I have a close friend that I have known for about 7 years now, and he and I were both smokers when we first met.
This friend of mine was what I would characterize as a hard core smoker.
Now, he only smoked about a pack a day, maybe a little bit more.
But when he hit a cigarette, the thing went flat from the intense suction. You could see that he held the smoke deeply in his lungs and had a dramatic exhale that he watched with great intensity.
And, he had been smoking for almost 30 years.
At one point, I watched him try to quit smoking while I was living with him as a roommate. It was quite funny actually, because he had never tried to quit before, and he was attempting it cold turkey.
Needless to say, the withdrawal was completely overwhelming him. He had gritted his teeth and remained smoke-free through an entire day of work, and then I saw him come home and fix dinner for himself.
After stuffing his face with food, he simply lost it. The pull of the after-meal cigarette was simply too great, and he caved in and went and bought a pack. “Some other time,” he said.
Well, about 4 years later, he completely blew me away when I noticed that he hadn’t lit up a cigarette for a while. “What, did you quit?” I asked him.
“Yep, six months ago” was his reply.
I was flabbergasted. How could he have managed this? I thought for sure, based on the depth of his addiction, that he was destined to smoke until the day he died.
Turns out he got hypnotized.
Now this really blew me away, because his personality seems to clash with the idea. But it worked for him.
To be honest, I know very little about how hypnotism works, or what your chances of success are with it.
But I would urge anyone who is struggling with quitting to check it out. Find an honest hypnotist that doesn’t charge outrageous fees and give it a shot. Chances are good that it will cost less than a hundred bucks, and you’ll make that back within a mere month or two of quitting.
The cost of continuing to smoke is just too high not to try any possible quitting technique. If it works for the hardest of the hard core, then it just might work for you too.
If you are a hard core smoker than you might need to look at some hard core methods of quitting. There are alternatives to the patch and the usual medications out there and hypnosis just might be the ticket you are looking for. If you want to quit smoking then you owe it to yourself to fully explore your options and keep trying new things until something works for you.
You might also consider to learn how to hypnotize people so that you can help others to quit smoking. If this is the case then you might want to seek out some training so that you can help others in this powerful way. The gift of a smoke-free life is awesome indeed!
