Marcus Rice
Interactive Producer
Austin, TX
I was smoking a pack a day for 15 years and I've been a nonsmoker for two months now. I have more energy and I'm sleeping better now. I also noticed that I don't have a smoker's cough anymore.
In the past, I'd tried Xanax to stop smoking and that didn't work at all. I also quit cold turkey eight years ago, but when I was under a lot of stress I started smoking again. Whenever I tried to quit, I would realize that I either didn't want to or that I couldn't do it.
My boss asked me if I would consider stopping smoking if he paid for it. I'd been thinking about trying to quit and I'd read an article about hypnosis in the paper a couple of months ago that sounded interesting. I looked up A New Day Hypnosis on Citysearch and read through the testimonials. It sounded like something that I wanted to try and I felt like it would be a good starting point for me.
The change in my behavior was pretty immediate and I quit after the first session. I started to become aware of the fact that I'd gone to cigarettes for a lot of different reasons and connected smoking to a lot of different experiences. Every time I got anxious, I would notice a desire there, but it wasn't overwhelming the way that it used to be. Once I addressed it, I was able to move on. Recently, I went on my first long drive without smoking. I still have those moments where I say to myself "Something's different", and then I realize "Oh yeah, I'm not smoking like a chimney anymore".
Once I flipped that switch, it was easier for me. I feel more in control now. I had a friend who tried to quit smoking and he was a miserable person to be around and now he's started up again. He keeps telling me that it's gonna get worse for me and I let him know that I'm past that now. I know that now it's just a matter of having all of those "first times" again when I'm doing things as a nonsmoker. I'll even notice that I go days without thinking about it. At this point, I can't remember the last time that I thought about cigarettes. Because I've been able to quit smoking, I feel more confident about my ability to make other changes in my life. I feel like a nonsmoker permanently because I don't have the desire to smoke and I've learned new ways to deal with stress so that I won't go back to it. I would recommend A New Day Hypnosis to anyone who wants to stop smoking because it's worked for me.