My name is Dave Trevena and with my wife we have been running the Hertford Stop Smoking Centre since 2001. In that time we've been able to help over 2,000 people, some of whom you'll 'meet' in these pages. Some of what follows may surprise you. Our experience is that around 80% of smokers do not know what you are about to discover. So let's get started…
Do you remember hearing about that person who had smoked since the age of ten, was on forty a day, then woke up one morning and decided to quit?
Crumpled the pack into the bin and never thought about it since.
No cravings, no withdrawal symptoms. You wonder - how did they do that?
A woman gets pregnant and stops smoking. She tells her friends,
"It was easy! No cravings or withdrawal symptoms, what's the fuss about?"
Then, a few years later, she's at a party, someone offers her a cigarette and she thinks, 'one won't hurt', and pretty soon she is smoking again. She tells me, 'I don't have any willpower'. 'You don't?' I ask. 'So how did you stop for three years then?' She replies, 'But that was then, I don't have any now.'
But it wasn't willpower that helped her to quit - she had made a decision.
Think of the time when you've reached a decision. It was so easy, almost as if there was no decision involved. You probably went on to accomplish your aim effortlessly. When people looked at you and commented, 'lucky'!, you knew it wasn't. It's more likely the majority of your unconscious beliefs supported that decision you made.
You know of other times in your life, or a person you know who is always struggling, one step forward and two steps back, going round in circles, never getting anywhere. It's not that they are weak, or lack willpower, it's just that they have conflicting (often termed negative) beliefs or mixed feelings.
These examples help us understand why some people find it so hard to quit, when others find it so easy. This is the first secret,
When you reach a decision, it's easy to quit
However, reaching a decision can be tricky, can't it? Because the problem for many people is that they have conflicts or 'mixed feelings' about quitting. You know all the reasons you should quit, (health, anti-social, money, smell, partner/ children) but in spite of your best intentions, part of you still wants to smoke. 'It's my crutch,' or, 'a drink and a cigarette goes together'. So there is the fear losing something if you quit.
In spite of all it's dangers, smoking provides some people with a valuable benefit or 'secondary gain'. As a women with two young children explained,
"I really want to give up smoking, but when the children are misbehaving, it's my opportunity to take ten minutes out for myself to de-stress. It's 'my time'. If I give up smoking, what will I do?"
(By the way, some of our clients learn a technique which relaxes them in seconds, anytime, any place).
Another example: Smokers often say, 'It helps me relax'. If you think about it, this is puzzling because your heart rate usually goes up by ten beats a minute when you smoke - owing to all the stimulants in the tobacco. Have you ever felt light headed when you had that first cigarette of the day? Hardly the response one would expect if you were relaxing. Many clients tell us that one of their favourite cigarettes is just before bed. You might like to know, how does a stimulant help you sleep? This is how it works…
As you grew up into your twenties, you tended to smoke during social occasions. It was a bonding experience, sharing the pack of cigarettes around with your friends. Those sociable, fun, pleasurable relaxing experiences then became associated with smoking. This is rather like the TV advertisement which surrounds the product they are promoting with images of glamorous, exotic locations and attractive people living an exciting lifestyle. After a while their product looks more interesting!
Recently a client explained: 'It's not that smoking relaxes me, it's just that when the craving comes, unless I respond to it immediately, the tension mounts, then when I have that first puff, I feel a sense of relief.' So if you believe smoking helps you relax (and most smokers do) you are probably forgetting that the craving to smoke was the cause of your being stressed in the first place!
While we are on the subject, did you know that as well as taking the pleasure out of life, stress is a major cause of ill health? When you experience too much stress, your immune system is undermined and your defences against disease and ill health are weakened. You've heard the expression, 'I was run down when I caught a cold'. When your immune system is depressed, you are vulnerable to whatever virus is about at the time. Of course there are viruses floating in the air, just as there are carcinogens (cancer producing agents) floating around in our bloodstream constantly. When you are healthy, your immune system neutralises them easily.
We've recorded an excellent free stress relief programme, which comes highly recommended by many of our clients. Some listen to it regularly and find it helps them deal with stress very effectively. All you need is on one CD. Just find twenty one minutes for yourself, close your eyes and it will do the rest.
The second secret of quitting is to reduce stress.
You will have noticed that most people started smoking between the age of ten and twenty. Sociologists refer to this as the, 'socialisation period', when we are extremely sensitive to being part of the group and anxious about being excluded. Remember back when you were at school? The fear of being 'sent to Coventry'? We started smoking then because we desperately wanted to fit in, so we succumbed to peer group pressure.
Years later, you decide to quit and you may have experienced cravings, anxiety, bad temper and irritability. Yet these are common signs of habit breaking and not necessarily of chemical addiction. The part of you that protects your habits is battling with the part of you, which wants to stop.
You've heard the expression, 'Devil on one shoulder and angel on the other.'
We accept that this is a metaphor for mental conflict, when the two parts of the mind are battling against each other. When that happens, part of you is affirming, 'I must not smoke', 'I must not smoke', while the other part is egging you on saying, 'Go on, just have one, one wont hurt.'
The problem is, as you know, one will hurt. It will re-trigger the habit and before long you will be smoking as many as you were previously.
It is these mental conflicts, or mixed feelings, which are the cause of the cravings and misery you may have experienced when you tried quitting previously. Finally you succumb to the pressure and light up that one and before you know it, you are right back into the habit again. That's what happened to Francis Boulton of Royston:
"It is very disabling when you can't quit. I'd tried everything, gum, inhalers, patches and willpower. You start making excuses. 'Not much point trying because I'll make everyone's life a misery. When I'd given up before I ended up with cravings, got aggressive as though everyone was against me. Starting an argument as a way of giving me an excuse to have the cigarette. I wasn't nice, very antisocial. I had got to the point of giving up giving up.
A close friend of mine in Hertford had it done and I never would have imagined him giving up. He smoked more than me. It's definitely given him a boost. He's down the gym every day now, totally changed his life. Just like him, I had one session. It was fantastic, I had no pangs, nothing. You feel, if I can give this up, then I can do anything.
That was 18 months ago and I'm still excited. People ask me and I just say there's not much to it, it's just simple, there's no hocus-pocus, no magic, you are not asleep, it's hard to explain why it works because it's so simple. I tell them, it just works.
I don't endorse hypnosis to give up smoking. I endorse you. I work in South London and there are lots of stop smoking services springing up, taking advantage. I recommend the Hertford Stop Smoking Centre. What does it matter if you take a day off and travel there? Just try it; it will change your life.
- Francis Boulton of Royston
When we say smoking is a habit, we are not discounting the very real battle you may have experienced when attempting to quit. Habits are very powerful. Imagine trying to 'forget' how to swim or trying to 'forget' how to drive a car!
And remember, this particular habit began at a formative period in your life, when you were very sensitive to being excluded from the group. Because you wanted to fit in, you were determined to smoke. Can you remember your first cigarette? You coughed, choked, felt ill, nevertheless you were determined to smoke. Personally, I would have smoked if it killed me!
I remember, aged 15 in the woods at the back of the playing fields with a rizzla roll-up machine and liquorice papers. I wanted to look like Clint Eastwood! That's when all the Spaghetti Westerns first came out.
A client exclaimed, 'That's right! I used to practise in front of the mirror!' She was checking to see she was holding it like the current film star. Another said,
'I used to practise inhaling front of the mirror'. Do you remember inhaling? It was the macho thing in my group, you felt like a sissy if you couldn't inhale.
But what about nicotine? Isn't it addictive? It is true that about 80% of the clients who visit us believe they are addicted.
A client I saw three years ago told me that his brother rang him prior to his session. Reminded him, 'Even though I quit ten years ago, using willpower - and I'm never going to start again - I still get these cravings.'
You've probably heard a number of stories like that. Yet your doctor will tell you that all the nicotine is out of your system within 48 hours. So what about all those people who still have cravings, weeks, months, years after quitting?
Download the remainder of this report free from: www.stopsmokingcentre.co.uk
Dave Trevena
Hertford Stop Smoking Centre
Freephone 0800 093 9714
www.stopsmokingcentre.co.uk
