Review: Allen Carr's Easy Way to Control Alcohol

Allen Carr's Easy Way to Control Alcohol by Allen Carr
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I read Allen Carr's How to Stop Smoking over 20 years ago - and did. So when I wanted to cut back on my alcohol I thought this would be the ideal book.

Unfortunately, I came to the conclusion that just repeating something in a domineering tone of voice does not make it true. I fundamentally disagreed with some of the things that were said which meant I didn't 'get' the message - and my only recourse is to keep rereading the book until I agree :(

Given this is not a new book I think I am safe to say the central premise of the book is that alcohol is poison. No-one in the history of the world has ever liked the taste of alcohol at first but we force ourselves to get used to it because 90% of people drink alcohol (which I am not sure is a valid statistic, but whatever). Either you are on the slippery slope to addiction and losing everything or you are only drinking to fit in with society (gran who only has a sherry at Christmas). AA is wrong to say you are an alcoholic for life but in fact everyone is addicted and we are just lying to ourselves - again the argument is that saying things like 'I can take it or leave it' means you are addicted because why wouldn't you leave it seems like a fallacy - I can take or leave fillet steak, my husband loves it so we eat it more often that I would choose but I don't hate it and on a rare occasion I do fancy a fillet steak and will order it/cook it. That doesn't mean I am addicted to fillet steak.

Also saying that we have to dilute the taste of neat alcohol to make it more palatable (because its poison) is like saying diluting anything concentrate is wrong.

Then he says that no-one can tell the difference between cheap and expensive alcohol (and we are all just pretending/snobs) fundamentally misses the point and suggests his taste buds are seriously deficient - like it or loathe it different wines/spirits taste different and can change again when paired with food. I think if you substitute the word pepper (or maybe chilli) for alcohol in this book you would see that many of his arguments would apply equally.

He seems to argue that if you don't drink all the time (eg when driving) then why would you drink at all - it must be because you are actually an alcoholic you just don't know it. Now I don't ascribe to the belief that alcoholics have something different in their make-up to so-called 'normal' people which makes them addicts and others not, but this argument seems equally as odd.

Finally, he seems to say this can completely cure you of ever wanting to drink alcohol again, immediately, you will no longer be an addict, no cravings (or if there are you are fooling yourself), yet you must never have another drink. Allen Carr references the tale of The Emperor's New Clothes in this book and for me this felt like a similar thing - if you don't believe then you are fooling yourself like the Emperor.

Overall, not convinced.

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