You learned to be a smoker
Smoking is a skill that you had to consciously learn. Remember how unpleasant your first cigarette felt. You had to persevere through your body’s reaction, coughing and maybe retching, in order to smoke your first cigarettes. Perhaps you persevered for the pleasure of feeling part of a group of rebels with your schoolfriends, or to feel accepted or more grown-up, but it was certainly not for the feeling of pleasure you got out of the smoke and nicotine of your first cigarette.
Perhaps you then did learn to enjoy your cigarettes. The ritual of taking one out of the packet and lighting up. The immediate psychological and bodily changes you experienced as you drew in the smoke. Even the sight and smell of the smoke and the feel of the cigarette in your hand. These may all have helped you to enjoy smoking.
Smoking now an unconscious habit
But once you had consciously learned how to smoke a cigarette, it became an unconscious skill. Just like riding a bicycle, you no longer had to concentrate on the various steps in the process. More importantly, it became an unconscious habit.
So now you find yourself unconsciously, that is without deliberately deciding on it, smoking a cigarette when doing all sorts of activities: having a drink, reading the paper, walking to work, after lunch, on the way home and so on. Smoking has become an unconscious habit. In fact, it would feel uncomfortable not to smoke in these situations. Something would be missing. You would not know what to do with your hands.
Nicotine addiction put into context
You may say that you smoke because nicotine is addictive. It is true that your body can miss nicotine and cause you to feel uncomfortable. But how many of the cigarettes you smoke in the course of the day are actually to relieve the unpleasant effects of falling nicotine levels? Most are either because of a conscious choice to enjoy a cigarette or, more likely, an unconscious habit of smoking in that kind of situation.
Hypnotherapy and learning to be a non-smoker
With hypnotherapy you can learn to become and remain a non-smoker in as little as one session. This is because hypnotherapy can access your unconscious mind, which is where you smoking habit is maintained. The habit of associating everyday events with smoking will be broken, so that you will have no desire to smoke in situations in which you previously found yourself lighting up. Your unconscious mind will learn to think, feel and act like a non-smoker. So that you break the habit of years, not through willpower, but through a relearning in your unconscious mind. This can be achieved through a single session of hypnotherapy, giving you back the freedom to be a non-smoker.
