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If you need inspiration to quit smoking or quit anything for that matter, read Sue’s story below. When would be a good time now to stop this behaviour…

They say ‘once a smoker always a smoker’. I started when I was 15. My step-father liked to roll with tobacco but now and then he’d buy a pack of straights. As a curious teen I took one, lit it and coughed my guts out. But then I inhaled again and again and eventually I was sitting there smoking with an enormous nicotine high. I liked it, but said to myself I won’t do it again. That didn’t last.

I’ve smoked on and off for years. The only times I didn’t smoke was when I was pregnant and that was for the baby’s benefit not mine. Soon enough I was back on them but by this point I didn’t really enjoy smoking. When I was much younger, I smoked when I went out with friends, I smoked when I was bored and I smoked when I was worried about school/university stuff. I enjoyed it though. The first cigarette of the day after I’d had breakfast was almost euphoric.

When I got older, I started to hate the things. I stank. I stank all the time. My teeth had a yellow tinge, and too much nicotine gave me a headache. I also just felt disgusting simply from having the little stick in my hand. I really didn’t like smoking anymore but I was so used to it.

A friend suggested I try stop smoking hypnosis and I laughed. To me at the time it seemed a bizarre and absurd approach to stop smoking so I didn’t commit. I craved the nicotine and I craved a cigarette in the same situations as I did 15 years earlier. I was hooked on the stuff but I was also hooked on the illusion that the cigarette made me feel better when I was down, or made me more confident on a night out or comforted me in whichever way I needed.

I knew it was time to quit (again) when I saw my daughter cough. I felt like I had poisoned her and she was going to be a victim of passive smoking and it would be all my fault. I have tried quitting before but the nicotine patches and gum didn’t work for me. Six months after ditching them I’d light up again.

I had stop smoking hypnosis to quit smoking and it helped me realise that cigarettes do not make me feel better and they do not aid my confidence in any way. Hypnotherapy made me realise that I would feel exactly the same after I’ve smoked as how I did before I lit up. My brain simply associated a cigarette with a way to relax and hypnotherapy broke this connection. Once this connection broke, I knew and felt deep within me that I did not need cigarettes any more.

I am now a happy non-smoker. The saying ‘once a smoker always a smoker’ might be true for some, but I believe that for those who have had hypnotherapy to quit smoking, this saying does not apply.