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As a hypnotist I know many reasons NOT to smoke. I think we all know the devastating effects on a smoker’s health, and even on the non-smoking spouse of a smoker. Among them are: lung cancer, heart disease, strokes, throat cancer, breast cancer, and so many other potentially fatal conditions.

 So today I am wondering not about why Quit smoking, but why smoke?

 Most people start in their teens. The statistics say 80%. Just try to imagine a 50 year old person sitting at their desk at work, thinking. Why don’t I start smoking? How about a 30 year old who has just completed running in the park, Hmmmm, maybe I should have a cigarette. Or a 40 year-old at a convenience store having the impulse to buy a carton of cigarettes on sale. I just have trouble imagining how one would get the inspiration to light up after being a teen.

Teens start for social reasons. They want to be like their friends, they want to be liked, they think it makes them grown up as it is illegal for minors but not for adults. How bad could it be? They know many smokers, may even live with one. Sometimes they think they can do it temporarily, so they can hang out with their friends now and when they graduate college, it will be easy to stop. No teenager I ever spoke to admitted they were addicted.

But what is an addiction? There are choices all along the way. I don’t know anyone who was forced to take up smoking. After 30 years, it doesn’t seem like a choice, but during the first few years, you have to force yourself to continue, you have to persist or it won’t become a habit.

But it’s easy to quit smoking. Mark Twain said, 

Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I have done it thousands of times!

He was trying to be humorous, BUT the fact is, people quit every day. Some use hypnosis. Some use other methods. The statistics say that 15 million people attempt to quit smoking every day, yet less than 3 percent of these people succeed. That means less than 5 million. So let me assert that 4 million people quit permanently every day!


Gloria D. Constantas M.A. has been a certified hypnotist for over 10 years. She earned a Master’s Degree in Counseling, Human Services, and Guidance in 1995, and then became certified by the National Guild of Hypnotists in 1996. She is also certified as an instructor of professional hypnotists since 2006. She has guided her clients to overcome many barriers to success, including phobias, anxiety, poor self-image, and low motivation, using hypnosis. She is the president of the Tampa Bay Chapter of NGH and on the adjunct faculty of the annual NGH convention.