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Emotional Freedom Starts Here |
Dr. John J. Murphy Psychologist and Hypnotherapist | Beverly Hills, CA |
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There are three behavioral elements to follow that will greatly increase your chances of success with hypnotherapy to quit smoking. They are, in no particular order, nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), habit replacement, and identity formation. Of the three, NRT is rather optional; the other two are mandatory.
This is where you replace nicotine from cigarettes with nicotine from “The Patch,” nicotine gum, or some other product. Most research shows that what produces the best chances of success is a combination of both NRT and behavioral therapy. I have no problem with someone using any type of nicotine replacement therapy (or any other type of therapy, for that matter). The only two rules I have are 1) schedule our session for the day you actually quit smoking and 2) follow the instructions given to you by your doctor or pharmacist.
As we’ve seen in chapter 4, Charlie and Erica don’t just smoke for the nicotine but also to breath deeply and get away from it all. Charlie, for example, used his cigarette breaks as “punctuation marks”: an opportunity to end what he was doing before, reflect on it, and plan his next activity. Now, the common wisdom is that when you quit smoking, you stop taking those breaks, for fear of returning to the scene of the addiction. This is a fallacy. Although it is true with cocaine or alcohol that it’s important to avoid the old intoxication mechanisms, smoking is a psychological fix. It’s not just about the drug but the punctuation marks and the breathing. If we took all traces of nicotine out of Charlie’s system and told him to avoid taking smoking breaks, he would, at best, feel like something is missing and, probably, still have cravings. Why? Because the sub-conscious has paired smoking and “punctuation marks” so well that a desire for the latter is interpreted as a craving for the latter.
When I first started helping people quit smoking, I worked with a mother of three who would go out to the porch to smoke. Her husband would watch over the kids. I helped her quit and a month later she was back in my office. She spoke of how she was fine for the first ten days but on day eleven all three of her kids threw a massive temper tantrum. She wanted to escape. She wanted to go out to the porch, just for a few minutes. Ah, but she couldn’t because she might start smoking. And what kind of mother would she be if she just got up and left? After all, when she was smoking she at least had an excuse! So her sub-conscious “helped her out” by creating the cigarette cravings. Did she really crave nicotine? In all likelihood, she just wanted an escape. That craving for escape became the craving for nicotine.
So what I do for her second session? The exact same thing I did before, except this time I ordered her to take twice as many breaks as before. To do exactly what she did before during her breaks, except don’t smoke. Today she’s a happy non-smoker.
So, from the moment you quit smoking, whenever you used to take cigarette breaks, I want you to take the same breaks and do exactly what you did before, except don’t smoke. Don’t worry about social pressure or the environment acting as a cue—we can take care of that in session. In fact take more breaks—longer and more of them, especially the first two weeks.
While you’re taking a break, be sure to breath deeply. Remember, from chapter 2, smoking a pack of cigarettes a day is the equivalent of 300 deep breaths or about 50-minute long relaxation exercise. That means if you used to take ten cigarette breaks a day you should be taking ten breathing breaks, where you breathe deeply for about five minutes. And these aren’t short, kiddy breaths but deep, abdominal breaths.
Got it? On to the crown jewel: identity formation
Most people who quit smoking cold turkey only to return to the habit can fall into two categories: those who start smoking within a few days of quitting and those who start smoking three-to-six months after their quit date. In the first case, perhaps some huge craving occurred. But what happened in the second group? Why be a non-smoker for weeks or months only to suddenly start up again?
For a while, I was baffled. I would get a phone call from a person I worked with months ago who was a happy-go-lucky non-smoker until someone offered him a cigarette at a BBQ and he just, obliged. “Where there any cravings,” I asked. “No, not really, it just happened.”
And looking over the statistics, at the 6 month mark, the people who did start smoking again often were smoke free the first month but then sank at about the 3 month point and 5 month point.
What happened?
Well, consider social identity. To illustrate social identity see if you can visualize what an Italian might look like. Pretty easy, right? Now, imagine what a non-Chinese person looks like. I bet it was much more difficult? In fact, you probably first pictured a Chinese person. Likewise, it’s relatively easy to imagine yourself as a smoker. Imagine yourself as a non-smoker. What the hell are you doing as a non-smoker? There’s nothing to grab on to. There’s no role to attach.
Here’s an example of role differences. Let’s say two sisters, named Betty and Wilma both landed a job working for different cruise companies on different ships. They cruises were both about 6 weeks long. Betty works on the U.S.S. Miser where, in an effort to cut down on costs, meat was never served with any meals. It didn’t affect Betty too much; she simply ate what was provided. Wilma worked on the U.S.S. VegeBoat, where not only was meat not served, but a vegetarian lifestyle was encouraged. This was a cruise for vegetarians. Wilma, in her spare time, with nothing better to do, started to take vegan cooking classes and developed a taste for soy. Three months after they dock, it’s much more likely Wilma would remain a vegetarian than Betty. Why? Wilma adjusted her life on behalf of her new eating style. She’s more likely to stick with it, to identify with it. After all, maybe Wilma took some vegan magazines with her, or perhaps she got a three months supply of soy when she left the cruise ship. It doesn’t make sense for her to mix soy and meat. Either way, eating meat is more of a conflict for Wilma; it would take a lot more for her to start eating meat again.
How does this apply to smoking? Well, let’s say you’ve quit smoking and it’s a few months into the future. At about 3 and 6 months, your struggle with becoming a non-smoker is over. Out of sight, out of mind. All those reasons that brought you to treatment (i.e. the smell, the cost) are distant memories. When you’re offered the cigarette it’s not like it’s going to cost you any money or smell up all of your clothes? Why not take the cigarette? At this point, you’ll need something to keep you in the identity of a non-smoker. To do this, what I tell everyone who quits smoking is this gem:
For one year from the day you quit smoking, walk for 30 minutes each day, every day, without exception. If you start smoking, you have to do that year all over again.
Now, and this is very important: you’re not to take this walk to exercise. You’re only doing this walk because you are a non-smoker. In fact, if you walk 30 minutes anyway, you’ll have to do 30 minutes of some other activity, such as Yoga or Pilates. And this is an activity you have to do every day. If it’s raining and your only option is to walk around your kitchen, walk around your kitchen. And when you do go for the walk, I want you to take a few minutes and think about what makes it so important to be and remain a non-smoker.
This is an annoying activity. But it could be crucial to your success.
How so?
Let’s say you quit smoking for your new year’s resolution. You quit January 4th and exactly 6 months later you’re at a BBQ. Someone offers you a cigarette. Now, you’ll likely have no trace of nicotine in your system and no social pressure. Perhaps no real cravings but then again, the reasons for being a non-smoker wouldn’t be that great. I mean, it’s just one cigarette.
Now imagine walking every day for 30 minutes because you’re a non-smoker. Even if it’s in the rain. Even when it was muggy outside. Or you had a lot of work you had to do. But you still walked. Now at the BBQ when someone offers you a cigarette, you’re probably not going to think about cancer, or how it makes you smell, you’ll think of all that time you spent walking. I’ve heard time and time again that for those who walked, that their walking was a huge factor in their abstaining from that one cigarette, which almost always leads to a complete regression back to the old habit of smoking.
Think about a college fraternity. Pledges have to work very much and do all sorts of crazy things to become full-fledged brothers. But when they do gain acceptance, they value their brotherhood that much more than if their path towards acceptance was a walk in the park.
Walking for thirty minutes isn’t really that bad—not too much of a sacrifice. But it’s enough of an effort to provide a quick and easy justification for abstaining from that first cigarette. The walking will become a symbol of your being a non-smoker. Of having a new role.
So that’s the final piece of the puzzle. The complete program. We’ve gone over quite a bit of information: let’s put it all together.