How to Stop Smoking For Good

It’s probably true that around 75% of all smokers want to stop smoking: they just don’t know how. It’s not an easy task, after all. Nicotine, so the authorities would have one believe (and there seems, on the face of it, to be no evidence to dispute the claim) is more addictive than heroin. That means anyone trying to quit smoking without help is going unaided through something worse, or at least physiologically harder to complete, than cold turkey. No wonder that so many New Year’s resolutions go, quite literally, up in smoke.

But is there any way to stop smoking that’s guaranteed to work? See, a lot of smokers find that the few methods they have tried simply haven’t worked. Nicotine patches are no good to anyone who smokes more than three or four a day and no amount of will power, however many self help books one uses to back it up, is enough to withstand that third pint craving.

What about hypnotism? Auto suggestion can deliver negative messages of smoking directly into the subconscious – effectively making even the most hardened smoker predisposed to have a negative reaction to smoking. That’s a little stronger than simply not wanting to. Hypnosis can help a person stop smoking by persuading them that they never have, or that they just – don’t. Any more.

Sounds a little far fetched, until one starts to talk to people who’ve had it done. A smoker who used to consume 40-60 cigarettes per day, who says that she simply can’t understand, post hypnosis, what it is like to smoke? That she’s aware, intellectually, that she has smoked – but, if pressed, that she can’t describe the sensation, or get anything more than a vague desire to have one? That’s pretty convincing. And now the quitter can stop smoking without even making an appointment – by downloading online hypnosis straight into the hard drive.

Exactly how online hypnosis is supposed to work, one barely likes to ask. If hypnosis is the imposition of one will over another, or the insertion of wilful suggestions into one’s consciousness, then the ramifications of online “hypnosis” seem to lead us into mildly scary “sentient computer” territory. Assuming then, that the term is more marketing jargon than serious claim: how do these online stop smoking “hypnoses” actually work?

Basically, in the same way as a self help book, only combined with the power of a recognised psychotherapy reputation to make the stuff stick. Online “hypnosis” works, effectively, by making the “subject” (the quitter) hear the phrases repeatedly for reinforcement and determination. A lot of it is simple common sense information: but it’s delivered in a precisely calibrated way that, more often than not, has far better results than a visit to the pharmacy or doctor.

In the modern world, smoking is seen more or less as evil. It’s dangerous, suicidal and distinctly anti social. As such, more and more people are looking for a way to stop smoking, properly and well. Online hypnosis has received an awful lot of positive responses. Maybe, given the possible benefits, it’s worth listening to all the hype.