Quit Smoking - Keeping Some Cigarettes Just In Case

In my pre-hypnosis contacts I always advise clients to ensure there will be no cigarettes in their environment for when they go home after the session. The only block to this is if there is another smoker in the house.

In this case then you will need to negotiate some spaces which will be smoke free, plus have the other smoker agree to not give you a cigarette under any circumstance. One client who could not get this agreement booked himself into a motel for two nights to avoid any contact. I have to say that I really admired this level of commitment.

Keeping some cigarettes just in case will not be of any help to you. Firstly it's usually the client themselves who have hidden the smokes in the back of the wardrobe. But of course they hid them, so they are not hidden and in any home will just be a minute or two away from accessing.

Because I have worked with so many smokers I can recount many instances where a client has reported that in the first one or two days after their session, that if they had a cigarette handy they would most likely have had a smoke. But because there were no cigarettes they got passed it and were successful.

A recent client who ignored my advice about not keeping any cigarettes, kept a half a pack (waste not want not!) in the top and back of her pantry.

After the session and during the night she was doing perfectly. But during the following morning she had a thought about a smoke and then easily accessed the half pack in her pantry.

I asked her what was her desire to smoke at that time, and she said it was just a little. From past experience I know that her thoughts of a cigarette would have passed quickly, especially if she would have used one of the quit strategy I had given her.

This is disappointing and it took two more sessions to finally help her to quit.

Another client wanted to argue on the phone before his session that it was best to keep some handy, just in case. What do you think he was really saying? He was saying that he doesn't think that he can quit or that hypnosis won't work for him.

Firstly a lot of clients who outwardly seem confident and internally doubting they can quit. I tell them that they don't need to be confident, but they do need to be committed.

However if they truly believe that hypnosis won't help them, then they are probably right. After all anyone who has convinced themselves to smoke thousands of cigarettes in spite of all the health warnings has a very powerful mind. So believing hypnosis won't work isn't much of a stretch.

So by now I'm sure you realise that keeping some cigarettes aside is a recipes for failure.

And now for you to discover the 5 big mistakes most people make when trying to quit smoking.