When simply filling up the gas tank and heating your home is busting people's bank accounts, to realize that you could be wasting up to $1200 a month of your hard-earned money on a habit that might one day kill you... yeah, that's rough.
Duke University (right on "Tobacco Road") did a study a few years back that found the real cost of cigarettes is about $40/pack.
Here's an excerpt from the article available at the link:
In their new book "The Price of Smoking," Duke University health economists calculated this sum by analyzing all the costs of smoking -- personally, to the smoker’s family and to society at large.
Their analysis found that the cost for a 24-year-old smoker over 60 years was $220,000 for a man and $106,000 for a woman, or a total of about $204 billion nationally over 60 years. The figures include expenses for cigarettes and excise taxes, for life and property insurance, medical care for the smoker and for the smoker’s family, and lost earnings due to disability.
This is the place where you can find all the best, most accurate information about smoking cessation in the blogosphere.
This includes:
Articles from mainstream news sources
Major scientific & university studies
Case studies
Interviews with past & present clients
Original articles & podcasts
Much more
I have a degree and background in broadcast journalism, so you can be certain that all of the information you find here will be properly referenced and fact-checked, with links provided whenever possible. I'm a therapist and a researcher, not a salesman.
All of this is provided for you, not with the intent of convincing you that hypnosis is the solution for you; rather, so that you can make the best, most informed decision possible on how to stop smoking immediately.
I'm not arrogant enough to assume that my methods are the best for everyone, and because you are an individual, it's up to you to decide which path to take in order to become healthier.
So whether it's the patch, the gum, the shot, the laser... or simply learning to use that brain of yours far more effectively... this is the place where you'll be able to examine the facts and decide which method is right for you.
I welcome questions and comments, and will personally respond to all questions left on this blog in a timely fashion. So please... enjoy perusing the site. I hope I can be of help in your quest to become smoke-free.
Here's an audio interview with a client of mine (Heather) who used my program to stop smoking with hypnosis. A lot of your questions may be answered herein... as Heather talks about her experiences not only with hypnotherapy, but also her attempts to quit by using the patch, nicotine gum, laser therapy and even cold turkey.
As of the recording of this interview, she'd been successful for about a week shy of eight months, and she's one of my biggest sources of referrals, having sent me friends and others for smoking cessation and other issues as well.
So take a listen, and find out what it's like to be hypnotized, how it feels immediately following your initial session, what it's like to be around smokers after you've quit (and after having a couple drinks), and much more.
When I first began studying hypnosis, I quickly grabbed every book by Milton Erickson I could find. Reading these works was incredibly exciting. His methods and the results he achieved were nothing short of remarkable.
Anyone interested in hypnosis should take a little time and get to know who this man was. Without him, it's my opinion that hypnotherapy wouldn't be anywhere near as readily available (and it certainly wouldn't be as effective) as it is today.
Milton Henry Erickson, MD (1901 - 1980) was a psychiatrist and psychologist regarded by many as the foremost practitioner of medical hypnosis in his time.
He wrote "Hypnotic Realities" and many other books dedicated to the "Art of Hypnosis" and which document the many things he learned while treating the many patients he encountered.
He was a scientist and deeply gifted hypnotist.
He was founding president of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis, as well as a fellow of several APAs: The American Psychiatric Association, The American Psychological Association, and The American Psychopathological Association.
He was noted for his often unconventional approach to psychotherapy, such as described in the book “Uncommon Therapy” by Jay Haley; for his extensive use of therapeutic metaphor and story as well as hypnosis; and for coining the term Brief Therapy for his approach of addressing therapeutic changes in relatively few sessions, often only a single session.
I will continue to post stories like this as they emerge. The bottom line is that, even if the percentage of people who die as a result of taking Chantix is small, every single death is completely unnecessary. You'd be better off continuing to smoke cigarettes than to take these far more potent and dangerous pharmaceutical concoctions.
More than enough methods are available to stop smoking that have absolutely no harmful side-effects. Although I recommend hypnosis before any other method, I'd recommend anything other than pharmaceuticals (Chantix, Champix, Wellbutrin). The top of the list would have to be hypnotherapy and acupuncture. These methods should be attempted before any other because they're absolutely safe.
What you are beginning to see in regard to Chantix is only the tip of the iceberg. These cases tend to remain buried until the first one bursts through; others quickly emerge. You have to wonder if it's only a matter of time before we see a story like this about Chantix:
LONDON (Reuters) - Pfizer Inc tried to suppress medical studies that did not support the use of its epilepsy drug Neurontin, internal Pfizer documents submitted in a U.S. lawsuit against the company showed.
The documents suggest that Pfizer's marketers influenced Neurontin's scientific record to boost sales at least until 2003 by delaying the publication or altering the conclusions of studies that had found no evidence the drug worked for various conditions besides epilepsy.
Remember this headline, from USA Today, back in 2005?
Minneapolis, Minnesota - - On July 20, 2005 United States Chief District Court Judge, James M. Rosenbaum rejected Pfizer’s effort to dismiss Kimberly Witczak’s Zoloft-suicide lawsuit. Mrs. Witczak asserts that Zoloft induced her husband, Timothy (“Woody”) Witczak, to commit suicide after suffering severe adverse reactions to the drug. Mrs. Witczak claims that Pfizer fraudulently marketed Zoloft as safe and effective and failed to provide warnings about Zoloft’s propensity to induce suicidality, despite Pfizer’s knowledge of the risk, as evidenced by internal memoranda and studies obtained through discovery. [my emphasis]
In an effort to prevent this evidence from reaching a jury, Pfizer sought to dismiss the case, arguing that Mrs. Witczak’s state law claims are "preempted" by federal law. Pfizer argued that, since the FDA approved Zoloft and did not, until recently, require a warning about suicide risk, any lawsuit blaming Pfizer for failing to warn about the risk is legally impermissible.
Suicides, side-effects and lawsuits are not the exception - they're commonplace. Because of their history and track record, pharmaceutical drugs, particularly those that affect you psychologically, should be avoided unless absolutely necessary. These companies (Pfizer, Merck, etc.) have shown repeatedly that the bottom line is more important to them than the well-being of the public.
Here are the first few paragraphs from the article about Chantix suicide. Click the link below for the full story.
Widow Sues Pfizer Over Chantix Suicide By Ed Silverman // July 10th, 2008 // 12:43 pm
On January 3, David Collins killed himself with a shotgun, three months after he began taking Chantix, Pfizer’s controversial smoking-cessation pill. Now, his widow, Linda, has filed what may be the first product-liability lawsuit against the drugmaker over Chantix side effects and an alleged failure to provide sufficient warnings. And her lawyer predicts many more such lawsuits are on the way.
In her lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Indianapolis, Collins claims Pfizer failed to adequately study Chantix; delayed publication of studies containing Chantix risk info; failed to update Chantix labeling sooner, and denied Chantix is explicity to blame for suicide by instead suggesting such behavior may be the result of nicotine withdrawal. Here is the lawsuit.
“The magnitude of the safety signal associated with the risk is alarming,” Kristian Rasmussen, one of Collins’ lawyers, tells us. Prior to the suicide, David Collins exhibited aggression and had strange dreams, but had no history of mental illness. Pfizer has been criticized for not including people with mental illness in its clinical trials, because the drug causes neuropsychiatric side effects.
You may recall the FDA, last February, issued a health advisory about Chantix concerning ties to the side effects, shortly after Pfizer upgraded the labeling. At the time, the FDA reported 39 suicides and 491 cases of suicidal behavior or thoughts.
Coldplay has a new album out next week, and in a new article it’s revealed that they hired a hypnotist to help them while creating “Viva La Vida” in the studio.
Here’s an excerpt from Entertainment Weekly:
Q: And you also hired a hypnotist during the sessions? What was that about?
BUCKLAND: [Producer] Brian Eno knew a hypnotist and we thought it might get some interesting results. We all went upstairs, sat down, and he walked around us. He got us into some strange kind of trance, and we came down and played some more.
MARTIN: Quite a long time, I think. It did work, actually. We came up with a lot of interesting noises, which we used. I think the whole process of getting our own place and working with Brian has been really liberating for us. Because it was starting to become a little difficult to be in Coldplay — there's so much opinion, expectation, and criticism. We wanted to be free from that for a bit, to try things and just be a little group, which Brian really spearheaded. So things like the hypnotism, all these little crazy experiments that he tried with us was just an effort to say, ''It's OK. Not everybody hates you because you're in Coldplay. Just play some music and don't worry about it.''
Other famous people known to have used hypnosis include Matt Damon, Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson, Tiger Woods, Jimmy Connors, Rod Carew, George Brett, Kevin Costner, Sylvester Stallone, Jackie Kennedy-Onassis, Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein.
For a full list, see this page on my official website.
I went through the first 26 years of my life without learning anything significant about hypnosis. I’ll spare you the story of how I first got into it, but I was certainly skeptical at first. I figured anything useful or effective would naturally be known about and widespread by now. I mean, duh… if hypnosis is so freakin’ great, why isn’t everyone doing it?
First of all, many people are doing it, but not nearly enough have even heard much about it.
There are many reasons why hypnosis still remains on the fringe. One answer is fear. People fear the unknown. They fear being controlled. They fear feeling stupid for being taken in by a scam.
Another reason is that there isn’t much money in curing people through hypnosis. Sure, there are hypnotherapists who make a decent living for themselves, but that’s nothing compared to the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry, which is based upon the assumption that only drugs can “fix” us, and that we, as humans, are ultimately powerless.
The top ten pharmaceutical companies earn more money per year than the other 490 Fortune 500 companies combined. You see, there is BIG money to be made by convincing people that they are powerless to help themselves.
Just watching the commercials during the evening news will “inform” you of two important things:
1) You have lots of problems. 2) A powerful new drug can help you.
Are you depressed? Try this powerful new anti-depressant! Can’t sleep? We have a great drug for that, too! Problems with erectile dysfunction? We’ve got you covered! Allergies? You betcha!
Take a look at “Big Bucks, Big Pharma” below. This is only part one, so visit YouTube to view the remaining portion of this informative video.
Also, check out this interview with Gwen Olsen, a former pharmaceutical sales rep and author of “Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher,” a book revealing her experiences not only as a member of the industry, but also as someone who took dangerous anti-depressants herself. Also check out Prescription: Suicide?, a documentary based in part on her experiences.
And by the way, if you’re wondering why you don’t hear too much about hypnosis on the news, just imagine how thrilled the drugs companies would be if, just after running an expensive commercial for Lunesta, CNN aired a story about how you can sleep easily and naturally after a few sessions of hypnosis.
Just a thought you may wish to consider...
Heck, women in the United States can’t even give birth to a child without going to the hospital and getting injected with a chemical cocktail. Even though women have been giving birth since, well, forever... they have been hypnotized by our society to believe that a hospital is the only safe place to bring a child into the world.
Here’s a trailer for “The Business of Being Born,” an excellent documentary about the state of the birthing industry in America.
Is there nothing we can do on our own?
You have a problem? Chances are there’s a fancy new drug out there that’ll make it go away.
Of course, there will be side effects to taking all these drugs, which are often far more serious than the problem being treated.
Furthermore, most pharmaceutical drugs have tested only slightly better than placebos! That’s a documented fact. In fact, the placebo issue has become so problematic for drug manufacturers that they are currently making efforts to exclude subjects who responded to placebos from future studies. How awful it would be if the public discovered that their new wonder drug was only 2% more effective than a sugar pill, not to mention the enormous financial expense and all the dangerous side-effects.
Sadly, many of today’s licensed psychiatrists have become more like glorified drug dealers. I have worked with many clients who had previously seen psychiatrists or other mental health professionals over a long period of time without experiencing any noticeable improvement. Maybe that’s because psychiatrists openly acknowledge that they can’t “cure” any mental illness (see video below).
The underlying message is that you need medical intervention to solve your problems. Now, is that empowering? Is that the kind of treatment that builds self-confidence or a sense of independence?
Of course not. But it is very difficult to sell people things they don’t need unless you first convince them that they actually do need it.
My message to my clients always boils down to this: you can do it. It may not come easily, but you can do it. You can find a better career. You can get back in shape. You can have fulfilling relationships. You can stop smoking, drinking, biting your nails and obsessing over trivial things.
You can do it and you can do it on your own. You may benefit from some guidance and good advice, but you don’t need to take a pill, and you don’t need a nose job or a tummy tuck to feel better about yourself.
That’s my message, and yes, I make a decent living by helping people understand it and change their lives for the better.
Hopefully by now you understand a bit more about why hypnosis, if it can be so powerful and effective, still isn’t as popular as McDonald’s or Starbucks.
Anyone who’s seen “Supersize Me” knows what a steady diet of McDonald’s will do to you, and that healthy, fresh foods are the way to go.
So maybe the fact that something is popular (or not) isn’t the most important thing when considering your options.
The truth is, you don’t even “need” hypnosis... but compared to the alternatives, it sure is a safer and far more reasonably-priced solution.
I'm the Heartbreak Hypnotist™ - Atlanta's leading relationship expert. I also help people to change bad habits, stop smoking, lose weight, eliminate fears and all sorts of other wonderful things. Oh, and I make it fun :)
Thanks for stopping by. This is the place where you'll find the most complete collection of information about smoking cessation in Atlanta, GA. My hope is that you'll use this site as a resource that helps you make the best decision about how to quit.
" and many other books dedicated to the "Art of Hypnosis" and which document the many things he learned while treating the many patients he encountered.
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