So here I go… It was suggested that I start blogging on my website, and if like me you haven’t a clue what that entails you will understand my pain!
I researched different topics and quitting smoking was the area that I felt that I should focus on with my first Blog.
As an ex-smoker I have had many conversations about smoking and a fellow hypnotherapist once commented that smoking is literally a ‘smokescreen’ for something else going on in the smoker’s life.
I tried to take a different approach from the usual ‘tips to quit smoking’ blogs and decided instead to list the five main reasons why people continue to smoke. This is based on feedback provided by previous clients of mine.
1. Stress
2. Habit
3. Weight Control
4. Emotional Crutch
5. Loneliness
Because these reasons are so embedded into a “Smoker’s life” you can understand the hold that cigarettes would have over people and the fear generated if there was a threat of them being taken away.
However, when you analyse each of these reasons you begin to see how they do NOT do what the smoker actually thinks they are doing.
For example, the act of smoking a cigarette couldn’t possily relieve anybody of stress, but changing what is causing the stress or their outlook in general would.
As you move down the list you realise that habit is caused by something you do over time, therefore if you stop doing it for a while that too will become the habit.
Quitting smoking doesn’t cause you to put on weight, overeating does that. So as long as you don’t eat anymore than usual then that shouldn’t occur.
How could smoking a cigarette possibly provide emotional support? Clearly there this is an area of the smoker’s life that needs addressing and no amount of cigarettes would ever address that!
Similarly, if you need a cigarette to ease loneliness then you need to get out more! On a serious note, as with the emotional support there is an area of the smoker’s life that is failing for some reason and this needs to be addressed head on to remove the dependency.
…and not with the use of the smokescreen.