffocation? The feeling of your heart starting to race a bit? I remember that feeling (I did smoke heavily in college). It’s not desirable to me anymore, not now that I am an ex-smoker. The main point that Allen Carr made is that you only enjoy smoking when you are a smoker and that is because you are addicted to nicotine. The enjoyment in smoking lies in the relieve you feel when stopping your “hunger” for nicotene not the dizzy feeling, which in another context would make you panic. Some cigarettes (ultralights for example) don’t give you that dizzy feeling at all, others (like some French cigarettes without filter) give you much more, but it’s never about that, it’s always about stopping the craving for nicotene, which is a physical sensation every smokers experiences.
And no, I don’t know it all. I know a lot about smoking because I did the therapist training and did a lot a research on the subject, that’s all.
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Great book. I read it twice and then quit. I liked it because it just explained everything without bias. Didn’t want any sort of addiction to win over me as I can be very competitive and enjoy challenging myself. Cigarettes were not doing me any good, and being a smart, educated person, I felt it would be too cheap and easy for nicotine to win this addiction game. 
Same here, but I hated even more the thought that those executives of the big cigarette companies would win over me. I just had to imagine one them in the back of a big limousine, probably a non-smoker himself, passing me and laughing at me while I was standing at some entrance on the pavement, maybe in the cold, maybe in the rain, getting my nicotene fix.
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Just so everyone knows, I sent that link to my girlfriend and she happily agreed to read the book, which is great news.
Ill have to get one of those books because I cant use the excuse of them being too expensive anymore after moving here, I was paying the equivalent of 350NTD back in the UK for a pack.
Well. . . I don’t like it much,but I smoke.
That being said, and no criticism is needed, Taiwan law forbids smoking in “public places” and “waiting areas”. OK. got it. The library is off limits, along with classrooms and the other obvious candidates for the rule of law. However, how about my private home, a park, a red light on my scooter, the sidewalk and for another example, my private student’s home and pop smokes. According to what I have read and heard, all are illegal. Of course, you can drink yourself into a blitz according to whatever commercial is popular, but don’t you dare light up. (Dhama someday).
Now why is this so confusing and arbitrary? It’s because neophytes make up these laws with no regard to definitions, directions or legal counsel. Come on Taiwan, I love you but I know you can do better than what you are doing.
Off topic, but how about 5 people on a 50cc scooter and 3 kids with no helmets. I know, I should stop smoking at stoplights and be sure to wear my seat belt in the back of a taxi and be sure to dress and act appropriately on my scooter, ( a true law) don’t turn right on red, etc, etc.
When will the police stop allowing parents to let their kids ride without helmets. And what is the max. I have kept track. So far, the limit of riders and driver is 6. Isn’t that enough to warrant a stop? Sometimes when I go home, I get waved into a police stop. No tickets because I simply know better, as should you. But, they must most certainly catch a shit load of stupid parents. I never hear about it. Why? It should be front page news for discouragement.
Ya know, not long ago, there was an emphasis on pollution prone scooters. Take a pic and get a reward! How about the same policy for kids with no helmets? I don’t much give a shit for the parents. I’ just hope they are taken out of the gene pool. JMHO.
Are you saying that smoking laws are more enforced than other laws or is this just a general rant about the lack of or the arbitrarity of law enforcement? I don’t know which law of those concerning people in everyday life should be enforced first. Preventing people from running red lights comes to mind first, ensuring the safety of children in traffic, stopping illegal construction work in apartment buildings (leading to all sorts of nuisances, like the upstair neighbor’s broken water pipe above our kitchen…), and so on.
Smoking. I am not sure whether smokers should be seen as victims or offenders. On the one side it’s our own choice to start smoking and light up a cigarette each time. There might be peer pressure, but I don’t think a lot of smokers are forced to smoke. On the other hand it is an addiction and once we are addicted we are kind of forced to do it, even if we believe it is our own choice and we enjoy it. Anti-smoking laws are kind of both directed at the victim and the offender, trying to help the victims to stop by making it harder to smoke on the one side and trying to protect non-smokers from the smoke of the offenders on the other side. As a happy ex-smoker I welcome any measure that makes the air around me less smoky. I wouldn’t mind if people in my apartment building would refrain from smoking in their bathrooms, cause some of the smoke goes to the ventilation system into my bathroom, which is very annoying. These are different times. 50 years ago everyone was smoking everywhere. People have learned. Humanity has advanced. I think smokers, especially older ones, should come to the realization that smoking get’s you nowhere where you want to be. Overall (physically, mentally, socially) you feel worse than you would if you were a non-smoker. The earlier you rid yourself of smoking the better.
Yeah I can honestly say I did not like people smoking indoors even when I was a smoker, especially in their apartments. If you think anyone has a problem with smoking at a stoplight or any other reasonable place, though, you are just making up stuff to complain about. The law is nice, because it’s not actually enforced so if you really feel like you should be able to smoke (like in a bar) then it’s fine and nobody cares. At the same time you can’t smoke in the elevator like in China, which is super annoying, even for the poor jerk smoking it.
Is smoking in public now illegal in Taiwan ?
Indoors. Outdoors they specifically ban certain areas
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