I know because I did it! I was the heaviest smoker in North America, 3 packs a day, more on weekends. I know all the ways of failing: patches, gum, pills, and especially trying conscious willpower. I played all the usual tricks on myself: “Cigarettes reduce stress…they’re friends…they relax you…they taste good with coffee…or a drink.” Ha! It’s all false. Here’s why smoking holds its addictive grip: I was willing to try any method I knew would fail, but I was reluctant to quit smoking with hypnosis because secretly I knew it would work, and then I’d be without my cigarettes! Don’t laugh. Someday I’m going to start handing out a business card that says: “Gary Ahlskog, PhD, Bottom of the Barrel,” because it’s true that most people put hypnosis at the bottom of their list and don’t call me until they’ve failed at everything else. I’m not happy about people wasting time and destroying lung tissue while pursuing other useless methods (I did it too), but I understand why: People are afraid hypnosis will work and leave them in a state of deprivation. It doesn’t happen this way, it’s totally false, but it’s how our usual conscious thinking goes. In actuality, hypnosis doesn’t create a state of deprivation (without cigarettes) but a state of contentment (without cigarettes).
Here’s why it’s easy to quit smoking with hypnosis: (1) The hypnotist does all the work. You go have fun inside and don’t need to do anything but show up. You don’t even need to “want” to quit smoking (I didn’t). No conscious effort or willpower is involved, so smokers don’t have to promise anything or try to achieve anything. This means smokers who come to me can’t fail, because they never promised to achieve anything in the first place. The responsibility is all on me, and I’m happy to accept it because I’m an expert in this and know I’m going to be successful. (2) I don’t do anything to you except mobilize the power of your own unconscous mind to change what’s currently in your consciousness. It’s easy to quit smoking with hypnosis because your unconscious mind takes over and removes the urge to smoke. You just don’t want to smoke anymore. There’s no fear of being without cigarettes, because you just don’t want to anymore.
Every smoker who comes into my office is nervous at first. Everyone says they’re worried that they’ll be a failure. Not true, success is my job, not theirs. Also they fear they’ll still want to smoke. Not true, but understandable because until the session’s over they can’t imagine the depth of inner peace that comes by being released from an urge to smoke they thought could never happen. I make it easy to quit smoking with hypnosis because it removes the urge. Initially, you can’t imagine how this inner demon-urge could be removed, but it’s true: After hypnosis everyone says, “Gees, I thought it would be hard, but it’s easy to quit smoking with hypnosis.”
Like the commercial with chocolate cake…and milk: You can try to stop smoking the hard way, using pills, gum, patches, or conscious tactics, or you can do it the easy way…easy to quit smoking with hypnosis. About 60% of you reading this are just surfing and aren’t truly serious, but 40% of you truly want to stop smoking, so here’s the point: Hypnosis will free you from the urge to smoke and make it easy for you to quit, not a struggle, not difficult, but easy because you have no more urge. Smokers think this is impossible; they think quitting requires struggle, sacrifice, and pain. It pains me that so many smokers still resist hypnosis since it’s clear that after one simple easy treatment, their fears are false. It’s easy to quit smoking with hypnosis. It’s effortless. It’s painless. It’s permanent.
