Ultimate Smoking Cessation Program

• Overview
• The Psycho-Emotional Dependency on Smoking
• Comparison of the Various Smoking Cessation Programs
• Research Data on Smoking and Your Health
• Health Gains Achieved by Stopping Smoking
• Ultimate Smoking Cessation Program

Overview

Research studies have shown that a multiple-session hypnosis protocol alone offers the highest success rate (67%) for stopping smoking whereas all other programs currently in existence, including nicotine replacement therapy and those that utilize antidepressants such as Wellbutrin or Zyban (bupropion), have been shown to be only about 25% effective. Other recent studies, however, have also demonstrated that even when only a single session of hypnotherapy is combined with another smoking cessation strategy the success rate of the combined protocols are approximately additive and, therefore, significantly higher than if either were administered alone.

The Ultimate Smoking Cessation Program was designed to capitalize on these research findings. By combining multiple sessions of hypnotherapy with not one, but two other smoking cessation strategies that have also been shown to be effective on their own - acupuncture and a detoxifying herbal tea - the program offers the most comprehensive stop smoking treatment program that has ever been developed.

Before describing the scientific basis as to why this multiple session - multiple strategy protocol is so effective, I believe it would be very constructive to first present to you some of the vitally important factors that must be taken into consideration for any smoking cessation program to ultimately be successful. It will help you to appreciate just how important hypnotherapy is to the protocol and why other smoking cessation programs are doomed to such high failure rates.

The Psycho-Emotional Dependency on Smoking

Over the many years in my private hypnotherapy practice, I have been able to help well over 1,200 patients to be able to quit smoking so that they could live longer, healthier and happier lives free from the high risk of developing lung cancer or many of the other illnesses and conditions directly related to long term cigarette smoking. As a matter of fact, by using the data from a recent major study which concluded that, on average, smokers cut about 10 healthy years off of their life spans, I can honestly state that I have probably added approximately 15,000 years of healthy living to all of my successful smoking cessation patients' collective lives!

During the first few years of my practice, however, I began to realize that quitting smoking was a much more complex and dynamic process than what I had been taught to expect by the many certification programs I had attended. Furthermore, when I researched the literature to try to find more comprehensive approaches, I discovered that none existed; that every one of them only seemed to focus on helping an individual to deal with the first few days of nicotine withdrawal without addressing the many psycho-emotional adjustments that the reformed smoker was also going to have to make during the process of quitting.

I quickly realized that, if I was going to be able to successfully help a greater number of my patients to permanently stop smoking, I was going to have to develop my own comprehensive program; that it would not only have to help them through the nicotine withdrawal period, but also through the many significant transformations that were going to have to take place in the biochemical, hormonal, psychological, emotional and behavioral aspects of their being.

By listing just a few of the characteristic behavioral strategies of an average smoker below, it should help you to develop a better appreciation of why a much more comprehensive approach is needed:

• Resorting to having a cigarette as a justification for taking a break from work or study.
• Resorting to having a cigarette as a method of dealing with boredom or loneliness.
• Using the hand-to-mouth activity involved in smoking in times of stress as a means of distracting the mind from having to think about uncomfortable thoughts or feelings (sadness, anger, hurt, fear, anxiety, etc.). This alone causes many smokers to develop a very unhealthy emotional dependency on a distractive, hand-to-mouth behavioral crutch. It is this hand-to-mouth habit that can also cause them to start reaching for more food after they have given up cigarettes.
• Using cigarettes (nicotine) and coffee (caffeine) as a "stimulant breakfast" to rev up the nervous system into wakefulness instead of having a healthy meal to provide the body with the fuel (glucose) it really needs for energy throughout the morning. Soda and sugary snacks serve a similar function later on in the day. I have learned over the years that the classic smoker rarely has an adequate breakfast in the morning and often skips other meals as well. Over time, this can eventually set up a very unhealthy cycle of "wired and tired" that can often lead to cravings for more use of stimulants in order to try to just stay awake and function throughout the day. This scenario can also ultimately contribute to sleep disorders suffered by many smokers.
• Thoughts of having a cigarette become conditioned over time by becoming associated with various aspects of a smoker's daily routine. These associations are referred to as triggers; when one has a cup of coffee or a beer, when the phone rings, when one gets behind the wheel of a car, when one is upset, after a meal, after sex, etc.
• Having to adjust to the social pressures associated with separating from a clique, social group of friends or co-workers who smoke which may create feelings of isolation and loneliness right after quitting.

Considering the significant psycho-emotional, social and behavioral factors that are involved with the above strategies, it should be easier for one to appreciate why programs that only focus on helping smokers to get beyond the first few days of nicotine withdrawal are inadequate. They are only addressing one aspect of the problem and leaving the many other significant, psycho-emotional adjustments that the reformed smoker is also going to be forced to cope with solely up to them to try to figure out once they have quit. Unfortunately, most of them end up quickly feeling overwhelmed by them and return to smoking within days.

In other words, one has to appreciate that, from the smokers' perspective, by quitting the smoking habit they have just lost their best friend which has always been there for them whenever they were bored or lonely. They have also just lost their distractive hand-to-mouth coping strategy for dealing with stress, negative thoughts or emotional upheavals. If that were not enough, by not routinely having an adequate breakfast, they have also just thrown away their method of energizing their mind and body into an alert state of wakefulness in the morning and throughout the day. Furthermore, if they do start to eat regular meals every day, many are now anxious about putting on extra weight. And yet, all they have to do is to just give in to that gnawing temptation to just light up that one cigarette and they can have it all back again!

Is it really any wonder why almost every smoker who tries to quit on his/her own ends up going back to the habit even if he/she has been successful at getting beyond the 3 ½ day nicotine chemical withdrawal period? Again, the characteristic strategies of the classic smoker listed above involves more than just a chemical addiction to nicotine. It involves a strong psycho-emotional dependency on a set of behavioral habits that have been strongly reinforced for coping with almost every aspect of the smoker's ritualistic, daily routine. All these factors are effectively taken into consideration within the comprehensive, multiple hypnotherapy session-multiple strategy protocol of the Ultimate Smoking Cessation Program.

Comparison of the Various Smoking Cessation Programs

As noted earlier, the fact that both nicotine replacement therapies and those involving anti-depressants such as Wellbutrin or Zyban (bupropion) typically have success rates of only about 25% is more than likely due to the fact that both are dealing with only one aspect of a much more multi-faceted transformational process as described above. The former focuses on eliminating the hand-to-mouth habit associated with smoking by substituting patches or gums to try to gradually wean the smoker off of the nicotine whereas the latter relies on an antidepressant to try to address the acute stress that occurs during the nicotine withdrawal period and perhaps also serves to temporarily subdue some of the psycho-emotional factors that the habit had been keeping at bay.

Unfortunately, these medications also carry the risk of significant side-effects such as agitation and tremors, rapid heart rate, headaches, constipation, hallucinations, seizures, etc. which the recovering smoker mistakenly assumes are a part of his/her withdrawal symptoms.

By contrast, there have been several major studies that have demonstrated that multiple sessions of hypnosis alone can produce a 67% success rate with a follow up confirmation of complete abstinence at 6 and 12 months after quitting. This table gives a comparison of the success rates of other major types of smoking cessation programs compared to a multiple session hypnotherapy protocol:

This data shows that multiple-session hypnotherapy can be 10 times more effective than attempting to quit on your own without any assistance and about 2 ½ times more effective than nicotine replacement, antidepressant medications or behavior modification approaches. It also demonstrates, however, that when strategies are combined under a multiple strategy approach, the success rate can increase significantly.

For example, Dr. Joseph Barber conducted a study at the University of Washington, Seattle and found that a multiple-session hypnosis intervention combined with another smoking cessation protocol could be an extremely effective method for stopping smoking. Of 43 patients who underwent the multiple strategy protocol, 39 reported staying abstinent at follow-up, which was 6 months to 3 years after the treatment ended. That is a phenomenal 91% success rate!

This table was included in a presentation on October 22, 2007 at the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians comparing a 50% success rate of former hospital patients undergoing only a single session hypnotherapy protocol (along with recorded follow-up sessions) to several other treatment options:

Note again that, in the case of the application of a multiple-strategy approach involving one session of hypnosis along with nicotine replacement therapy, the success rate increased by six-fold to 50% from what had been a success rate of only 8 % for nicotine replacement therapy used alone. However, a comparable 50% success rate was also achieved with only one hypnotherapy session supported by subsequent audio tapes.

Again, the Ultimate Smoking Cessation Program, therefore, was developed to take advantage of the above research findings that have demonstrated conclusively that the success rates for each of the individual smoking cessations strategies can almost be additive when a multi-session hypnotherapy protocol is combined with other individual smoking cessation strategies to yield the highest possible success rate.

Before describing the program to you, it might be instructive to first review a few of the more salient statistics from the American Lung Association's annual report along with other scientific data on cigarette smoking within the United States.

Research Data on Smoking and Your Health

About 26% (60 million) of adults within the United States are cigarette smokers with approximately 3,000 children and adolescents taking up the habit every day. Out of all of these, approximately 90% wish they had never taken that first puff. Each year, approximately 50% (30 million) make an attempt to quit on their own, but less than 5% are ultimately successful after as many as 6 failed attempts. For those who submit to the temptation of having just one cigarette after having achieved complete abstinence for more than 5 weeks, 85% return to becoming full-time smokers. And, in 70% of these cases, the major factor that caused them to return to smoking was associated with a stressful event that triggered negative feelings (anger, anxiety, fear, etc.) or boredom (which can also cause stress).

An estimated 440,000 Americans die each year from diseases directly related to smoking at an annual cost of $150 billion in health-care expenses and lost productivity. Smoking is directly responsible for 87% of all lung cancer cases and accounts for almost all emphysema and chronic bronchitis disorders. If one were to assume that the average smoker consumes about one pack of cigarettes per day at an average of $5.50 per pack, the annual cost of cigarette smoking in the United States is approximately $1.1 trillion in pre-taxable income.

The tobacco industry makes $643 billion annually and shares its prosperity with its compliant accomplice, local state governments, in this crime against humanity and children with a pure profit being distributed among the various states of $160 billion in taxes. Is it any wonder why Tobacco Company lobbies willingly contribute $36.5 million dollars annually to politicians in Washington to support their re-election campaigns and to curtail more restrictive legislation?

Smoking may not only cut an average of about 10 years of healthy living off of a person's life, it may also cause a great deal of suffering over the course of one's lifetime by directly contributing to the following conditions and diseases:

Health Gains Achieved by Stopping Smoking

The following health gains will be experienced once you have given up smoking cigarettes and have started breathing clean, fresh, oxygenated air again:

• Within 20 minutes: Your blood pressure, pulse rate and the temperature of your hands and feet all return to normal.
• Within 12 hours: Your blood oxygen level will have increased to normal and the toxic carbon monoxide level will have dropped to normal.
• Within 48 hours: Damaged nerve endings will have started to re-grow and your sense of taste and smell will have begun to return to normal.
• Within 72 hours: Your entire brain and body will test 100% nicotine-free and all but 10% of the remaining nicotine metabolites will have been passed out of your body through your urine and stool. You can also expect that the symptoms of chemical withdrawal from nicotine will have peaked in intensity at about this time. Your bronchial tubes will also start to relax and your lung capacity will begin to increase.
• Within 10 to 14 days: Your body will have physically adjusted to being able to function without nicotine and the more than 3,500 other toxic chemicals associated with tobacco.
• Within 2 weeks to 3 months: Your risk of having a heart attack has started to decrease and lung function will have significantly improved. Your circulation will also have substantially improved, walking and exercising will be significantly easier to perform and any chronic cough you may have had will subside.
• Within 1 to 9 months: Any smoking related sinus congestion, fatigue or shortness of breath will have significantly dissipated. The cilia in your lungs will have re-grown and you will have experienced an increased ability to handle mucus to keep your lungs clean and to reduce the risk of infection. Your overall energy will also have increased.
• Within 1 year: Your excess risk of coronary heart disease will have dropped to less than one-half that of a smoker.
• Within 5 to 15 years: Your risk of having a stroke will be reduced to that of a non-smoker.
• Within 10 years: Your risk of future death from lung cancer will have been cut to one-half (for a one-pack per day smoker) and your risk of cancer of the mouth, throat or esophagus will also be significantly reduced.
• Within 15 years: Your risk of coronary heart disease will have become equal to that of a person who has never smoked.

The Ultimate Smoking Cessation Program

The Ultimate Smoking Cessation Program offers both a hypnotherapy/acupuncture approach to the multiple-strategy protocol and, for those who have an aversion to needles, a hypnotherapy/ non-acupuncture approach as Option 1 and Option 2, respectively. Each option encompasses 3 treatment sessions with each session involving hypnotherapy combined with the two other smoking cessation strategies administered over a 5 day period. Below is a brief outline of the three strategies administered during each of the three sessions under Option 1 and Option 2 protocols followed by a more complete description.

OPTION 1	OPTION 2
(With Acupuncture)	(Without Acupuncture)
1. Acupuncture of 4 ear points     (with mild electrical stimulation)	1. Acupressure beads taped to 4 ear points     (left on ears over five days)
2. Personalized Hypnotherapy Session	2. Personalized Hypnotherapy Session
3. Detoxification Herbal Tea     (take home use)	3. Detoxification Herbal Tea     (take home use)

Patient Preparation: Prior to your first session, you will be required to fill out a comprehensive questionnaire that will provide the necessary information that will serve as the basis for the hypnotic suggestions and instructions that your hypnotherapist will be designing as a program to offer to your subconscious mind during the hypnosis portion of each treatment session. For example, you will be asked to describe what your daily routine is normally like as a smoker; what you typically eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner; whether or not you skip meals (especially breakfast); what are the triggers that cause you to think about or want a cigarette; when, where and with whom you smoke and to create a list of what your goals are for living, etc. You can either arrive 30 minutes earlier than your scheduled appointment time to fill out this form or you can download it by clicking the link at the bottom of this web page.

Prior to your first appointment, it is also strongly recommended that you clear all evidence of your previous smoking habit out of your home, automobile and work environment. That includes disposing of all cigarettes, cleaning out ash trays and throwing away lighters. If your smoking habit also included skipping meals, especially breakfast, you should do some grocery shopping prior to your first appointment to insure that you have food and healthy snacks on hand so that you can have regular meals at appropriate times throughout the 4 to 5 day treatment period.

Acupuncture under Option 1: Your first session under Option 1 will begin with a 30-minute acupuncture treatment involving 4 acupoints on one ear. These points will then be stimulated with a mild electrical current which research studies have shown will cause your brain and body to secrete a high level of enkephalins and endorphins, respectively. These chemicals are the body's own naturally occurring, opiate-like substances that are 3 times more sedative than morphine. This constitutes a very effective alternative to the anti-depressant medications of Wellbutrin and Zyban (bupropion) used in other smoking cessation strategies without producing any of their known, significant side effects.

Acupressure Beads under Option 2: For those who have an aversion to receiving needles and electro-acupuncture on ear points, painless acupressure beads can be taped onto the skin at these points instead and left on over the next 3-5 days to stimulate a mild, continuous secretion of sedative endorphins.

Hypnotherapy: Each acupuncture treatment will immediately be followed by a hypnotherapy session in which the hypnotherapist will use the questionnaire you filled out in order to design a program involving hypnotic suggestions tailored to meet your specific lifestyle needs, coping strategies and goals. While in hypnosis, your hypnotherapist will essentially be walking you through the next 3 to 4 days as a non-smoker. Hypnotic suggestions and instructions will also be designed to alter unwanted behaviors, by-pass triggers, block nicotine withdrawal symptoms, promote relaxation, eliminate cravings, etc. and will conclude with a list of all the reasons why you want to live, what health gains you will be able to achieve by always breathing clean, fresh air and what specific goals you will want to achieve during your future life as a non-smoker.

Detoxification Tea: You will then be given a supply of a detoxifying herbal tea to take home with you that acts as a diuretic designed to rapidly eliminate nicotine and the 3,500 other toxic chemicals found in tobacco out of your body as rapidly as possible. You should, therefore, try to avoid caffeine stimulation from coffee and sodas as much as possible, substitute the tea instead over the course of the treatment period and drink at least eight - 8 oz. glasses of water each day in order to rapidly flush out the toxins.

This same exact multi-strategy treatment protocol will be repeated two additional times over the course of the next 4 days in order to strengthen the overall effectiveness of the program to insure that each patient will be able to move beyond the nicotine chemical withdrawal period with ease. Acupressure beads will also be applied to one ear at the end of the final session to further extend the sedative, therapeutic benefits of endorphin secretions over the subsequent 3-5 day period and hypnotic suggestions will also be designed to extend the benefits of the behavior modification protocol over the next several weeks.

Please call 617-923-3911 to set up your appointment time. DO IT NOW and finally join the ranks of all those who have successfully quit smoking in order to live longer, healthier, and happier lives!

Here's the form you will need:

• Download Ultimate Smoking Cessation Registration Form