Field Report: Merry X-Mas! You're a non-smoker now

Summary: I help my sister and a friend quit smoking.


This took place on the eve of Christmas eve.

It was around 11:30pm. I had just arrived at my sister's place after a long 5 hour drive from LA. My sister, a friend, and I were playing Yahtzee and I remembered how my sister had wanted me to help her quit smoking. Both she and our friend (let's just call him R) had been smoking for decades.

As we played Yahtzee, I brought up how, previously, they told me that they wanted to stop smoking. Just as I brought it up, R started telling me that he only had one cigarette left to last him until tomorrow.

It was around 11:30pm and he was worried about only having 1 cigarette to last him until tomorrow. Wow.

Anyways, I asked them if they still wanted me to help them quit smoking. They both said yes.

I've wanted my sister to quit smoking for sooo long. And now I had a chance to help both my sister and R, two people very important to me, become non-smokers. I was so excited to hear that, that I just couldn't wait, so I asked them if they wanted to do it right then. They were each a little hesitant. I think it was because they thought I was going to hypnotize them and that it would take a while and we'd have to stop playing Yahtzee and all that.

So here was the situation: I was going to help two people become non-smokers. Both were hesitant and one had an urge to smoke right then and was afraid he didn't have enough cigarettes. Oh yeah, and this would happen while we played Yahtzee.

So what happened?


Short version:

I simply told them it would be easy and we could do it while we continued to play. They both were cool with that and ten or fifteen minutes later, after some NLP magic, they were non-smokers.


Long version:

Here was my game plan: I figured I'd do some NLP stuff and see what happened. I didn't even know myself whether or not it would work, but it was definitely worth a try. If the NLP stuff didn't work, I would hypnotize each of them and use a stop smoking script that I memorized before arriving there that night.

The first thing I did with both of them was ask about their goal (to quit smoking). I helped them, as best I could, to adjust their goal until it was well-formed.

I asked a lot of questions: What stops them from reaching their goal now? What did they get out of it currently? What will they get when they've reached their goal? What won't they get? How will they know when they've reached their goal? etc. This helped all of us get a better understanding of the task at hand.

After that, I helped construct a swish pattern for both of them, had them carry out the exercise, did some future pacing, and told them we were done. Oh yea, and as we continued to play Yahtzee, I gave them some semi-covert suggestions for their ongoing success.

When I told them we were done, they were both surprised how short it took. At the time, I wasn't really sure if it worked and neither were they. One thing I did know was that R no longer had an urge to smoke.

After that night, and for the next couple weeks during the holiday season, I got to see firsthand how they were doing as non-smokers. The entire time, neither of them smoked. Their habit of going outside at different times of the day to have some "free time" (where they smoked together) stopped altogether. At times, I thought it was kind of funny and a little sad because when our cousin (who is a smoker) spent time with us during the holidays, she would still go outside for "free time" - alone. After a couple days, my sister was grumpy and I remember her saying that it was because she hadn't smoked a cigarette for a couple days, but she seemed to get through that fine. R didn't show any signs of withdrawal or compulsion to smoke - in fact, he gave that last cigarette that he had to my cousin. haha.

This event took place Dec. 23, 2004. Today is Jan. 18, 2005. I just talked to each of them and heard stories about how their friends are really surprised at how they're not smoking anymore.
My sister mentioned that her boss would pay me to help him quit smoking if it worked for him (I guess he needs some time to see for himself how long my sister will keep the change). She also said that she feels healthier now and can tell the difference. Unfortunately, they both seem to want to believe that they've simply replaced addictions - my sister says she's addicted to buying purses now and R says he's eating more. I'm not sure if those things are related to the fact that they quit smoking or if they're just using it as an excuse, but I'll deal with those the next time I'm home. For now, I shall relish in the pride and fulfillment of knowing that they've been non-smokers for nearly a month now and it seems to me that they will continue to be non-smokers for a long time to come.