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Tampa Tribune
A Hypnotic way to kick the Habit

By Steve Newborn
Tribune Staff Writer
(Edited & Reprinted)

Like the instructor promised, no one walked out quacking like a duck or walking into walls.

Dispelling one’s fears of hypnosis was the easy part during a stop-smoking seminar. Getting the smokers to toss their butts into the trash afterward proved harder.

Two determined-to-quit smokers did throw out their cigarettes after the two-hour session and several other people said they felt no urge to light up.

All it took was a 40-minute trip to dreamland. Or almost-dreamland, since hypnosis is more of a deep relaxation technique than losing touch with reality.

“I really think it’s mind over matter,” said Marie Roberts, who has been smoking a pack a day for 56 of her 72 years. She said after the hypnosis she had no urge to light up, despite her clockwork craving of a cigarette every hour.

“I don’t want a cigarette,” she said with a hint of surprise in her voice. “I don’t even have the urge.”

The key is giving cigarette addicts a positive self-image as a non-smoker, said Rena Greenberg, president of Wellness Seminars, Inc., which has developed several corporate wellness programs.

The Bradenton hypnotist travels each week to hospitals and corporations, trying to transform the self-image of smokers.

Her program consists of inducing participants to completely relax and then providing subliminal suggestions of a happier, healthier life without cigarettes. The fear of gaining weight is addressed, as healthy eating habits and exercise are stressed.

“You can’t achieve any goal if you don’t see it in your mind,” said Rena, a fountain of optimism who espouses the power of positive thinking.

Hypnosis has been touted as having a minimum 20% success rate. Greenberg encourages people to come back for repeat sessions – free of charge – as a way to get additional positive reinforcement.

“In order to reach a goal, sometimes we have to try and try again,” she said.

Greenberg treats smoking as a drug addiction, patterning her treatment after programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous. She implores her “patients” to throw their cigarettes away, saying an alcoholic wouldn’t walk out of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting with a bottle in their back pocket.

“If you are going to be off a drug, you have to be off the drug completely,” she told the participants. “Our most important principle is there’s no such thing as an occasional cigarette.”

The $59 program includes an audiocassette that repeats the positive reinforcement Greenberg includes in her hypnosis. She suggests playing it once a day for a month after the original session.

Roberts, who sported an “I can do it!” sticker, said she tried hypnosis because the much-touted nicotine patches she heard so much about caused her mouth to burn.

Two-pack-a-day smoker John McDonald also said he felt no urge to smoke after the session. He said he’s gone through another hypnosis session, nicotine patches and “one where they smoke you to death” in an effort to break the habit he has had since he was14.

“You name it, I’ve done it,” said the burly 36-year old photographer from Winter Haven. “You’ve got to say, this is gonna be the one.”

“I’ve reached the point where I’ve got to quit,” he said.