Very few people, if any, reacted to their first inhalation of tobacco-smoke with the sort of euphoric enjoyment that the intentional smoker seems to enjoy. For myself, I can say that my first physical reaction to my first puff of my first cigarette was to cough and sputter at the irritation, to scowl involuntarily at the offensive taste… However, another immediate reaction was more positive, and would provide the basis for my actively pursuing a tolerance of the noxious smoke – pride. I’d watched my Father smoke cigarettes all of my young life, associating the sight of the fascinating blue smoke curling upwards from the end of his cigarette and the smell of it in general with paternal adoration. To my young and naïve mind, smoking seemed somehow part of my birthright. So some years later, when my soon-to-be Step-Father allowed us to sample the stuff, I found myself filled with pride at not rushing to the bathroom to vomit as my young brother had done.
Initially, it takes either a good deal of work or a well-developed predisposition in order to turn someone into a habitual tobacco-user. Had I never viewed smoking as a symbol of adulthood, my physical reaction to it would likely have been the greater motivational force, and I’d never have become a full-time smoker. It was 1988 and I was six years old the first time I inhaled from the filtered end of a cigarette, and it would not be long before I’d smoke two stolen cigarettes in a row, leaning out my bedroom window into the night beyond, proudly congratulating myself at not even so much as coughing. It wouldn’t be until I was a fourteen-year-old that I began smoking cigarettes as a routine matter of course, notwithstanding the difficulty in acquiring them.
In the intervening years, my understanding that smoking was an unhealthy thing to do seemed outwardly to prevail. My brother and I campaigned to help our Step-Father give up the habit. We made a “no-smoking” poster and taped it to the wall right above his bedside table, and even went so far, (only once!), as to carefully poke little holes into each cigarette remaining in an open pack, just near the filter, in the hopes that he might not notice how much less smoke actually entered his lungs…
Related to me by an exceptionally well-dressed man named Walter, a subliminal technique of countering the underlying psychological impetus to smoke cigarettes is the general subject of this blog. It is not a hypnotic technique designed to cancel-out years of sociological conditioning within an hour, nor is it a method of substitution. It aims, as directly as possible, to address the smoker’s subconscious belief that smoking cigarettes provides valuable enjoyment. So here it is:
One makes a list of every single reason he/she can think of not to smoke. Things like ‘Smoking can cause cancer,’ ‘Smoking is a useless waste of money,’ or, simply and provocatively, ‘Smoking is Unattractive.’ It’s best to think of as many as possible, and it’s important that one has faith in the information of each listed reason. Coming to convince oneself subconsciously that smoking cigarettes inevitably results in uncontrollable narcolepsy might provide a strong reason to avoid smoking a cigarette, but a person is unlikely to believe that, and trying to force inaccurate conviction can’t have positive results overall.
One then transcribes each of these reasons onto individual little ‘cue cards’ and arranges them in a stack. I currently have no less than fifty-one individual cards in a stack right near my bed, and have even gone so far as to crudely laminate them with scotch-tape.
Each morning, a card is taken from the top of the stack, and it is carried throughout the day and periodically examined. At the end of the day, before going to sleep, that card goes to the bottom of the stack, and so on. Here’s the important part – what’s written on the card is not to be consciously contemplated, studied, meditated upon or any of that. One simply reads it, and forgets it. The information is not meant to be consciously processed, otherwise it wouldn’t have the intended effect of readjusting the smoker’s subconscious understanding of the value of smoking cigarettes.
Were I as educated in matters of psychology and addiction as Walter, I’d be more equipped to give a thorough explanation of how and why this method accomplishes what it promises to, so my recollection of his explanation, (as well as whatever I might add of my own), will have to suffice here:
The majority of the brain’s energy-expenditure is devoted to processing visual stimuli, the majority of which is relegated to subconscious processing, due to the overwhelmingly large volume of information to be processed. It is for this reason that the most effective way of redefining subconsciously-held attitudes about tobacco is to circumvent conscious visual processing as much as possible, but still to take the visual approach to getting a consistent message through for subliminal processing. Since our understanding of language and, (provided the smoker is adequately literate), of the written word is so deeply ingrained in us, a word or phrase looked at quickly does not need a great deal of conscious interpretation in order to reach our sub-consciousness intact.
Day by day, a new card is traded for the previous one, for as long as it takes until the desire to smoke cigarettes evaporates. (Feel free to smoke as usual during this time, and notice how your feelings and attitudes towards each cigarette you smoke gradually change as you go along!) Nothing can prevent the physical sensations of nicotine-withdrawal and the body’s healing from all the damage done by prolonged smoking, but one finds that, after using the technique long enough to one day effortlessly throw the cigarettes away without looking back, none of the physical symptoms of withdrawal create an urge to alleviate them by smoking another cigarette.
