SMOKING CESSATION PROGRAM
A recent decision of the Food and Drug Administration gave the green light to Glaxo Wellcome Plc to market its anti-depression drug Zyban as the first nicotine free prescription pill to help smokers kick the habit.

In clinical trials, Zyban was more effective than nicotine patches in helping smokers quit, while a combination patch and Zyban produced the best results. In a four week study 56 percent of the volunteers using Zyban and a patch still hadn’t resumed smoking, compared to 49 percent for Zyban alone, 36 percent for the patch alone and 23 percent for a placebo. Incidently, in behavioral studies we use one year as the target for defining successful treatment, not four weeks.

It’s estimated that with the approval of smoking cessation, Zyban could eventually generate as much as $490 million in annual sales. That’s a lot of your money for a method that after four weeks 51 percent of you fail. It makes you wonder what the failure rate is for one year. Research shows that a person is actually relapse prone for a full year after stopping.

Clinical research in smoking cessation using at least four sessions of hypnosis, which is typically a three or four week program of sessions twice the first week, and then once a week until finished, report success rates in one year follow-ups of between 60 and 80 percent.

So, why is hypnosis more successful? There are probably several reasons, but the biggest is most likely because it puts the power in the person not a drug. Hypnosis is a tool used to make you stronger than the nicotine.

Your first session at our office is an evaluation session. This gives you a chance to look more deeply at us and us at you to decide if we have a fit, and want to work together to help you become a non-smoker. Following the evaluation, if everything seems like a go, and you are accepted as a client--your first hypnosis session is scheduled.

Your goal at the first session will be to get off of the cigarettes. Sometimes, but not often, we recommend that someone start with a cutting down process. At this session you use hypnosis and we do a procedure to break the smoking habit, create a nonsmoking self-image, and to assist you in withdrawing from the nicotine.

The second hypnosis session will be used to reinforce the work of the first session, and maintain nonsmoking behavior. At this session, if all goes well, you will be taught how to use self-hypnosis so you can continue to reinforce good results on your own.

At your third hypnotic session you are becoming stronger. You have now been off cigarettes for awhile and your confidence is growing. Here, we do a strong reinforcement, and you are on your way to living as a nonsmoker.

Assuming that you have not smoked since our first session, the fourth session is scheduled as your discharge session. At this session, you have now been off cigarettes long enough that your doctor can talk to your subconscious mind in a way that makes it seem like the last cigarette you had was--soooooooo--long ago. This is used as a relapse prevention tool.