Kicking the habit

BY ELYSE AMEND

elyse.amend@transcontinental.ca

Sunflower seeds, lollipops, and ice chips are just a few cigarette replacements people trying to quit might use when a craving comes on. As we are half-way through National Non-Smoking Week, which ends on Saturday, some people might be thinking about kicking the habit. Whether you use traditional methods, or the not-so-traditional, most professionals agree on one thing: quitting needs to be something you have decided to do for yourself.

“The first thing I ask, and the first thing the person who wants to stop smoking needs to know, is why they want to stop smoking,” said Lorraine Isabelle, director of the West Island Health and Social Services Centre (HSSC)’s Quit Smoking Centre. “If we’re quitting for others, it can be very hard, because we’re not doing it for ourselves.”

Isabelle explained there are four types of dependencies to cigarettes: the nicotine dependency, the psychological dependency (such as smoking when you’re stressed), the social dependency (smoking when you’re out with friends or in a social setting), and ritual dependency (lighting up when you’re on the phone, for example).

“I’ve never seen two smokers who are exactly the same,” said Isabelle, adding those wishing to quit need to first figure out what types of smokers they are – or why they smoke – and proceed with a quitting-plan. “It’s better to do little steps at a time and succeed than to go too fast.”

Over at Laser Energie Santé in Laval, laser therapist Lise Cordeau says her method has a 90 per cent success rate. In laser therapy, a laser is applied to strategic points on the body, which releases endorphins.

“By having that, your body is satisfied without filling the cravings for smoking,” she said. Cordeau, who has worked as a laser therapist for 19 years, said that unlike stop-smoking aids such as gums and patches, laser therapy has no side effects.

“The only side effect is that they’re going to be very calm,” she said.

People who choose the laser therapy route to quit smoking go through two to three one-hour sessions. However, the genuine will to quit has to be there. “We don’t do miracles. The only thing we do is help,” she said. “Even with the patch, you have to want to stop. Whatever the technique, you have to decide to stop smoking first.”

The same goes for hypnosis, said professional hypnotist and Baie d’Urfé resident Stephen Gruber.

“If you’re not ready to stop smoking for yourself, it’s not going to happen,” he said.

Gruber helps people become non-smokers by using hypnosis to overcome the barrier between the conscious and subconscious mind. By doing this, Gruber says the hypnotist can find the underlying reasons and emotions that drive people to smoke and work from there.

“They don’t just stop smoking. They become non-smokers,” Gruber said, adding he will only work with people who have made up their minds to quit for good; otherwise, hypnosis is not effective. “All this stuff you get from Hollywood and stage shows, forget it. I have no power to make you do anything you don’t want to do,” he said. “No one is going to make you give up smoking. You have to make the effort yourself.”

And as for the saying 'once a smoker, always a smoker,' Isabelle said it is true she seen people who started smoking again years after quitting.

“Even after 15 or 20 years, you take one cigarette and, you probably will not smoke a pack that day, but in a week or two, you’ll go back gradually,” she said. “You need to keep in mind why you quit in the first place.”

For more information on the HSSC’s Quit Smoking Centre, call 514-626-2572, ext. 4463.

For more on Laser Energie Santé Laval, call 514-791-5908. For more on Stephen Gruber and hypnosis, visit www.ask-the-hypnotist.com or call 514-484-7071.

PULLQUOTE: “If we’re quitting for others, it can be very hard, because we’re not doing it for ourselves.” – Lorraine Isabelle