The number one asset and resource that anyone has when making a change to their lifestyle, is their decision to do something different. This is never more true than when successfully stopping smoking

Attempting to stop smoking for the wrong reason is virtually always doomed to fail. One of the wrong reasons might be convenience. What I mean by this is that you decide to stop but not because you are necessarily ready or committed to stopping it is just that a convenient situation has occurred for you. Let me explain...

For example, a husband or wife, or friend or partner, who is also a smoker makes the suggestion that it would be a good idea to stop together. On the face of it this seems to be a great idea because you can support each other in remaining stopped. There is the added sense of doing something together which you might call camaraderie or team spirit. In other words, the sense of not being alone in doing this.

Unfortunately, in reality although both participants know they ought to stop smoking at some point in time, usually on this occasion it usually means that one person is really ready to stop but the other is going along with it because it is convenient or they have got caught up in this being a good idea without giving it too much thought.

Then what happens is that the person who hasn't really made up their mind to stop, will at some point try and persuades or cajoles the other into just having that one. If they succeed in persuading the other to have one, they will both fail. It is a kind of collusion to smoke, just as those of us colluded to smoke the very first time when we were young. In fact we did it because our peers did it and we wanted to be part of that crowd... accepted. Here is an example of the same influences happening again.

It is essential therefore to quit smoking for your own reasons and not to do it out of convenience. This convenience aspect will often come into the equation when someone decides to stop smoking with the help of a hypnotherapist. For example, the wife has decided to stop smoking with hypnotherapy. The wife, although motivated to stop smoking now, will not have had hypnotherapy before and may have some anxiety about it. A way of overcoming that anxiety is to encourage the husband to quit with the aid of hypnosis too. Here again one person is persuading the other to quit when they haven't really reached their time and decision to quit.

Any professional hypnotherapist will be keen to maintain a good reputation of success. In doing so the hypnotherapist needs to ensure that both husband and wife really do want to stop now. This being the case, then doing it together can be a real asset as the sense of doing it with others can strengthen their resolve to stick to their decision.

As an experienced hypnotherapist I emphasise to people who come along in pairs for quit smoking hypnotherapy sessions, whether mates, husband and wife, or partners, that they should be there for each other and to stick to their decision to quit smoking for good and not to collude together to smoke.