When a mysterious package addressed to me turned up at work, a curious audience surrounded my desk to watch me open it. Not without some trepidation, I pulled out Allen Carr's Easy Way to Control Alcohol, amid sharp intakes of breath, and some titters. "Is there something you want to tell us?" asked a colleague. Wiping away the beads of sweat that had gathered on my forehead, I tried to laugh it off as a practical joke but the damage was done. So what does Allen Carr have to say about the demon drink? Mostly the same thing over and over. Regardless of whether his Easyway method really works for alcoholics, which is mostly reverse brainwashing and the smashing of popular illusions, I want to draw attention to his terrible writing style. It's heavy handed, bullying, patronising, and extremely repetitive. My main issue with Carr is his perpetual boasting at having found the cure for essentially everything in life. This is evident from a cursory glance at his bibliography. Go on, Google it!
I haven't read his Easy Way to Stop Smoking, the book which, along with his clinics, propelled him to fame and fortune. I can assume that he adapted his method slightly for alcohol, but the general premise remains the same. He sets about identifying the reasons why people drink before exposing them as sham excuses, yet I found his core argument works on gross over-generalisations and simplifications. He remains adamant that only his method is the correct way to stop drinking, insisting that those who try to abstain using willpower alone are doomed to failure. He adopts the allusion of a giant pitcher plant which all drinkers have fallen into. Their fate is to slide lower and lower down the walls of the plant, becoming more hopelessly entangled the more they drink from the deceptive nectar. Chronic alcoholics are merely deeper into the plant than a teenager trying his first beverage. The image is fun, if a little macabre, but it does little to explore the complexities of the drink culture phenomenon. He also seems to gloss over what is perhaps the biggest cause of alcohol consumption: peer pressure. Can he really believe people drink booze because they're thirsty?
Allen's method does have some merit. The success rate of his therapy is supposedly 90%, so it must have practical implications. However, I found that much of what he writes is merely common sense, not the big secret he wants credit for. Despite his best intentions, he is writing for a very particular audience, namely the down and out businessman who values job, family, house, and car as the key to happiness and success. He frequently writes his own fallacies, such as the preposterous statement that humans are the only species that learned to cry, and that an ostrich buries its head in the sand when afraid. I stuck with the book to the end, but he lost me completely when he claimed that only fools or people with vested interests in the wine industry would believe that vintage wines taste better than others. For Allen, all forms of alcohol are equally abhorrent, and the discerning drinker is someone with more money than common sense. He also misleads us with the title of the book. It soon becomes clear that we will never be clear of the trap unless we quit alcohol completely, and there can be no drinking in moderation. Depressing thought? Allen would tell me to reread the book and open my mind more.
And let us not forget: YOU WERE NEVER IN CONTROL.
Rating: 1/5
I haven't read his Easy Way to Stop Smoking, the book which, along with his clinics, propelled him to fame and fortune. I can assume that he adapted his method slightly for alcohol, but the general premise remains the same. He sets about identifying the reasons why people drink before exposing them as sham excuses, yet I found his core argument works on gross over-generalisations and simplifications. He remains adamant that only his method is the correct way to stop drinking, insisting that those who try to abstain using willpower alone are doomed to failure. He adopts the allusion of a giant pitcher plant which all drinkers have fallen into. Their fate is to slide lower and lower down the walls of the plant, becoming more hopelessly entangled the more they drink from the deceptive nectar. Chronic alcoholics are merely deeper into the plant than a teenager trying his first beverage. The image is fun, if a little macabre, but it does little to explore the complexities of the drink culture phenomenon. He also seems to gloss over what is perhaps the biggest cause of alcohol consumption: peer pressure. Can he really believe people drink booze because they're thirsty?
Allen's method does have some merit. The success rate of his therapy is supposedly 90%, so it must have practical implications. However, I found that much of what he writes is merely common sense, not the big secret he wants credit for. Despite his best intentions, he is writing for a very particular audience, namely the down and out businessman who values job, family, house, and car as the key to happiness and success. He frequently writes his own fallacies, such as the preposterous statement that humans are the only species that learned to cry, and that an ostrich buries its head in the sand when afraid. I stuck with the book to the end, but he lost me completely when he claimed that only fools or people with vested interests in the wine industry would believe that vintage wines taste better than others. For Allen, all forms of alcohol are equally abhorrent, and the discerning drinker is someone with more money than common sense. He also misleads us with the title of the book. It soon becomes clear that we will never be clear of the trap unless we quit alcohol completely, and there can be no drinking in moderation. Depressing thought? Allen would tell me to reread the book and open my mind more.
And let us not forget: YOU WERE NEVER IN CONTROL.
Rating: 1/5
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