YOUR QUESTION: I need to stop smoking. Does hypnosis really work?
YOUR NAME: Monica
YOUR EMAIL: monicae@mymail.com
(email from the “Ask a Question” form on my website)
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Monica --
Yes.
-- Donald Pelles, Ph.D., CHt
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Accurate, but maybe a little too succinct. Perhaps I should say a little more:
Monica –-
Thank you for contacting me.
My Smoking Cessation program is very effective. Over 80% of my clients who have finished all three are smoke-free after three months. Some of these individuals had been smoking up to two packs per day when they came to see me.
Give me a call or respond to this email and we will set up your first appointment. By this time next week you can amaze yourself by being smoke-free.
-- Donald Pelles, Ph.D., CHt
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That’s better. If Monica had called me instead of emailing, it might have gone like this:
Me: Hello – this is Donald Pelles of Hypnosis Silver Spring.
Monica: Hello? Oh, Hi. I was wanting to ask you – um, I need to stop smoking. Does hypnosis really work?
Me: You need to stop? Or you want to stop?
Monica: Both. I want to stop because I need to stop.
Me: If you want to stop, I can help. You have to want to, to have the conscious motivation, at least. Not someone else wanting you to – you. Then what we do, with hypnosis and NLP, is to get the subconscious 90% part of you on board, so that all of you is pointing in the same direction.
Monica: oh, right.
Me: And the answer is “yes”, it works. It works very, very well. You know, there is so much hype out there, right? About how hard it is to quit, and all that. What have you tried so far?
Monica: You name it. CHANTIX, the Patch, the Gum. Cold Turkey, a couple of times.
Me: Yeah, people have tried nearly everything by the time they call me.
Me: So tell me, what do you like about smoking?
Monica: Well, it relaxes me, kind of. And I like the taste of it -- well, I used to, anyway. But sometimes I smell it, and it just seems foul, disgusting – you know?
Me: Yes, I know (laughs). I teach all of my clients self-hypnosis; you’ll be able to relax, to de-stress, any time you want to – you won’t need a cigarette for that.
Monica: Oh, I like that idea.
Me: And why do you want to quit?
Monica: Well, I’m only 35, but when I walk up steps, or up a hill, I get out of breath. And, you know, health. I have two little kids -- I want to be healthy when they grow up, I want to see their kids grow up. Really, I wish I’d never started.
Me: How old were you?
Monica: 14.
Me: How’d you get started.
Monica: Oh you know. Teenagers, friends. They were smoking. Someone gave me one, lit it up for me. It seemed cool, at the time.
Me: And how much have you been smoking recently?
Monica: About a pack-and-a-half a day.
Me: And you’re rich, right?
Monica: Um, no, not exactly (laughs).
Me: So have you thought about what you’re going to do with all that money, that you’ve been spending on cigarettes?
Monica: I’d like to be able to think about that. But it just seems so hard.
Me: Yeah, they make out like it is. But you know, people quit all the time. My grandfather was a heavy smoker; he was in his mid-60s, smoked his whole adult life. I was 4 years old. He had a stroke. The doctor told him, “One more cigarette and you’re dead.” And he stopped, just like that – never smoked again. He was a salesman; he traveled, was around it all the time. But he was done with it. He lived to be 80.
Monica: Well, I don’t want to have to have a stroke, before I quit.
Me: No, you don’t.
Monica: But they say that cigarettes are move addictive even than heroin.
Me: I think what they mean is, it’s really easy – and quick – to get hooked. One or two cigarettes can be all it takes.
But as far as stopping – do you sleep through the night? Or do you wake up half-way through to smoke?
Monica: No, I sleep through the night, most of the time.
Me: So by the time you wake up in the morning, you’re over the worst part of the withdrawal from nicotine. Did you know that?
Monica: No.
Me: And as far as heroin is concerned, I knew somebody once who kicked heroin. She locked herself in a room, threw the key under the door, and told her friends to get her out in three days. It was awful. She was cold, then she was burning up. She had headaches, shivering fever, the shakes. She was sick, she puked. “Withdrawal” from nicotine, if that’s what you want to call it, is nothing like that. Nothing.
Monica: What if I gain weight?
Me: I can give you suggestions so that you won’t. After the first few days, you know, your taste buds spring back to life -- you will taste and smell food like you haven’t in years. So with food tasting better, you’ll get more pleasure from it. So you won’t need to eat as much, to be satisfied with your meal. Plus, with the self-hypnosis you’re going to be doing, you’ll find that that nervous, stressed kind of eating is less of a problem.
Monica: So how does it work? You hypnotize me and I don’t want to smoke anymore? Just like that?
Me: You know, for some people it’s pretty much like that: they come in having smoked a pack a day, or two, and they walk out smoke-free. I had one guy a couple months ago – he tried a cigarette that very evening. (Why he would do that I don’t know!) And found that he couldn’t smoke it, “It was just all wrong,” he said.
For some others it can be a bit of a struggle, at first. That’s why I do three sessions, not just one. I want to have you stop and stay stopped. Permanently.
Monica: Well, I want to do this.
. . .
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