Stop Smoking Hypnosis: Quit Now - Wellspring Rejuvenation

BRAD DIXON
Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist/NLP Master Practitioner
Atlanta, Georgia

Claim your free consultation on how to stop smoking through hypnosis today! You can reach me at [email protected].

NOTE: After an extended sabbatical due to the Covid pandemic and some family obligations, I am preparing to resume services during the second half of 2023. Please check back. Thank you!

The goods news is that I’ve had great success interacting with clients from a distance. Read more about how these sessions work. Reiki can absolutely be sent remotely!

As a hypnotherapist based in Atlanta, I’ve helped many people near and fear successfully stop smoking through the power of hypnosis.

To help you appreciate hypnosis’ effectiveness in helping people quit smoking, I’ll describe my past client, Gary, as a case study of someone who quickly and easily became a non-smoker. Just as you can!

Like a lot of people, Gary smoking in his young teens because he believed it looked cool. Growing up with a single mom outside Atlanta, he admired a friend’s father who smoked Winstons. “I thought it was cool to be addicted,” remembered Gary, who came to change his opinion considerably after 30 years of the expensive, detrimental habit. “But smoking is the opposite of cool,” he came to understand.

Up to consuming at least a pack a day, he decided he wanted to quit smoking in order to be more supportive of his wife who had recently become a non-smoker as well as be able to better perform at the rock climbing and biking activities he enjoys with his family. “I probably couldn’t sprint half a mile,” he realized.

Success!

Though ready to quit, Gary, 42, had concerns about continuing to work in an environment with long shifts (bridge construction) in which roadside smoke breaks are common among the crews.

He confessed that he smoked right before he came into his first hypnosis session with me in my Atlanta office. But the great news is that he hasn’t smoked since, “It’s weird that it’s not even an issue anymore,” he shared soon after his hypnosis sessions to stop smoking.

“Being around other people who smoke doesn’t even bother me, except for the smell. I had to ride with some co-workers who smoked, and I noticed how nasty it was. On a humid day, they smell like death when they get out of the trucks they’ve been smoking in. A lot of people are amazed that quitting was so easy for me.”

“Thanks so much! I’m very proud of myself for quitting smoking. Plus, I’m loving all the new time on my hands.” – Kristen M.

Always the Right Time to Quit

If you’re a smoker like Gary, then I believe I can help you break the habit too, as long as you’ve decided that you’re way overdue to quit smoking.

Almost all people who smoke cigarettes have planned on one day becoming a non-smoker. So it’s not been a question of whether you’d quit smoking. It’s just been a matter of when.

If you’re a smoker, take your power back in this present moment. Decide today that the costs far outweigh any imaginary benefit to this devastating habit. Instead of viewing giving up cigarettes as losing something (feeling deprived), you can view the change as gaining back the most important thing in your life (your health).

Wellspring’s Program

My hypnosis program to help you quit smoking for good involves an up-front commitment to two sessions.

During the first session, we’ll discuss your history of smoking as I educate you on how your mind works in relation to the smoking habit. I also guide you through an initial hypnosis session, empowering you to stop. After the session, you will listen to a recording of your personalized hypnosis for the two weeks until your second session.

The majority of my clients do not smoke again after that first session. But the second session (what I call “Sealing the Deal”) almost always brings the habit to a complete halt, in case there have been any slip-ups during the two weeks after the first session, or if some people need a period to mentally grow adjusted to the idea of a life without cigarettes. Repeatedly listening to the initial hypnosis recording can greatly reinforce that mindset.

If, like most of my clients, you never smoke again after the first session, the second session is still helpful because it requires you to check in with someone who cares as well reinforce your lifelong commitment to being a non-smoker. I also provide a recording of the second session.

Sustained success rate of my clients: 92 percent.

Amount: Each of the two 90-minute sessions costs $125 (a total of $250 for the two, due upfront).

Claim your free phone consultation today! You can reach me at 404-444-6924 or [email protected].

NOTE: I work with clients on a wide range of issues beyond smoking session. See my Hypnosis Sessions page for more insight.

Deepen Your Understanding

Whether you contact me now or later, you may find it very beneficial to continue reading in order to better understand how effective hypnosis can be in breaking the habit of smoking.

You’ll also understand how my background as an ex-smoker contributes to my effectiveness as a stop-smoking hypnotherapist. That’s because I’ve been where you are now. Fortunately, hypnosis saved me from rapidly declining health as a result of smoking.

Through the personal lens provided here, you can relate what applies to your own experience and know that quitting is much easier than you may have once imagined. I’ve provided more in-depth content than you may find on most Websites, because I really want you to get the process and start questioning what you may still perceive as lingering benefits to the habit.

Short Personal History

During my own years as a smoker, 1990 to 1997, I was up to two-plus packs a day, so I’m likely already off to a good understanding of your situation.

Even though I grew up in Winston-Salem – the home of RJR Tobacco – I didn’t become a committed smoker until I traveled to Venice, Italy, for a semester of study when I was 21.

I’d begun smoking some during the previous semester of college because I’d gotten the faulty idea that it was some kind of benefit in party situations. But that semester in Italy is really where it got a stranglehold on me. Perhaps on some level I wanted to feel cool and sophisticated like the Italians who all seemed to smoke at the sidewalk cafes during that particular era.

By the time I graduated from college in 1993 and started working as a newspaper reporter (an incredibly high-stress job for me), I was beginning to regret this lifestyle choice. The habit greatly exacerbated allergies I’d suffered since childhood, turning moderate issues into major ones.

Wrong Ideas

But still I told myself that smoking was a benefit on some levels:

That it gave me energy throughout the day like caffeine (when it really just dragged me down).
That it made me socially acceptable (even though I would have likely quit immediately if my dulled smell sense of smell could have detected what tobacco was actually doing to the scent of my clothes, breath and body).
That it helped with my writing (even though numerous smoke breaks throughout the day just made me miss deadline after deadline).

I didn’t realize how scary smoking could be, though, until early 1996, when I caught a horrible flu-type bug that was going around (one of the sickest times in my life). Eventually, the high fever broke, but my lungs didn’t fully recover because I continued to smoke.

Fork in the Path

I essentially had chronic bronchitis for the next year and a half. I tried the nicotine patch and gum to no avail before I finally remember that a college acquaintance had a mother who was a hypnotherapist in town.

I’d already made an appointment with her when I had to make an emergency trip to my doctor earlier the same day to treat a flare-up of the bronchitis. He took a listen to my lungs with a stethoscope and gravely said, “You’re too young to sound like this.” I was about to turn 28 and getting really scared about my future (or lack of one).

The doctor prescribed me some medication to deal with the infection and inflammation, but I still smoked a cigarette right before I entered the hypnotherapist’s office later that afternoon. However, as I left the building, I tossed away the last pack I ever bought. I just knew I was done. That I had to be for my health!

I’m so grateful to say that I haven’t touched tobacco since. But what if I hadn’t chosen the path of the non-smoker? If I’d continued to smoke from 1997 (my quit year) until now, what would like I look like today? What would I feel like today? I shudder to think.

Safe and Easy Process

During my session to become a non-smoker, I discovered that hypnosis isn’t like what you might have seen in old movie. You’re not blacked out and can’t be made to do anything against your will. To better understand the process, you can read How Hypnosis Works.

I remembered all the key points of the session, during which the hypnotherapist got me deeply relaxed through breathing and visualization, and led me to examine my history of exposure to cigarettes and to imagine a life free of them. What I didn’t recall word-for-word, I could easily revisit, because she’d given me a recording of the session for continued reinforcement.

Like my client Gary and many others, I was amazed by how easy it was to quit. The hypnotherapist explained that the urge to repetitively bring cigarette to mouth can easily be controlled by an on/off switch in the subconscious mind. Therefore, any associations between smoking and certain activities (waking up, finishing a meal, driving) can be turned off as well.

I’d been worried about whether I could still hang out with my friends who smoked. But what I immediately began to notice was that I didn’t have the desire to engage in the physical activity of smoking. Then I began to notice how strange people looked doing it. And before long, I was stunned to realize that oftentimes I didn’t even notice if people were smoking.

Much Easier Than Expected

What was equally surprising for me that was stopping smoking cold turkey (after the help from hypnosis) wasn’t really that hard at all. In fact, I only felt better and better each day that I wasn’t smoking.

After you stop smoking, nicotine is completely gone from your system within four to six days. By the sixth day without tobacco, you feel really good because the nicotine is completely gone from your body. By the 10th day, you feel even better because all your blood cells are fully oxygenated. All the residual poisons have been cleansed from your body.

The conventional wisdom seems to be that nicotine withdrawal has severe side effects. But that didn’t prove true for me, and it wasn’t true for my primary hypnotherapy teacher who quit more than 30 years ago.

Of course, everyone is a little different, but I started to wonder if the idea that nicotine withdrawal has to be an awful ordeal could be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Could that expectation contribute to creating that experience for yourself? Through hypnosis, your subconscious mind can more readily accept the idea that quitting will be a smooth, beneficial process.

There can be physical symptoms from quitting, to be sure, as your body brings itself back to state of normalcy. But smoking is more of a mental/emotional pattern than a physical addiction.

During my extensive hypnotherapy training with the esteemed Jane Ann Covington of Atlanta-based Hypnosis Institute International, she once asked a compelling question during class about nicotine and other harmful substances, “Can the body truly be addicted to poison?”

Surprising Research Findings

While she didn’t have absolute answer to that addiction question, she pointed to research from the early 1970s that studied 400 Vietnam War veterans who had been addicted to heroin. Most of these soldiers only had a day or two of notice that they’d be returning home.

Conducted by Dr. Lee Robins of Washington University in St. Louis, the study found that about 95 percent of these veterans easily left heroin behind – regarding it as situational to dealing with the horrors of war. Once back home, they were ready to move on with their lives and quit heroin with relative ease (very low relapse rates). The other five percent, however, experienced severe difficulty stopping (if at all).

The vast majority said things like, “I don’t want it; I don’t need it; I’m going home,” while the remaining five percent were thinking along the lines of: “It’s my best friend; I’ll die without it!” The difference was that the latter group had truly committed to it.

And you know what? It’s the same thing for smokers. Do you still think a cigarette is your friend?

By the time I quit smoking, I just knew I had to be done. I was headed toward lung cancer and emphysema, not to mention a heart attack or stroke, given how poorly my body handled tobacco. I no longer saw any kind of value in smoking. I had released my commitment to it (my identification as a smoker).

What’s the Benefit?

The main question for people who are considering quitting is: Do you still see smoking as some kind of benefit? Or have you realized that the habit is only costing you?

For some people, smoking impacts their career as well as their health.

For example, I once worked as a writer in a public relations office where I participated in the interview of a highly qualified graphic designer who smoked. The hiring manager smelled it on him and later admitted that it contributed to the rejection of that strong job candidate.

A lot of people just don’t want to be around it. So smoking can effect your romantic prospects as well, not to mention costing a tremendous amount of money through the years.

But far outweighing those issues is the cost to your health. Tobacco itself can be damaging enough, but the industry adds more than 200 chemicals to the typical cigarette – chemicals also found in cadaver preservative, toilet cleaner, gas chamber poison, paint stripper, and batteries. Cigarette manufacturers have carefully engineered their products to get you hooked.

Deceptive Industry

They have also advertised to make smoking look as appealing as possible. Prior to government regulation, some ads were particularly misleading. Some showed men on great adventures, such as kayaking down the Amazon. While many of us wouldn’t have the opportunity for that kind of journey, we could pick up a cigarette to show that we fit a similar mold of manhood.

Similarly, cigarette ads declaring “You’ve come a long way, baby!” showed women that smoking could be a path toward sex appeal and success.

What these ads didn’t show was that smoking could take you a long way toward needing a ventilator.

Improving Health

But if you make the commitment to stop smoking soon enough, you’ll only feel better as nicotine and other chemicals leave your body. During the first few days as a non-smoker, your blood sugar level can drop, but that can easily be managed by eating some oranges or grapefruits every day.

Calcium might also be expelled during the detoxification process, but you can easily restore it through supplements. Taking Vitamin B complex can help manage any stress you might feel as you give up the nervous habit of smoking.

Over time, your body can heal itself substantially. Here’s a timetable with a sampling of highly encouraging statistics:

After 20 minutes: Your blood pressure and pulse rate have returned to normal.
After 12 hours: Your blood oxygen level will have increased to normal and carbon monoxide levels will have dropped to normal.
After 48 hours: Damaged nerve endings have started to regrow and your sense of smell and taste are returning to normal.
After one year: Your excess risk of coronary heart disease, heart attack and stroke have dropped to less than half of a smoker’s.
After five years: Your risk of stroke can decline to that of a non-smoker.
After 10 years: Your risk of being diagnosed with lung cancer is between 30 to 50 percent of that a continuing smoker. The risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, and pancreas has also declined.

Never Look Back

After you quit smoking, what’s important to remember is that you can never pick up another one. Don’t think for even a second that it’s an option.

When I stopped, my hypnotherapist cautioned me that she’d known people who’d been non-smokers for five years or more who happened to give a cigarette a try at a party, thinking, “What harm can it do? It’s been so long. I can manage this.”

Within a couple of days, these people had inevitably bought a pack just to have an occasional smoke. Within a couple of weeks, they were often back to smoking as much as they ever did.

Cautionary Tale

I saw this same pattern in a close friend, Lynn, who quit smoking on her own a number of years ago. She had stopped for a full two years when she found herself socializing with a friend of hers who explained that she could enjoy the occasional cigarette (maybe one or two a week). Lynn fooled herself into thinking that she could behave similarly, and she relapsed in a major way.

The difference between the two people was that Lynn had once fully committed herself to being a smoker while her friend never had. The body has a memory has well the brain. When reintroduced to those chemicals and behavior, the parts of the body and brain that remember being a committed smoker can reawaken.

That’s why I always have hypnosis clients affirm to themselves this suggestion multiple times: “I am a non-smoker, and I will be a non-smoker for the rest of my life!”

Through hypnosis, I can teach your subconscious that any craving only lasts for 10 seconds. If you can distract your mind for 10 seconds – drinking a glass or water or completing a productive task like checking e-mail – any craving will disappear. Any cravings for cigaretttes become fewer and weaker until they disappear completely within a couple of weeks.

“I wanted to let you know that I haven’t smoked at all and the craving is super weak. When the thought comes, it disappears just as fast. I really appreciate you.” – Donell J. (after first week smoke-free)

Claim your free phone consultation today! You can reach me at [email protected].

Sustained success rate of my clients: 92 percent.

Amount: Each of the two 90-minute sessions costs $125 (a total of $250 for the two, due upfront).

NOTE: I work with clients on a wide range of issues beyond smoking session. See my Hypnosis Sessions page for more insight.

NOTE: I work with clients on a wide range of issues beyond smoking session. See my Hypnosis Sessions page for more insight, as well as How Hypnosis Works.

Note: The names of people in this article have been changed to protect their privacy.