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Often, when examining a problem, the focus tends to be on the problem and not the solution. With smokers, and quitting smoking, as in many other problems in healthcare, the focus tends to be on smokers who fail to quit. Let’s look at the ones who do quit, successfully.

In one study, Catherine Perz et al, timing was an important factor. Pick the fruit when it is ripe. A smoker will be successful quitting when they move from, “I should quit” to “I am quitting, now!”

What this means is that the motivation is now coming from within. It is not about reason and logic; it’s about a feeling. The feeling also moves the smoker into a state of mind called self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is a concept made popular by the psychologist, Albert Bandura. His definition is basically the degree in which someone believes that they can accomplish something or succeed in their desired goals.

In another study, by Carlo DiClemente, he looked at smokers who quit and discovered that the ones who were most successful, called maintainers, were the ones who scored highest on self-efficacy evaluations before the attempt. In other words, those who felt the strongest about their abilities to be successful became successful. I would call this a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What we do in hypnosis is to amplify this feeling of self-efficacy in the individual. The smokers are screened first to guage their degree of determination, which is a way of calculating that the timing is right. Then when the smoker comes in, we take this feeling and turbo charge it into an overwhelming sensation of determination and confidence, which in turn brings on more feelings of satisfaction, relief and pride. These feelings then, in a positive feedback loop,  enhance the feelings of confidence and determination.

The wonderful thing is that once people are able to quit smoking they build a confidence in themselves that brings up their feelings of self-efficacy that spill into other areas of their lives. They start to have the idea that if they can beat smoking; they can take on anything.

The main reason people don’t attempt to quit is that they are afraid that they will fail and that it will be difficult.

“So, what’s the use, if it won’t work out.”  Or, “why torture myself and get all stressed out, if I just end up smoking again?”

Some folks fear that they will gain weight, some feel that they won’t be able to relax or take a break without the cigarettes, or that they won’t be able to enjoy a meal, or concentrate, or socialize…

So here’s the deal. The smoker’s unconscious mind actually thinks smoking is good for them. This is because the unconscious mind connected the positive emotional feelings that were associated with smoking with friends when they started the habit, usually as a teenager. For the teenager, being with the right social group, is the most important thing in the world. The good feelings of being with the in-crowd were connected with the cigarette, while the unconscious mind had to neglect the negative physical signals of the cigarettes. To this day, the smoker’s unconscious mind connects those good feelings, which came from the emotional benefits of fitting in with the social scene, to the actual cigarettes.

When the conscious mind tries to quit, the unconscious mind says, “ No, give me my cigarette or else.”  This is where the fears and rationalizations come up. It’s the fear that, “Something good is being taken away from me.”

If you think smoking relaxes you, realize that physiologically it constricts blood vessels, increases heart rate and increases blood pressure. All of these physiological responses are the opposite of relaxation. Because the mind learned to link the good feelings with the cigarette, it appears to relax you. A smoker is just like one of Pavlov’s dogs, who connected the sound of the bell with food. The bell has nothing to do with food, just like the cigarette has nothing to do with feeling good. In fact, the cigarette makes you feel lousy.  Once the subconscious mind gets that it is not doing its primary job of protecting you, it will drop the habit instantly and never turn back. This is how hypnosis works. Hypnosis works directly with the unconscious mind that is driving the smoking habit.

If the subconscious mind no longer wants the cigarette there won’t be a struggle, there won’t be the feeling that something is missing that needs to be replaced. There will not be a need to eat in order to replace the habit of smoking. There will not be any weight gain due to quitting smoking. In fact, once someone quits and feels the immediate benefits of no longer poisoning themselves, they will often find themselves becoming more willing to engage in activities that encourage healthy weight loss. It is only from white knuckle quitting, where the desire still exists, that weight gain may ensue. This is the difference between an ex-smoker and a non-smoker. The ex-smoker still wants to smoke even though he/she may not be smoking. The non-smoker is relieved and happy to not be smoking anymore and thoroughly enjoys the freedom he/she now has.

For the ex-smoker it is very hard to quit. For the non-smoker it is easy.

SMOKING COSTS

Most people are under the impression that quitting smoking is difficult. It seems to be an absolute undeniable truth that is perpetuated by the media, by the medical-industrial complex and by our friends and relatives. However, there are tens of thousands of people who have become non-smokers after years of smoking, and for them, once they made the decision, it was easy for them. It’s a bit like learning to ride a bike. Before you do it, riding a bike seems to be impossibility. However, once you have that first feeling of balancing, you never turn back. You will never go back to being unable to ride a bike. Let’s look at the question of quitting smoking and how difficult it is.

Allen Carr, one of the gurus of smoking cessation, would ask a smoker if they could go back to before they started with the knowledge they now have, would they have started, and the answer would always be, “no”. He would also ask, if they had children, if they encouraged their children to smoke, and again the answer would be,” an absolute no”. So, it is clear that every smoker has awareness that smoking is not something to desire. However, there is a part of them that is compelling them to smoke. Every smoker is a schizophrenic on some level. One aspect of their mind, the conscious mind, wants to stop while the other aspect, the unconscious mind, wants to smoke. The key is to reach that unconscious aspect that wants to smoke and shift its belief that smoking is good and desirable to the truth that smoking is a deadly poison that is killing them. Please know that it is not about the nicotine.

Nicotine’s effect is easy to overcome once one has decided to quit. In fact, the physical effects of nicotine withdrawal are fairly minor and short lived. Many smokers have had the experience of quitting for weeks and months, long after any nicotine has left the system and then allowed themselves to have “just one cigarette” only to find themselves smoking again. This is about a frame of mind and not the nicotine. The nicotine did not make them smoke that first cigarette. To be clear nicotine does have an affect, but it is not what makes the difference between becoming a non-smoker and not. Just like gravity has an affect on bike riding, but it does not determine whether or not we are able to ride a bike. The focus on the nicotine is what makes quitting so difficult. Do not give in to the misguided belief that nicotine is what prevents smokers from quitting.

If we believe quitting is hard, and that it will be a sacrifice or that there is something to give up, then of course it will be difficult. A smoker who quits and pines for the cigarette is an ex smoker who is bare knuckling it and will eventually, in a moment of weakness, break down and smoke. This is the hard way and many smokers take this path.

However, if one takes a clear look at smoking, what it has to offer and what it takes from us, we can come to the clear conclusion that it must go. Fear may block our ability to take an objective look and our unconscious mind will spin the excuses and justifications. Please be aware of how the mind can confuse this process. Once we can see the insanity of it, the next step is to make a clear decision to never smoke again. There is nothing to give up. There is nothing that the cigarette actually gives a smoker that is pleasurable. It is just an illusion. The pleasure came from the associations that were made with the act of smoking, but not the cigarette itself. We linked smoking with being with our friends, with relaxing, with escaping, with taking a break, with food, with sex, with something to dispel boredom.  We can have all of these pleasures without the cigarette. It is not the cigarette. It is the connections we made that linked smoking with these pleasures way back when we started as teenagers. Once the decision has been made to quit, rather than focus on the illusion of what we might be missing, focus on the absolute freedom and joy that being a non-smoker brings. How wonderful to be free.

Make the decision now and set a date, you won’t regret it.

IS SMOKING AN ADDICTION?

By Andrew Rader, MS, LAc

Let’s start with the use of the word “addiction”. In our culture it is used for a very wide array of human activities. Everything from facebook use, sex, and food to alcohol, heroin and crack cocaine has been called an addiction. Smoking is lumped in there as well. This implies that all of these activities, if done over and over again, have the same mechanisms of causation. I do not believe this is so.

The definition of the word addiction from dictionary.com is:

“The state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.”

I would like to separate out psychological from physical because the causes and hence the cures, or solutions, will be very different. For instance, if I have a habit of putting more weight on my left leg when standing, we wouldn’t call that an addiction, even though I do it over and over again and seem to have no control over it. If I consciously started to shift my weight to the right leg, I wouldn’t go through withdrawal because I suddenly started a new habit. There is no substance involved that my body has become dependent on.

In the case of smoking, we have a behavior that is connected with a substance that is consumed, tobacco. The common perception is that a particular substance in tobacco, nicotine, is responsible for the “addiction”. Because of the habitual nature of smoking it is assumed that the cause is nicotine. I would like to suggest nicotine does not play as significant a role in whether a smoker can quit as we have been led to believe.

If nicotine were the main factor then simply replacing nicotine with the patch or gum would do the trick. Yet, it is only a successful strategy in 12-15% of the time. Therefore there must be other factors involved in why people smoke; roughly 85% of the factors given the 15%, at best, success rate for nicotine replacement.

Another thought to consider. Most addictive substances create tolerance or resistance to that substance so that over time, more and more of the substance is needed to achieve the same result. Smokers tend to find one level, such as a pack per day, and stay with that same level forever. Whatever that level is, it remains constant. In other words, no resistance, or tolerance is developed.

Cigarette smoking is really a strong psychological habit. It involves long held beliefs, imbedded into the unconscious mind, that cigarette smoking is good for us. It is not the conscious rational mind that knows smoking is bad for us that is in charge. The unconscious mind is in charge. Because hypnosis deals directly with the unconscious mind this is why hypnosis works so well with helping people quit smoking easily, naturally and forever.

When I ask smokers for their three biggest reasons for quitting smoking, they often describe how smoking makes them feel about themselves; which is invariably lousy. Let’s face it. All smokers over the age of thirty know that they “need” to quit, but they haven’t yet quit. This sets up a schism within  themselves that needs to  be resolved. They are continually doing something they know is not in their best interest and yet they find  themselves unable to act towards changing the situation. This brings up feelings and thoughts of powerlessness, self- criticism,  and self -judgment, that erode self esteem. Their minds must somehow  spin this predicament so that they are able to continue on with their situation. This is where the rationalizations come in. “I’ll quit soon.” “I’m smoking natural cigarettes.” “I only smoke a few a day.”  ” I enjoy it.” “They help me relax.”

The last two excuses are really dangerous because there is a part of the mind that knows it is not true and it further erodes one’s self- image. So, what to do?

Until someone actually quits, preferably without medication,  and/or nicotine substitutes, the situation will only get worse. If they rely on a substance to help them, then they are still left with the belief that they need some substance to function in life. They are still dependent on substances.  Once someone is able to become a non smoker, under their own steam,  they then realize something incredibly powerful. “If I can do this, what else can I do”. They have tapped into the enormous potential of their mind. Immediately the previous downward spiral of negative thinking becomes an expanding  awareness of opportunity and hope. There is so much power that  comes from overcoming something that had previously been so daunting that they are bursting with energy. And with the discovery of how much easier it was than had been imagined, the mind begins to seek out new challenges that had previously been buried under the rubble of doubt and fear.

New nonsmokers re-enter the world with nascent  energy, determination and positivity that begins to spill over into their relationships, jobs and spiritual lives. They suddenly realize how much the smoking was inhibiting  them from engaging fully in their lives. There is one caveat here. The nonsmoker has to have fully  become a nonsmoker and not just a grit it out, force of will power nonsmoker. Let me explain.

When the smoker decides, with their heart and soul, that they want more than anything else to quit smoking, no matter what; this is when the transformation begins to happen. If they are doing it for some outside reason, such as they are doing it for someone else, or that they know they should, or that they need to quit, then it will be very difficult for them. They have not yet come around to wanting to do it for themselves. They are reluctant, and will become resentful because deep down they are not wanting to change. This is an incredibly important distinction.

It is only when the full force of the unconscious and conscious minds merge with the same agenda, that this transformation to fully realized nonsmoker can be achieved. Hypnosis is one very effective way to assist in this effort because the unconscious mind can be spoken to, by another person, and reminded  that it is not doing its primary job of protecting it’s body. Once it hears this truth, it converts without hesitation. The only trick is being able to get to the unconscious mind which is usually protected by a security shield. Only with permission from the conscious mind can this happen. So call a hypnotist right now if you want to quit smoking and give them permission to help you step into a new fantastic life as a nonsmoker.