A very common thing I hear from my quit smoking clients is that they enjoy smoking, they love to smoke when relaxing with friends, or having a drink or a coffee, but each day they wake up thinking that they wished they could quit cigarettes.

It’s like being torn in two directions at once, in the end something will fail, and it is usually the quitting which fails.

It’s like the person on the diet who eyes the dessert trolley and says, “I know I shouldn’t but hit me with that big lump of sugary heaven”. The struggle between good and bad seems endless.

The problem is there is not a clear agreement about which is good and which is bad.

Logically you think that quitting is good and smoking is bad, but a deeper thought is smoking is enjoyable and quitting will be hard, and so the internal battle continues.

The first thing to do is to identify clearly what it is you like about smoking. Is it the taste? The smell?, is it how you feel?

The first thing to do is to break up your smoking reasons into two groups.

• Your smoking reasons which don’t relate to cigarettes such as boredom, on the phone, with coffee, alcohol or after sex. Non-smokers drink coffee or alcohol, get bored and have sex and all manage to survive.

All of these reasons are just habits and will drop away quickly with hypnosis and a little time.

• Smoking specific reasons, taste, smell and perceived addiction. Pleasure from taste and smell can be adjusted incrementally prior to hypnosis by changing your association. i.e. When you light up link the smell and taste with something you dislike.

With each smoke in your mind or out loud proclaim what rotten things these smokes are. Don’t give yourself the opportunity to enjoy them, keep bad mouthing them and telling yourself you will be well rid of them.

It probably sounds simple, but remember it’s not meant to cure your habit, just to shift you further from smoking and closer to being a non-smoker. Then your hypnosis session will be able to shift you the rest of the way much easier than if a part of you still enjoys smoking a lot.

Quitting is primarily for you, sure your practitioner will do their best but it’s your life and your health so the more you are engaged in the process the better off you will be.