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As a hypnotherapist, smoking cessation is an important part of my professional life. Over the past ten years I have had more clients for smoking than for any other issue. But unlike many of my colleagues, I have been a smoker myself. I know what it’s like. I know that giving up isn’t easy. But I also know that it can be done, that you can break the habit, consign it to the past and simply get on with the rest of your life without even thinking about the habit.

But I also think that it is useful to reflect upon my own experience as a smoker because, in doing so, I can empathize more deeply with those many thousands of people who feel trapped and rendered helpless by this dangerous habit. And I can give them hope. I am living proof that a one-time heavy smoker can quit smoking forever.

Why did I ever start smoking? Like most smokers I vividly remember my first cigarette. It was given to me by my grandmother. I was aged around nine or ten. Yes – this was a few decades ago, but just think how times have changed! When Nan gave me my first fag, no one thought it was a big deal. I didn’t know how to smoke it properly, I didn’t like the taste, and at the time I simply thought that having tried it and not enjoyed it I would never be a smoker.

But I became a smoker. Why?

I think that there were two reasons. Peer pressure was certainly one of them. I wanted to do what some, if not all, of my mates were doing. I wanted to take the lead over those who weren’t doing it yet because they were nervous at taking the plunge. But I think that there was another, deeper reason why I took it up.

Neither of my parents were smokers. But many relatives and family friends were. Dad used to smoke a cigar or two at Christmas or after a special meal out. Family gatherings, parties, weddings and other such special events were wreathed in cigarette smoke. So many of the good things in life became associated with cigarette smoke.

On Saturday afternoons we used to get a cleaner in to help Mum out. There were three of us kids. Dad was a coalman. There was endless amounts of washing to do and Mum needed a helping hand on a Saturday afternoon. The lady who came to clean for us was a smoker. So, even today, the combined smell of wood polish and fag smoke evokes happy memories of long summer Saturdays, when school felt like it was a million miles away and there was still Dr Who and Sunday to look forward to…

These positive associations intensified as I got older. Cigarette smoke came to represent rebellion against an impossibly dull and restrictive school regime. It became associated with booze-ups and crazy nights out. And as an undergraduate, smoking was simply a natural part of our louche student lifestyle.

So – in one way or another – smoking was associated with all the good things in life. Holidays, Christmases, family gatherings, meals out, pub visits, parties – all of these things were associated in my mind with smoking. Added to which was the attraction of the habit itself. I got to like smoking. I used to like a fag and a pint with friends. I used to like a fag with a strong pot of tea when I was studying as an undergraduate. (My tutor, and later thesis supervisor, the eminent Descartes scholar Prof. John Cottingham, was also a smoker and was often ready to share a Silk Cut during tutorials). I used to like smoking.

So the question now arises – how and why did I quit?

I remember my first attempt at quitting. It came as quite a shock. I first tried to quit at the ripe old age of seventeen. I had been smoking for four years. I decided to stop one Sunday morning. I lasted the whole of Sunday – but it was hard. I spent the whole day feeling irritated and thinking about smoking. I was at work the next day. At that time I was an apprentice plumber. The day did not go well – I caused two leaks and broke my boss’s best drill. That was it – back to the fags for me!

The next time was more successful. My schooling had been an unmitigated disaster and I had ended up in the wrong job. I had to do something. And, as I always say, one change often leads to another. I signed up for some correspondence courses but found that I couldn’t study because I couldn’t concentrate. I started to explore yoga and meditation – and I came to appreciate what a dangerous and harmful habit smoking really is. I learned some meditation techniques and did some concentration exercises. I began to change. And I gave up smoking.

At university I made the usual fatal mistake. I started to have the “occasional” cigarette in the evenings. It soon became every evening. Then every afternoon and evening. Then I was back to square one. But only for a couple of years. I knew that I could do again what I had done before, and there was never any doubt that I would, at some time, stop smoking for good. After January 1990, that was it. No more cigarettes. Do I miss it? I don’t even think about it. I can honestly say that no matter what I’m doing – walking with the kids, or having a beer, or after a meal – I don’t even think about smoking. I know – with 100% certainty – that I will never be a habit smoker again.

All this happened before I trained in hypnotherapy. But I was using mediation and concentration exercises which, I think, are pretty much the same thing in a different guise. But what also helped was that at no point in my life did I ever say that I couldn’t quit or that I would remain a smoker forever. I always knew I would stop. I never once said “I can’t quit” or “I haven’t got the willpower”. I believe that people who say those things are using a kind of hypnosis against themselves. If you tell yourself something often enough you will end up believing it.

So – as a hypnotherapist, I know that it is not an easy thing to quit smoking. I also know that if you want to quit you can. Sometimes people come to me who don’t want to give up smoking but who nevertheless want to be non-smokers. They want me to wave hypnosis as a kind of magic wand and make the habit magically disappear. Well, I’m sorry, but it doesn’t work like that. People are people, not puppets or machines. The human brain is not a passive computer program. You need to want to quit. And if you want to, then – sooner or later – you will.

How do you maximize your chances of success? First of all, you need to choose your moment. If you’re going through a period of change and transition, if your relationship is going through a rocky patch or is breaking down, if things are particularly stressful at work, or if a load of celebrations, parties or other such events are on the near horizon then it is probably best to wait until things settle down. But it is also vitally important to “psyche-up” to it. Tell people that you’re giving up. That will do two things – it will give you an added incentive to stick to your word, and the words you say to others will have an effect upon you. When you say something, you give your words a certain reality. And you must make a promise to yourself, whatever happens, never to tell either yourself or anyone else that you cannot quit, or that you do not have the willpower.

If you want to stop, you can. Hypnotherapy is not a magic wand – it is a helping hand which can make the difference between success and failure.

The struggle against the smoking habit is a conflict which you must win. And even if you lose a battle, you can always win the war.

You have to. Your life depends upon it.

Horsham Hypnotherapy: serving clients from Horsham, Crawley, Burgess Hill, Haywards Heath, Guildford, Redhill and all parts of West Sussex, East Sussex and Surrey. Contact us today.

WHAT IS A CIGARETTE?

A cigarette is an elegant fashion accessory which makes you look both cool
and mature…

NO –WHAT IS IT REALLY?

A cigarette is a paper tube of shredded tobacco, usually with a filter at one end.
You light the tube and inhale the smoke. Cigarette smoke contains some 4700
chemical ingredients, about 60 of which cause cancer – such as: Read the rest of this entry »

Happy No Smoking Day everyone. If there are any smokers out there in the Horsham, Crawley, Guildford, West Sussex or Surrey area, you know what to do…

On ITV’s Daybreak program this morning, Dr. Hilary Jones was busy promoting No Smoking Day for all it was worth. He mentioned some of the usual quitting aids – patches, inhalators, gum etc. He mentioned CBT (CBT for smoking? That would be a bit expensive, wouldn’t it?). He mentioned hypnotherapy – as well he might, for hypnotherapy’s track record in this area is pretty impressive.

But as soon as he mentioned the word “hypnotherapy” – well, he just had to say it didn’t he: “Look into my eyes, look into my eyes, not round the eyes but in the eyes…” Thank you Little Britain! Thanks a lot Matt Lucas! What have I ever done to you? When those sketches were first broadcast I, like most other hypnotherapists, had to go through a couple of months of purgatory. “Look into my eyes” etc. Yes, very funny. But after a couple of weeks the humour does wear off a bit…

But afterwards I couldn’t help wondering how many prospective clients make the same association – hypnotherapy and “look into my eyes”. And I wondered how many were put off by it. Surely some are. Many years ago I was arranging a small loan in a bank. The person dealing with me had done all the usual training in how to handle customers and the General Public. Lots of straight eye contact. Until I told her what I did for a living. No more eye contact after that!

So – lets lay a few myths to rest.

A hypnotherapist does not look people in the eye and by some magic power take over their minds. I don’t know of any hypnotherapist who uses induction methods involving eye contact.

Induction by eye contact works by holding a person’s gaze. If the eyes are kept still they start to tire. If the hypnotist is reeling off suggestions about the eyes getting tired and heavy then the subject will accept the suggestions as true and may even think that the hypnotist is causing the heaviness of the eyes. Eye closure may be achieved in that way. Or with more suggestible people eye closure is not even necessary. If the gaze is held, the attention can be controlled.

All very powerful and impressive. But here in the real world things aren’t quite so simple. I have experimented with eye contact techniques – but only with willing colleagues, never with clients. I found that two things would typically happen – either one or both of us would get the giggles, thus making further serious work impossible, or I would start going into hypnosis myself.

Eye contact is incredibly powerful – but, in my opinion, almost impossible to employ usefully in a therapeutic context. Eye contact can be threatening or intrusive. Karate is my sport. You are supposed to look your opponent straight in the eye. Unless I know the person quite well I find that very hard to do. I look at their nose or their mouth, rarely straight in the eye. And it is not because I feel that they are threatening me or I them. It just somehow seems intrusive – almost rude.

So – let’s forget all about eye contact and send Mr. Lucas on his merry way! And never let it get in the way of giving up smoking!

Give up smoking now. Contact me today.

Horsham Hypnotherapy: serving clients from Horsham, Crawley, Burgess Hill, Haywards Heath, Guildford, Redhill and all parts of West Sussex, East Sussex  and Surrey. Contact us today.