Smoking

When people come to me to stop smoking, my first question to them is ‘do you really want to stop?'. Because if they don't, then it is unlikely that anything, including hypnosis, will help. It has to be something they really want to do for themselves, not for their partners, parents, employers etc.

Smokers are addicts - they are addicted to nicotine and if that was not enough, they have got into the habit of smoking and that in itself can be as difficult as the addition to nicotine to deal with.

There has never been a better time to give up smoking. It's official. Lighting up is now illegal just about everywhere. Hapless addicts have been hounded out of their traditional haunts and consigned to cigarette Siberia. If they're at work, you'll find them huddled somewhere the other side of the car park. Wind-blown pub gardens are now populated with these social pariahs. Many are exiled from their own homes by disapproving spouses.

We all know that smoking contributes to cancer, heart disease, bronchitis, strokes, stomach ulcers, leukemia, gum disease, gangrene, asthma, wrinkles and bad breath.

We also know that smoking makes you short of breath and that breathing in other people's smoke can cause headaches and lack of concentration. Each year around 17,000 kids under the age of 5 go into hospital with complaints caused by smoke from their parents' cigarettes.