Stop Smoking » addiction

How EFT and Kinesiology-Based Methods Are Better Than Even Hypnosis To Stop Smoking

Suzanne — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 08:23:11 +0000

Welcome to the continuing story of “Marcelle” (not her real name), one determined ex-smoker-to-be slowly but surely overcoming a stubborn smoking addiction. To give you some background, I have a good history of helping smokers quit in one session in London and usually within 6 sessions in Cape Town (different cultural stresses). Marcelle’s relatives quit with me in 2-3 sessions, and she does understand the benefits of going at her own pace, which is relatively slower but a very healing process.

We are using a mixture of EFT, Emotional Freedom Techniques, or Tapping, and kinesiology-based muscle-testing and treatment. The treatment is gentle and removes the emotional reasons behind the smoking. As these are removed, Marcelle is able to smoke less. Every time that we can, we draw up a plan to cut down on the daily number of cigarettes smoked. The last target that Marcelle had was 7 cigarettes. It is the 10th session, and Marcelle showed me her progress sheet. She had stuck to her target 3 days out of 6. On one of the days, she even went below it. So we started with a quick analysis.

The first part of the analysis was talking about the progress sheet to identify areas that needed more work. The three days of smoking more had several stress and habit factors. The most important (in my experience) were the following:
* A visit to relatives who kept giving Marcelle cigarettes to smoke with them, saying “Oh, take a cigarette”.
* A day which started with Marcelle saying to herself “Today, I’m going to improve”.

Then I started the muscle-testing. We tested for a few things that came up not relevant, and then I asked Marcelle to repeat “I´m going to improve” whilst pressing on her arm. The arm went weak. In other words, there is something about “I am going to improve” that made Marcelle fail that day. We talked a bit about that and investigated the theme of the following ideas that Marcelle felt were related:
* “My mother never stops criticizing me, and so will not stop if I stop smoking, so what’s the point”.
* “I’m going to fail anyway, so I may as well fail now”.
* “No matter how much I improve, my mother will not love me”.

I then asked Marcelle to find a time in her life that encapsulates the above. She came up with a specific childhood memory that on the surface seemed totally unrelated. But it had many aspects of root causes of smoking. The story started when Marcelle had been given some money by a visiting uncle. The rule was that she had to hand that money over to her mother. But on that occasion, Marcelle, wanting to keep the money away from her abusive mother, left to the shop as soon as the uncle had left, and she bought a big bag of sweets with all the money. Upon her return, her mother threw her out on the porch in the dark. She was out there for several hours before her father came home and let her back in. The event started at an intensity of 8. We tapped in down to about a zero, tapping on all the following aspects:
* The hurt.
* That no matter what Marcelle did, she got a hiding from her mother, so she may as well be naughty anyway.
* The danger of being out alone in the dark as a helpless child.
* That she physically could not eat all those sweets, although she had them with her when she was thrown out, and her mother and sisters finished them afterwards.
* That her mother will never stop criticizing her.
* That her mother will never act proud of her or be approving of her.
* That her mother continues to treat her badly, in start contrast to the favored sister, who gets the good treatment.
* Smoking is a rebellion against her mother, who does not like her smoking.
* Guilt about not loving her mother like a daughter “should”.

By the end of this tapping, Marcelle was so relaxed she was almost asleep. We tested again for “I’m going to improve”, and it tested strong and clear.

We then tapped on other smoking issues, clearing them. And finally we muscle-tested for a new smoking reduction plan. Marcelle tested weak for 7 cigarettes a day and strong for 6 a day and 5 a day. This is good, meaning that she really did not want to smoke more than 6. So we drew up a new plan of a maximum of 6 a day.

The plan also includes exercise. As we were setting up the new version, Marcelle proudly announced that she had had to take her jeans in at the hips. Now how’s that for a great treatment? She is losing the cigarettes and weight! And she is overcoming the many years of abuse without any psychotherapy, without painful talking about the issue over and over again, nor anything like that. Every time she leaves her session, she feels lighter and stronger, her face radiant and calm. This is why I like this treatment so much; because it is holistic and gentle, the results far-reaching into every aspect of the person´s life and well-being. Now who do you know who did hypnosis-only and got these great additional results?! As always, I look forward to the next session!

A virus caught along with 5 other students at university at the end of 1986, plus medical negligence, meant that I got smokers lung at a relatively young age. In desperation for help with my symptoms and quality of life, I turned to complementary therapy, and I have outlived one doctor’s prognosis by many years now.

I am now a complementary therapist, author of the Stop Smoking E-book at http://www.stop-smoking-ebooks.com and trainer specializing in energy healing. Want to use this article? You can, as long as you credit me with it and invite your readers to get my FREE book “EFT How-To For You” at http://www.EFT-Scripts.com

Latest Success In Previously-Challenging Cape Town Stop Smoking Case

Suzanne — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 13:33:59 +0000

When “Marcelle” (not her real name) first came to see me, she was smoking about 15 cigarettes a day. The day before her 9th session, this was down to 7 a day. And now, after a few weeks’ stalemate, she has succeeded to stick to her last reduction plan, which was 9 cigarettes a day. Each cigarette represents negative emotion. We have been releasing plenty of these, and now, finally, the number is less than half what we started with. Marcelle was very proud.

If you have been following this series of articles, I am also pleased to report that the disastrous happening in Marcelle’s life is now over. The EFT we did has clearly helped her through it, as she has simply bounced back to her usual cheerful self now.

Whilst Marcelle’s relatives had quit with me in 2-3 sessions, including her husband, she does understand the benefits of going at her own pace, and that this is OK. Marcelle reported that she feels she has grown and developed through this healing journey. She has become a stronger person and feels different. This is what happens when you quit smoking using EFT, Emotional Freedom Techniques, otherwise known as Tapping. It is truly a journey to freedom from many negative emotions, so you feel lighter and calmer as a result.

We started Marcelle’s session with kinesiology-based muscle-testing. This is a biofeedback mechanism that gives information about the body and speaks with the subconscious mind. The testing revealed an imbalance in neurotransmitters on the left part of her brain. We proceeded to treat with a 635 nm cold laser.

Next came the emotional stuff underlying the smoking. I tapped on Marcelle as she verbally walked me through her average day’s smoking, from start to finish. Her voice became strained and her shoulders looked stiff when she came to one particular part, so we stopped there for tapping. The situation was teaching her grandson and helping him with his homework. The grandson insists that his teacher’s way of doing things is the right way and will not consider any other approaches that Marcelle takes. The desire to smoke after this homework session started on a 9 out of 10 intensity. Marcelle said that after all that, she needed a treat. We began tapping saying statements like “Even though I need this treat…” and “Even though I don’t want to deprive myself of this treat”. The intensity reduced to a 6 out of 10. And then I tapped on Marcelle something like “Even though he insists his teacher is right, at least he is respectful of his teachers, and that’s a great attribute than many kids don’t have”. Marcelle agreed, citing a story with one of her daughters, and how she did better when she learned to like her teacher. But still, Marcelle was unhappy about this teacher adoration, so much so, she still wanted that cigarette. I asked her if there could be a parallel in her own childhood and life where her mother favors her sister all the time. She agreed and saw the connection straight away. So we released this block with Inner Child tapping, and Marcelle no longer desired the after-homework cigarette. It was a zero intensity.

Marcelle then carried on walking me through her smoking day. We came at a point which I know from experience to be relevant. This was a cigarette smoked with a favorite close person. The person in question was her aunt, let’s call her “Auntie Nelly”. We started at a need to smoke with Auntie Nelly of 6 out of 10, which went down to 5 after some tapping. I kept tapping on Marcelle as I asked her if this aunt is like a mother to her, since her mother was abusive and not like a mother. Marcelle agreed, and we tapped on all aspects of this, until finally, the desire was about a zero, and Marcelle could see herself happily just being with Auntie Nellie as she alone smoked. The bond keeping the two so close together was love, and there was no need to cement it with a cigarette.

Lastly, we tapped on one more daily cigarette, and moved on to the muscle-testing. 7 Cigarettes a day tested strong, and 6 and 5 a day were weaker, so we set anew target of 7 cigarettes a day. I look forward to our next session!

Stop Smoking EFT, Stop Smoking Hypnotherapy, and Eating Control

Suzanne — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 07:19:11 +0000

Many modern hypnotists are now combining traditional stop smoking hypnosis or hypnotherapy with Emotional Freedom Techniques for emotional triggers, as well as advice about eating habits, nutrition, and treatment to stop the need to overeat once the client stops smoking. And some hypnotists are fond of calling smoking just a habit, whilst others may call it a kind of addiction. Every hypnotist using additional modern techniques is finding their own combination that works for their clients.

I feel it is important first of all to address the issue of calling smoking habit or addiction. I have recently been reading up on Habit versus Addiction and it seems that semantics are getting in the way. When I was in my early twenties, a long time ago, it was recognized that there was what was called ¨psychological addiction¨, in other words, the emotional need for a substance. Now, the psychologists do not like using the word ¨addiction¨ it seems unless there was a big ¨physical¨ withdrawal such as in the case of a heroin addict going cold turkey. Now I use the words ¨need¨ or ¨desire¨ to avoid making it just a habit. You see, what a psychologist calls a habit is not what the layman calls a habit. The originator of EFT expressed it very eloquently in one of his DVDs. He said if he had a habit of putting his right shoe on before his left shoe, then that is a habit, and all he needed to change it is put a note by his shoes reminding him to put the left shoe on first, and he would simply do it. But he asked members of the audience, if a smoker can simply stop smoking by leaving a note on their cigarettes reminding them not to smoke, and successfully quit the habit.The audience said no, and he explained that it is because there are emotional reasons why a smoker smokes.

But I am a holistic healer and a scientist and seriously challenge anyone to tell me exactly where the physical ends and the emotional begins and prove it. The problem I find for the client with this arbitrary distinction between addiction and habit is that the client then tries to convince themselves that they need to change habits rather than address the emotional reasons why they smoke. That is, a habit as perceived in layman´s terms, not habit as psychologists call what a layman calls a ¨psychological addiction¨. So then one has to address overeating, and this is because the emotional reasons behind the smoking simply get transferred to another destructive activity, that of overeating. But hypnosis is very popular and lucrative, and no matter what we do to persuade the client to stop smoking from the root, they want the perceived magic of trance and are willing to pay more for it, rather than face their emotions in the waking state and release them relatively faster with EFT. What to do? I mix the two when the client wants. But my heart is warmed every time someone quits smoking from the root and holistically changes their life for the better. Hence my preferred stop smoking solution is EFT and a bit of NLP plus some basic holistic health education. We did it at the London EFT clinic I was running, and very successfully – it was EFT-only for most people.

Talking about location, I also am finding the local culture has a lot to do with it. For example, in the UK where I started, people were educated by the government not to skip breakfast, and that if they waited till the afternoon to start eating, they would get ravenous and likely to overeat, as well as needing the breakfast to kick-start their metabolism. Here in South Africa, where I now live, most people are totally ignorant of this and many force themselves to go without food till the evening. No prizes for guessing the favourite method of hunger control! Many people think the body does not need food during the day, and so they are ignorant of what hunger actually is, that they call hunger a need to smoke. They have never tried to give their bodies the nutrition it is so strongly asking for. Instead, when they get that feeling that other people call hunger, this type of smoker thinks that it means they have to have a cigarette. This is because cigarettes drug away the feeling of hunger. And this type of smoker is either underweight or is so used to eating one meal a day that they are used to packing it full of energy and do not realize they have to make changes to it when they start addressing the genuine need for eating.Those who were underweight are usually terrified when they start becoming a normal weight. They had been so used to being too thin that they identify as that person. so work needs to be done on the disordered eating, identity, and everything else around it.

This is why I find stop smoking treatment with EFT so satisfying. One holistically heals everything behind the smoking, and when it is all healed, the smoker then simply stops and feels no need to ever smoke again.

Israeli Researchers Say Smoking Is A Habit Not An Addiction – Why I Disagree

Suzanne — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 21:08:57 +0000

Israeli researchers have carried out a simple research monitoring cravings of smokers and have concluded quite correctly in my opinion that the hold nicotine has on people is psychological and not physical as in the sense of a heroin addiction.

However, the researchers have gone further and said that just because the need for smoking is psychological, then smoking is not an addiction. I disagree and would challenge this view of addiction.

There are many different addictions that grip the user and hold them hostage. Some involve no substance abuse at all. One example that comes to mind is co-dependency. This is when a person is attracted to destructive relationships. Amongst those are relationships with a physically abusive partner, a partner who continually cheats and is disrespectful, a partner who harms the children of their lover, and various other permutations. It is hard to call such a destructive way of life just a habit. I agree with practitioners who call such destructive behavior an addiction.

An addiction may well be physical, however what all addictions have in common is the psychological addiction. This even applies to heroin. For example, it was noticed that soldiers returning from Vietnam who had become addicted to heroin whilst in combat had a relatively good ability to stop becoming addicts afterwards, compared to the average civilian heroin addict. One may well say that the combat situation was temporary, whereas what normally attracts a user to heroin is pre-existing emotional reasons. And we all read about stars who go to rehab, are clean for years, and then suddenly get re-addicted.

In other words, it is important for us to recognize that despite any physiological effects of a drug, it is the emotional part that really makes the addiction. Pretending that the compelling emotional pull of a destructive behavior is just a habit is belittling the real reasons behind a serious addiction and belittling the real misery and ill-health suffered by countless addicts worldwide as a result.

In terms of energy psychology, an addictive craving is the result of an anxiety caused by a disruption of the subtle energy system of the mind-body. When we release this energy disruption, this anxiety is released and the cravings disappear. EFT, short for Emotional Freedom Techniques, is a great way to release this energy disruption gently and effectively. It can be self-applied or the smoker can dive right in and work with an experienced practitioner.

Stop Smoking Pills – The Latest Tragedy

Suzanne — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 06:32:03 +0000

Stop smoking pills from the doctor make no sense to me, because I have never come across an individual who truly needed them.

The Wall Street Journal may not agree, but it published this damning information about the latest stop-smoking fiasco.

U.K. Regulator Warns About Chantix and Suicide

There’s a new development around Pfizer’s smoking-cessation drug Chantix and suicide: The United Kingdom’s drug regulator has issued an update linking the medicine to reports of “depression and suicide related events.”

Documents posted by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency give the following advice: “Patients who are taking [Chantix] who develop suicidal thoughts or who develop agitation, depressed mood, or changes in behaviour that are of concern for the doctor patient, family, or caregiver should stop their treatment and contact their doctor immediately.”

What I’d like to know is why give a drug addict another drug instead of just removing the reasons for the drug addiction? In my experience, that is far easier, less costly, and more beneficial to the recipient. Cigarette addiction is like any other addiction, and the main causes are emotional, even if you don’t realize that at first. Now there are simple and relatively painless ways to removing those pesky negative emotional blocks in your path, and you could do it from as little as one session. Time and time again, in the stop-smoking session, my client and I reach a point where there is no cigarette craving whatsoever, and this continues the next day, and so on. Surely if cigarettes caused a physical addiction, this would not be the case? And for every client convinced that this was a physical phenomenon, I was able to show that by removing the emotional element, somehow the physical part went away. So why have a dangerous physical intervention? It makes no sense. I am certainly not anti-drug and definitely not anti-pharmaceuticals, as everything has its place. It just is not in my experience that a stop-smoking drug is needed.

Yours sincerely,

Suzanne Zacharia

Stop Smoking Expert and Author

Call +27 72 700 5334 or +27 21 556 7088 or +44 20 8144 5728

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