Gum, patch, lozenge, microtab, spray… strip?

Nicotine replacement therapy doesn’t work at all. But that hasn’t stopped GSK from reinventing it all over again with the nicotine oral strip.

by Chris Holmes

If nicotine gum works, why did they need to invent the patch? Well okay, maybe some people don’t like chewing gum, fair enough. But if the patch works, why did they invent the lozenge? And what is the difference, really, between the lozenge and the microtab?

If all these products do what they are supposed to do – which is to deliver nicotine a different way, so there is no urge to smoke tobacco – why does anyone need a spray? And the latest new-fangled nicotine product from GlaxoSmithKline is the nicotine strip! Surely that’s SLOWER than the spray? Are we going backwards in development now?

Try the NEW version of Nicotine!

Let me explain what is really going on. If a product does what it is supposed to do, it doesn’t need reinventing. That’s why wheels have remained the same shape over centuries. That’s the shape that works. If something doesn’t work, or doesn’t work for very long, you have to keep reinventing it in order to sell the idea again to the same people who tried it before, which is why there is always a new diet book out: Have you tried the new Fat Only Diet? (The madder it sounds, the more likely people are to hear of it, and therefore more people try it!) You ONLY eat fat. That’s ALL you eat. You can have as much as you like, every day, but you mustn’t eat anything else for three weeks. And you ONLY drink milk. Then, you see, your body gets used to ONLY burning fat for energy, and it just carries on doing that after you go back to normal food so it burns up all the fat off your body! It really works!

No it doesn’t!

No it doesn’t, don’t try it. Sounds plausible though, doesn’t it? And once the idea of nicotine replacement was established as a plausible idea, the mere fact that it doesn’t work at all has never got in the way of the marketing or the sales, for the simple reason that smokers don’t want to die so they’re willing to try anything that might help them quit. Now, not so very long ago the drug companies were telling smokers that using nicotine products meant you were “four times more likely” to quit than by merely using willpower. Then an NHS trust was rapped over the knuckles by the Advertising Standards Agency for repeating this claim in their literature, because it isn’t true. Then, in January 2012 Harvard University published research which proved that nicotine replacement products do not produce any better results, if you look at the results at one year, than willpower alone. They don’t work AT ALL.

Nicotine Replacement products are BOGUS!

Did this news prompt the NHS to stop wasting money on these useless products? No! Did they get banned or withdrawn? No! Are doctors still prescribing this rubbish? YES!! Believe it or not, this still qualifies as “evidence-based medicine”, even though it is NOT medicine and the evidence is very clear now that it doesn’t work at all. It is business as usual for the drug companies, the BMA, N.I.C.E. and the chemist – not to mention all the other outlets who sell this trash over the counter.

What it does mean, though, is that the drug companies have to be careful what they say in their advertising now, which is why the campaign last year pushing NiQuitin patches resorted to: “No other patch is more effective!” True enough: none of them work. Pretty dishonest lot, aren’t they?

New NiQuitin Oral Strips

So now we have the latest pointless reinvention of nicotine gum: the oral strip from GSK, “the first and only stop smoking aid in a strip” (try to contain your excitement, now!) What they are hoping is that all the smokers that have tried the gum, the patches, the lozenge, the microtab and the spray – all to no avail – will be able to suspend their disbelief somehow that THIS will be the delivery system that will save them. And although the science says quite clearly that it won’t, the drug company gets around that awkward fact by the ingenious wording of the latest claim: “All designed to double your chance of quitting compared to willpower alone.”

“All designed to.” It doesn’t say it will, it says it is designed to. What a crock of shit.

Real help to quit smoking

Stopping Smoking: Knowledge is Power

Hi Chris, I went on the NHS Stop Smoking programme 11 months ago. They gave me Champix [Chantix in the USA]. Felt odd and stopped taking it after 4 days. Then read excerpts from your book, which made me realise I wasn’t addicted. I have never wanted a cigarette since then…

by Chris Holmes

This message came in this week:

“Hi Chris, I went on the NHS Stop Smoking programme 11 months ago. They gave me Champix [Chantix in the USA]. Felt odd and stopped taking it after 4 days. Then read excerpts from your book, which made me realise I wasn’t addicted. I have never wanted a cigarette since then.

“Many friends of mine asked me how I gave up. They didn’t really believe me at the time, but out of thirty or so smokers, around 15 had given up with no difficulty within 3 or 4 weeks of talking to me! Just from realising they weren’t addicted! I write because I am on the verge of starting a Quit Smoking Club in North East London, and I would very much like your blessing to quote your researches (with full acknowledgement, of course!) I would also like your permission to give people links to sales points for your books.

“I think you’ve done wonderful work – if it were not for you I would probably still be smoking, or at the least still wanting to smoke! I tried a cigarette 4 months ago to prove to myself I wouldn’t get “re-addicted”; but I only
managed two draws before my will to smoke failed!”

Permission granted, of course! This is why I called the second volume of the book “A Change Of Mind”. I stopped smoking in 1999 because my perception of it changed. It was easy. Since then I have helped thousands of smokers do the same, through my work as a therapist specialising in the area of tobacco, drugs, alcohol and gambling habits.

If you would like to read excerpts from my work, click on the ‘Read The Book’ button above – but give it thirty seconds to load! Or you can click on Buy The Book and get the paperback version, or download the ebook.

more info

Nicotine is not a drug

Tobacco was supposed to be medicinal originally, but now we know it’s not, and so tobacco is not prescribed for any medical condition anywhere in the world, not ever. Nor do tobacco companies claim that it has any beneficial or medicinal effects. If it did, and that could be proven scientifically, you could bet your life they would use that in their marketing… When you see office workers standing around outside the office building on a smoking break, they’re not “getting high”, are they? Everybody knows that. When they go back in, no-one says: “Forget asking George to do anything complicated for the next half hour, he’s just been smoking tobacco!” Smokers would be unemployable if tobacco got you stoned or wired, and they certainly wouldn’t be entrusted with heavy goods vehicles, coaches or buses.

No medicinal use, no recreational use. Tobacco smoking is NOT drug taking.

by Chris Holmes

Let me explain why the nicotine story is the biggest case of mistaken identity in medical history:

The early promotion of tobacco in Western Europe was based on two simple things: belief in medicinal properties it doesn’t really have, and the age-old phenomenon of people copying one another and trying to make an impression, otherwise known as ‘fashion’.

The tobacco plant’s Latin name is Nicotiana Tabacum, named after the French Ambassador to Portugal, Jean Nicot de Villemain.  In 1560 he was sending tobacco and tobacco seeds to Paris from Brazil, and promoting their medicinal use – mistakenly, as we now know.  At the time, lots of plants were reckoned to be beneficial to health and according to a book published by Spanish physician Nicolas Monardes in 1571, tobacco was widely credited with curing 36 ailments including toothache, worms, lockjaw and cancer.

So originally, tobacco was supposed to be good for you.  Gradually, over the years everyone realised that it did not cure worms, lockjaw or anything else – in fact it was just a filthy habit.  No-one imagined or suggested at the time that this was recreational drug use or intoxicating in any way, because it obviously isn’t.  That is why, even today, people are allowed to smoke tobacco and then drive cars or operate heavy machinery – even pilot an aircraft.  If smoking tobacco was recreational drug use, would that be permitted?  Of course not!

When any individual first tries smoking, it is because they want to sample something they have not been permitted to try before.  As a smoking cessation specialist, I have asked thousands of smokers why they picked up a cigarette in the first place, and the answers are predictable:

because my mates were doing it

because I wasn’t allowed to

because I thought it was cool

because I wanted to be all grown up…

In twelve years, no smoker has ever said to me: “I started smoking for the effects of nicotine.”  Not one.  But most of them can easily recall what that first experience of tobacco was like:

it was revolting

it made me feel dizzy and sick

I felt faint, had heart palpitations and then threw up…

All very common experiences.  So, whatever it was that made us pick up the second cigarette, it wasn’t because we enjoyed the experience of smoking the first one.  It was the same thing that made us pick up the first one: mischief, rebellion, peer pressure, a rite of passage, trying to grow up quick – any of those.  The fact is, we weren’t doing it for the effects of nicotine, AND WE KNEW THAT, THEN.  Curiosity, a bit of devilment… but we were also doing it for appearances, how we imagined it made us look: older, tougher, cooler, less like a kid.

It was only later that we came to believe it was all about nicotine, because we were TOLD to believe that.  But believing that is no different from believing that it cures worms or lockjaw, isn’t it?  That misinformation also came from Doctors.

Nicotine Receptors

Smokers are told that their cravings are a result of the nicotine receptors in their brains “going crazy for nicotine” as the nicotine replacement advert puts it.  [Hint: those guys are trying to sell you nicotine!]  But nearly all smokers will have noticed that their cravings switch on and off automatically, depending upon what they are doing.  They switch on in the morning having been off all night long, they switch off when the smoker boards a bus or a train, back on when a smoking opportunity arises then off again when they walk into a hospital or a cinema.

A small number of smokers struggle with these everyday restrictions, but that is only because they have personally chosen to resent the restriction.  The vast majority of smokers accept the new restriction pretty quickly, and then after that it doesn’t bother them.  Most smokers tell me that they can manage journeys by aircraft surprisingly easily, but then immediately add: “But as soon as it gets near the time to land, I’m thinking of having a cigarette…”  Nevertheless they are puzzled as to why their “nicotine receptors” seemed to be remarkably well-behaved for most of the seven hours on the flight!

Question: how could the nicotine receptors in your brain possibly know that you just stepped on to an aircraft?

Answer: they don’t, and they would have no way of understanding that social restriction anyway. So why aren’t they “going crazy” right throughout the flight, Doc?

From this, it is obvious to any clear-thinking individual that there is AN OBSERVANT INTELLIGENCE governing the switching on and off of craving signals, which is also why they don’t pester you whilst you’re busy at work, playing sports or gardening.  That observant intelligence is called the Subconscious Mind, and it controls all habitual behaviour and the craving system, which is basically a reminder system.  It has nothing to do with tobacco or nicotine specifically: we get lots of cravings, they’re not all about tobacco.

Why Nicotine is Not a Drug 

So we can see that cravings are not related to falling nicotine levels, or else air travel would drive all smokers to distraction and none of them could sit through a movie.

Now, there are only two types of drug: medicinal drugs and recreational drugs.  Tobacco was supposed to be medicinal originally, but now we know it’s not, and so tobacco is not prescribed for any medical condition anywhere in the world, not ever.  Nor do tobacco companies claim that it has any beneficial or medicinal effects.  If it did, and that could be proven scientifically, you could bet your life they would use that in their marketing.  The fact that tobacco contains nicotine does not make it any more beneficial to health: tobacco is not a medicinal product, in fact the modern medical consensus is that tobacco is bad for you, and smokers are routinely advised by medical personnel to stop smoking it.

We all found out that tobacco has no recreational use the first time we ever tried it, and the fact that a smoker can lean on his car smoking tobacco, keys in hand, chatting to an officer of the law, then freely get in and drive away legally proves that no-one is suggesting that he or she is getting high on that.  In fact throughout the entire history of tobacco consumption in Europe over the last 400 years, no-one has ever suggested that it is a form of recreational drug use.  When you see office workers standing around outside the office building on a smoking break, they’re not “getting high”, are they?  Everybody knows that.  When they go back in, no-one says: “Forget asking George to do anything complicated for the next half hour, he’s just been smoking tobacco!”  Smokers would be unemployable if tobacco got you stoned or wired, and they certainly wouldn’t be entrusted with heavy goods vehicles, coaches or buses.

No medicinal use, no recreational use.

But what does nicotine actually DO?

First of all, nicotine is only one of thousands of chemicals in tobacco smoke.  When it was first isolated from the tobacco plant in 1828, it was regarded by the team that did that as a poison, not a drug.  This was perfectly reasonable because this alkaloid acts as a natural insecticide – it kills the bugs that try to eat tobacco leaves.  Once isolated it was widely used as an insecticide, and even now nicotine analogs such as imidacloprid continue to be widely used.  Why “nicotine” should have been named after the plant itself is unclear: no-one was suggesting at that point that this particular poison was the key to tobacco’s popularity or the thing that smokers were after.  And indeed it wasn’t, but about 115 years later, someone would start vehemently insisting that it was.  That someone was Doctor Lennox Johnston, and he was a real lone voice: his suggestion that tobacco smoking was actually a drug addiction was regarded as nonsense by medical authority and the wider profession alike.

Over the last twelve years, I have asked thousands of smokers: “What does nicotine do?  If it IS a drug, and you are smoking tobacco for the effects of this drug, what ARE those effects?”  Not one smoker has ever answered that question correctly.  “I think it relaxes me” is the most common guess.  In fact, nicotine makes the heart race, blood pressure rise, blood fat levels rise and there is an increased risk of thrombosis (blood clots). All those effects are toxic, hazardous and largely unnoticeable, but if the first two reached noticeable levels they would be uncomfortable.  If the last one reached a noticeable level, you would be dead or on your way to a hospital.  In short, no-one is smoking for the effects of nicotine, which is why smokers cannot tell me what the effects of nicotine are.

But then we never were smoking for the effects of nicotine right from the beginning.  In fact back then, the effects of nicotine knocked us sick, as did many other chemicals in the smoke.

Lennox Johnston was WRONG!

Smokers smoke because of cravings – that’s true – but cravings are nothing to do with nicotine, or anything else in the smoke.  Before Lennox Johnston came along, no-one ever thought they were.  I first realised that this was a fact when I started doing hypnotherapy and found that cravings can be shut down by the Subconscious mind upon request, provided the smoker is happy for that to be the outcome.  Then I wrote the book Nicotine: The Drug That Never Was in order to explain all the details and how we use hypnotherapy to eliminate the smoking habit, cravings and all.  Since then, a study from Tel Aviv University has confirmed what I stated about cravings being unrelated to nicotine levels and another from Harvard University has confirmed that Nicotine Replacement products don’t work at all, just as I have argued for years.

I wonder how long it will be before Science confirms my third and final point: that nicotine isn’t a drug at all.

Cue the links to exciting new studies suggesting that nicotine may help with…

Yeah, we know.  For years now, the drug giants that make nicotine replacement products have been desperately searching for some new application for the poison gum and the poison patches.  They know the game is almost up, and that soon everyone will realise that those products are based on a myth.  But the poison factory is already there, and it would seem a shame to lose all that revenue…

Spurious new ‘uses’ for nicotine!

A Song for Nicotine Manufacturers!

More about Lennox Johnston 

Central Hypnotherapy

 

Tobacco’s healing properties

“…it certainly isn’t healthy to smoke tobacco, and the vast majority of the tobacco smoked in the world is certainly not part of any ritual, indian or otherwise. It’s just a dirty and rather pointless habit, but if anyone wants to smoke it that’s fine by me. The whole point of this site is to denounce Nicotine Replacement Therapy as a scam which the Department of Health already know from their own research doesn’t work any better than willpower in the long run. I’m also calling for Champix to be banned, because anyone with half a brain can easily see that it should be.”

by Chris Holmes

This message came in by email the other day:

Austrian Smokers rights wrote:
Tobaco is a wonderful indian ritual and healing plant: would you please take this skul and bones of “nicotine”; and replace it by Chmapix or NicVax the killing vaccines.

thanks
chritsine

Now, Austrian Smokers’ Rights have had a little pop at me before, for the same reason that the Ashtray Blog bloke did, who is a devotee of the electronic cigarette… because I had the temerity to suggest that nicotine is just a useless poison.  Poisons are usually denoted by the symbol of the skull and crossbones, so it seems appropriate.  True, the same symbol should be on the Champix packaging in my view – I’ll suggest it to Pfizer’s Head of Marketing next time we meet up for a beer.  NicVax I know nothing about – yet.  But the idea that a vaccine will fix a compulsive habit like smoking seems very dubious to me.

As for tobacco being “a wonderful indian ritual and healing plant”, that is an unusually positive view of it nowadays, to say the least!  But if Christine is assuming that I am anti-tobacco or anti-smoking, she hasn’t read much of this site and has missed the point of it.  I’m not pro-tobacco, but I am very liberal about what people do to themselves, even if it kills them.  Mountaineering kills people, but I wouldn’t sign a petition to get it banned, would you?

Just because something is used in a ritual doesn’t mean it has any useful aspect to it.  Humans and animals have both been sacrificed in rituals in the past, but that doesn’t make human or animal sacrifice a worthy thing.  Rituals are not necessarily a good thing anyway, because they are simply repetiton of an act without questioning it, which can lead to all kinds of mad mucking about: look at that daft nonsense with Black Rod and the opening of the English Parliament – how silly is that?

Tobacco might possibly inhibit the development of Alzheimers, and prevent endometrial cancer.  But the list of diseases it causes is far longer than that, so it certainly isn’t healthy to smoke tobacco, and the vast majority of the tobacco smoked in the world is certainly not part of any ritual, indian or otherwise.  It’s just a dirty and rather pointless habit, but if anyone wants to smoke it that’s fine by me.

The whole point of this site is to denounce Nicotine Replacement Therapy as a scam which the Department of Health already know from their own research doesn’t work any better than willpower in the long run.  I’m also calling for Champix to be banned, because anyone with half a brain can easily see that it should be.

My book is the first to explain what cravings really are, and why they have no connection to nicotine whatsoever.  It also explains how we hypnotherapists routinely shut down all kinds of cravings without any difficulty just about every working day of our lives, including smokers’ cravings.

I didn’t write the book for the Austrian Smokers’ Rights group, though.  I wrote it for any ordinary smoker who would like to quit but hasn’t found that easy, and anyone who is interested in hypnotherapy and the Subconscious mind.  So the skull and crossbones stay, no apologies.

the book that blew the whistle on the nicotine scam

 

 

Spanish Nicotine Costa Packet!

I was interested to hear from a British ex-pat who has resided in Spain for most of the last ten years that the cost of Nicotine Replacement Poisoning in Spain has shot up during the time they were living out there. Apparently a packet of 105 pieces of delicious poison gum had gone from 16.35 Euros in the late 1990s to 27.70 Euros roundabout now.

by Chris Holmes

I was interested to hear from a British ex-pat who has resided in Spain for most of the last ten years that the cost of Nicotine Replacement Poisoning in Spain has shot up during the time they were living out there. Apparently a packet of 105 pieces of delicious poison gum had gone from 16.35 Euros in the late 1990s to 27.70 Euros roundabout now.

She also told me that you cannot buy NRT just anywhere in Spain, like you can here. As I said in an earlier post on this blog, I’ve seen NRT on sale in the UK in Pound shops (where everything on sale only costs one pound), which suggests that it is not in great demand! The wasteful U.K. government ‘initiative’ of providing free patches for a week (courtesy of the UK taxpayer) that ran at the start of 2011 also suggests that the sale of NRT is seriously flagging here, and I sincerely hope that the Truth Will Out Campaign has played a part in that over the last 3 years!

In Spain, however, you can only buy NRT from the Pharmacies, which pretty much makes it a racket. Don’t bother, people, it doesn’t work anyway! 94% failure (see home page). Hypnotherapy, acupuncture, Allen Carr method – all far more successful if you want to quit smoking.

the book that blew the whistle on the nicotine scam 

more about hypnotherapy option

Volume II of Nicotine: The Drug That Never Was

Nicotine: The Drug That Never Was (Volume II) A Change of Mind has just become available today.

Read what the critics thought of Volume I:

“The author’s case is simple: nicotine is not addictive, and he makes a
strong case in support of his argument… Numerous asides to various issues
undoubtedly made for a more entertaining read… It’s not often that parts
of a book on a very serious subject have me by turns howling in laughter and
clapping in appreciation of the author’s attention to detail – this one did
both. This has the potential to be a landmark book, and as such deserves a
wide audience.”
Michael O’Sullivan, Hypnotherapy Articles

“Holmes provides “Case Mysteries” as interludes between his chapters and
these are highly entertaining and illuminating. One such interlude
de-constructs the work of Allen Carr, a British smoking cessation guru. By
the time Holmes is done with Carr, there is not much left; it’s a great read
that made me laugh out loud… in the end, the arguments make sense. Just as importantly, they are presented in an entertaining and insightful way,
making this book useful to hypnotists and those who would like to stop
smoking. I’d like to check out Volume II when I get a chance.”
James Hazlerig, RealHypnosisReviews.blogspot.com

Well here it is, James – and only two years late! Enjoy.

If you just want to quit smoking in two hours, read this.

Rachel’s Hypnotherapy Success!

Last night we had a Xmas party for my husbands sports group and it was good to be able to sit inside the whole time but boy did I smell it when the smokers all came back in, I was so happy that wasn’t me anymore… I have been spreading the word on champix usage to my kiwi friends and encouraging them to check out your website. Now that I have had the hypnotherapy I am even a better example to them.

Keep up the brilliant work, have passed Book One on to my Dad and eagerly await Book Two.

by Chris Holmes

Now THIS is what I’m talking about! This is why no-one needs to take a risk with Champix The Suicide Pill:

Hi Chris,

Well I am happy to inform you that I am a non smoker. I had my hypnotherapy session last week and have not picked up a cigarette since nor do I want to.  I knew what to expect due to reading your book  and doing my own research. I enjoyed the session and was so excited on the day.

While I was waiting to go in for my appointment (I was early) I was chatting to this older man who was outside having a cigarette and waiting for someone else (nothing to do with where I was going). He asked me who I was waiting for and I told him what I was doing. He said he had hypnotherapy in the UK for smoking and then about 10 years later he immigrated to Australia and took up smoking again so in his opinion hypnotherapy didn’t work!, I had a little chuckle and told him it looked to me as if it did work. Anyway he was all excited about starting champix and I told him to make sure he researches it fully, in fact I know a website ……….

He wished me luck as I him, luck that he will not take champix and place himself in danger.

There has been a strange outcome of my quitting smoking that I never saw coming. The reaction of my husband!. While my 23 year old son has been very supportive and is encouraged by my success, my husband is being difficult. He will deliberately annoy me until I am angry and then say things like ” oo getting a bit tetchy I understand” or throwing his Cigarette out the window when I get in the car and saying ” oops, better get rid of that stinky smoke”. I have not been bothered by his smoking at all as I am a non smoker so it has no effect on me. It is as if he is wanting me to fail and has mentioned that he is closely watching how this ‘works’ for me cause he might try it. I just get an uneasy feeling that he is bating me or testing me to see if I will smoke again. I love my husband dearly and can’t quite understand why he is acting like this, although he is easing off a bit now. Chris, have you seen this response from other ex smokers smoking partners before?

Last night we had a Xmas party for my husbands sports group and it was good to be able to sit inside the whole time but boy did I smell it when the smokers all came back in, I was so Happy that wasn’t me anymore

I have been spreading the word on champix usage to my kiwi friends and encouraging them to check out your website. Now that I have had the hypnotherapy I am even a better example to them.

Keep up the brilliant work, have passed book one on to my dad and eagerly await book two.

Kindest regards
Rachel

So I emailed back:

Hi Rachel, well done you! And well done to your hypnotherapist for a sound professional job there! Ask if she would like a namecheck on my blog, I’d be happy to oblige!

I cannot understand the attitude of people like the smoker (or ex-non-smoker!) you met who interpreted starting smoking again years later as a “failure of hypnotherapy”! You would think anyone with any intelligence would return to the therapy that worked for them before, as indeed most people will if they relapse at some stage. It is the logical choice. However, some behaviour and some decisions are not based on logic. There is an urban myth that if you have had hypnotherapy to stop smoking before, it won’t work a second time – which is RUBBISH! But there might be another explanation. Blaming the relapse on hypnotherapy can be a way of avoiding blaming himself. (Actually there’s no need to blame anyone, we can fix it easily. It’s really not a big deal.) Or he may have adopted the notion that the hypnotherapy “wore off” – although that attitude is more common if the relapse happens within the first 12 months, it’s a bit weird to look at it like that after a ten-year interval! Hypnotherapy isn’t a treatment, it’s a communication process, so it cannot “wear off”, but it is always possible for anyone to smoke again. I could start smoking again if I wanted to. Would that be a somewhat late ‘failure’ in my decision to stop thirteen years ago? I think not!

But to start again, one needs a reason. And if you move to another country, like that chap did in moving to Australia, you need friends. And if the new people you meet are smokers, and they offer you a cigarette… even if you don’t want one, it might seem a bit unfriendly to refuse, like you’re rejecting their attempts at hospitality, maybe even seems disapproving? And as former smokers ourselves, we don’t really disapprove of smokers, do we? Most of us don’t anyway. So what harm could one little cigarette do? When circumstances change, and human individuals need new friends and allies – need to feel accepted – they may adopt a behaviour that they would have passed up under different circumstances. It’s a common enough scenario, and it doesn’t matter because it’s easily fixed with another hypnotherapy session!

Why did he not return to hypnotherapy then? Well the therapist he saw before was in another country, so that would mean starting all over again seeking out a different therapist, and… most likely he didn’t really want to believe in hypnotherapy in the first place, was astonished when it worked because that was contrary to his normal world-view – which is probably more inclined to believe in “tablets from the doctor” than anything ‘alternative’ – so when he started again, he just slipped back into his conventional comfort-zone and dismissed hypnotherapy as if it were a failure. What allowed him to succeed with it in the first place was his genuine underlying desire to quit smoking anyway, which we can be sure of because he didn’t relapse for a decade and he is attempting quitting again with the Champix. (All of this is speculation, of course, but these things are common enough.)

This all boils down to the general ignorance and misunderstanding about hypnotherapy which my book aims to dispel, and replace with a general and widespread UNDERSTANDING of it, not just recognition and acceptance. What really holds hypnotherapy back is general ignorance and prejudice. I’ve always thought that the kind of success we would be seeing if everyone already understood hypnotherapy and it enjoyed universal approval and recognition would be nothing short of spectacular. It’s pretty exciting already, as you’ve just been discovering for yourself!

And so to your husband, and his ‘unexpected’ reaction to your success! Yes, I’ve seen it before – in fact I included a case of it in the Case Mysteries in the second volume, a passage under the title of THE DISSUADERS. Sounds like your husband only has a mild case of this though – the case I wrote about was unusually bad because it was systematic and relentless, and unfortunately succeeded in undoing all the good work hypnotherapy did in that case, and I have to admit it did make me angry – but there was nothing I could do about it.

Now, you mustn’t be angry with your husband, because these are Subconscious reactions which some smokers have when someone close to them successfully quits. Usually they are short-term reactions, and the best thing to do is let your natural good humour deal with them because like most grouchy behaviour it shouldn’t be taken too seriously. It is not really malicious in most cases, it is based on fear. You see, back in the day, when ‘everyone’ smoked (as smokers often claim!), the fact that smoking could kill you wasn’t such a worry because we had a feeling that there was safety in numbers and surely it wouldn’t happen to US. And no-one disapproved too much in those days, so we could be fairly comfortable with our smoking habit. You could smoke anywhere, no-one cared, it was regarded as a fairly normal – even fairly respectable – lifestyle thing.

My God how that has changed! Smokers are very much on the back foot now, numbers are dwindling, every year someone else quits, there’s pictures of tumours on the carton, you can’t smoke anywhere in public without being arrested, the latest TV ads in the UK tell you to not only smoke outside, but now you’ve got to take seven steps away from your house before you light up, like you’re fucking radioactive or something… pretty soon you’ll be told you have to take a bus to a remote abandoned quarry before it’s permissible to light up, and be decontaminated and all your clothes burned before you’re allowed to return to your children, dressed in sackcloth and ashes. God knows how my family have survived with my old Dad smoking his pipe in the car with the windows rolled up all through my childhood… I’d like to see someone try to tell him he has to get out of his armchair and take seven steps away from his house before he lights the filthy thing up again. I wouldn’t, I don’t mind him smoking at all. I felt like puking in the car when I was a kid sometimes, but that’s just normal. I’m glad I don’t live in the same house as him, but there are lots of reasons for that. He’s there by himself nowadays, he can smoke if he wants to. He’s 82. He still plays tennis every week. No kidding. The man has virtually no medical records, he never worries about his health.

Not everyone is that health-confident. Smokers get worried these days – not just about illness, but about not being ‘able’, personally, to stop smoking. Each time someone they know quits, it makes them a bit nervous because it starts to seem increasingly ‘wrong’ to be a smoker, increasingly likely that they WILL be the one that gets the smoking-related disease, and that’s why – if the quitting attempt fails, other smokers often feel a private sense of relief, so that the commiserations are also partly a “welcome back” into the fold.

When you decided to quit, it was your decision, not your husband’s decision – but your success throws his own smoking habit into sharp relief, and that brings discomfort. It may well feel threatening, in two ways: now he may feel ‘obliged’ to try to quit himself – but without the freedom to decide that for himself, and with the fear of failing, which haunts a lot of smokers. He may not WANT to quit at this stage, and be fearful that now you’re going to use his smoking habit as a stick to beat him with – even if you were never going to do any such thing! He may be afraid of hypnosis, as a lot of people are even though there is no risk in it whatsoever. And – don’t forget – there is a certain element of competition in all close human relationships, especially male/female partnerships… the old battle of the sexes… which men like to feel that they would always win, only now you’re one up on him… the pressure’s on…

Not much of this goes through a person’s conscious mind. No, it all bubbles away underneath, and just pops up in little snidey comments and unworthy needling behaviour which is actually aimed at tipping you back into smoking so that he doesn’t have to change or be affected by any of these shifts in the usual state of affairs… but he may not realise that these are the typical causes of this moody phase. And it doesn’t matter, as long as you just smile at the insecurity of men and don’t taunt him about it or indeed take it seriously at all. Just ignore it, forgive him for being normal and it will peter out soon enough, especially if you are tolerant about his habit and don’t beat him up about it (always a mistake). Remember, his smoking habit should have no bearing on your own preference to be a non-smoker – don’t decide that he’s got to quit too now, and don’t hit back. Just enjoy your freedom and leave him to deal with his own issues himself in his own good time. Don’t let the smoking issue drive a wedge between you, because I think we all had the right idea in the old days – smoking is no big deal. But it IS rubbish, which should always be the reason any smoker quits, and it should always be of their own accord.

Is it okay if I put some of this up on the website? Also, let me know the name of your hypnotherapist and her location, so I can promote her services for her! And once again: Well Done Rachel!!!! Enjoy your freedom, and your health.

best regards,
Chris

To which our new non-smoker replied:

Hi Chris, thank you again for your most informative email. My husband seems to be backing off a bit now, in fact this morning he even mentioned how ‘nice’ I have been lately lol. He is the one who first mentioned quitting smoking it’s just that I was the one who did something about it. I know he wants to quit but it has to be when he is ready, not just because I did. I certainly never say anything about it to him, he’s a big boy now.

That man I met who said hypnotherapy didn’t work for him, after ten years of complete success really made me chuckle, some people never fail to amaze me, the frightening thing is, he is happy to be going on Champix. I liked your explanation of his behavior, it makes sense.

I am always happy for you to use my emails on your site if you feel they are appropriate.

The hypnotherapist I saw was:

Barbara Hennessy
www.hypnotherapycentre.com.au
email: [email protected]

PO Box 748
Wynnum. Qld. 4178
Australia.

Chris, I will contact her and ask her permission as requested. [It was granted.]

Have a very Merry Christmas and a safe New Year. Keep up all the good work, you changed my life, if your website hadn’t have been available I probably would never even thought of using hypnotherapy for quitting smoking. If your book wasn’t written, I would have only had my suspicions that NRT doesn’t work instead of the proof and knowledge I now have. If you had just ignored my emails I may have been put off by the whole thing as if you were just someone who wants to makes money… instead you have always promptly answered my enquiries in a thorough and humorous manner, supporting me through this turning point in my life. Thanks Chris!!! As is my way now I will continue to support your campaign in any way I am able.

Kindest regards
Rachel

Rachel told me that she had contacted two hypnotherapists at first, and decided on Barbera because the other therapist was charging too much:

Hi Chris,
I am seeing the hypnotherapist on the 17th of December and can’t wait to finally be free from this behaviour. She has 40 years of experience and the cost is $AU130, I contacted an ad from the local paper and the guy was charging $AU600 for the initial session and $AU400 for the follow up session (which I really shouldn’t need).

This confirms what I always say to smokers: Don’t pay top dollar. Do not assume that if you pay high prices you will get the best therapy, it isn’t true at all. I’m pretty good at what I do, but I don’t overcharge. My stop smoking sessions are £120. There are a few therapists in the UK charging as much as £450, but that just means that they are more interested in your money than your well-being, so don’t go to them! Do what Rachel did, go for experience and reasonable rates, that’s where you’ll find the magic.

For any smokers in the North West of the UK: Central Hypnotherapy

Champix for New Zealand next

 

*Update: If you or a loved one has suffered a bad reaction to Champix and you are based in the U.K., you can report it to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) here. The more people do that the clearer the true picture will become. Protect others! Report it.*

Calling all smokers in New Zealand, and their loved ones: this is what is heading your way in November 2010 **Update December 2010: it’s already approved, but New Zealanders need to be warned about taking Champix:

“…the crashing wave of deep and dark depression, bursting into tears for no reason at all, the feeling of no light in the world and that nobody would even care if you were gone and worst of them all the belief that that low dark feeling was something that could only be fixed by taking your own life. Ive just lived this hell after taking Champix for a mere 4 weeks, first 3 were fine but wow that 4th week and i roller-coasted from ready to punch someone in the face for talking too loudly to wanting to floor my car 200 kms into a wall. I had read online about people reactions before mine kicked in and honestly thought everyone was a nut-job bad mouthing a drug that worked as i had stopped smoking and felt great, but let me tell anyone who reads this and brushes off the more extreme sounding posts IT IS NO JOKE. I went from wanting to simply give up smoking one week to sitting in a mental health clinic 4 weeks later continually in disbelief at how the hell i managed to end up there.” (Andrew)

This is becoming a matter of urgent concern to smokers anywhere, but particularly any smokers in New Zealand, following a story in the New Zealand Herald concerning the approval of public funding for Champix despite concerns about suicides linked to the drug – a story which partially reveals the kind of dodgy deals drug companies do with governments to push them into accepting things they’re not altogether happy about. In this case Champix was sold as part of a package including a number of drugs, and the suggestion is that the NZ government could not get those drugs at that price without taking Champix as well – a sharp practice that should frankly be illegal where medications are concerned, especially a medication that has already been linked to deaths, which is exactly what the former hesitation was about. Particularly suspect is the fact that the New Zealand government drug funding body Pharmac has apparently changed its mind about Champix for no good reason at all – see extract below from NZ Herald.co.nz:

“Pharmac medical director Peter Moody said medical advisers had “cautiously endorsed” the use of Champix.

The agency is calling for public submissions on the package deal from Pfizer before the taxpayer subsidy kicks in on November 1.

“Quite often [drug] companies will offer as a package a number of medications at the same time. We will look at the total deal and look at the benefits we’re getting.”

He said package deals meant all the drugs from the company had to be taken. “You can’t cherry pick.”

A Pharmac spokesman said the price reduction on Champix had been agreed and “in return for that we get two new products and wider access to one other product”.

A spokeswoman for Pfizer said the package deal was suggested by Pharmac, rather than the other way around. The drug company had submitted four separate applications to get the drugs funded.

She said the benefits of Champix outweighed the risks. The subsidy meant “more people will be able to access Champix to improve their chances of quitting smoking”.

Pharmac had twice considered backing Champix but rejected the move because of safety concerns.

Pharmac papers stated that it “appears increasingly likely that there is an association between varenicline [Champix] and serious neuro-psychiatric events”.

It also questioned whether Champix was as successful as nicotine replacement therapies.”

Yeah – quite right too: although earlier in the piece reporter David Fisher described Champix as: “a hugely successful drug used to quit smoking” which is “estimated to be successful in up to half the cases in which people use it to try to stop smoking”, in fact it is nothing of the kind. Long term success rates are about 14% for Champix, about the same as Zyban and only a little higher than Nicotine Replacement Poisoning, which might be pretty useless but at least it doesn’t make anyone kill themselves.

Put simply, this drug should NOT be approved for public funding in New Zealand because the success rate is pure hype and there are smokers alive and well in New Zealand today who will be dead within the year if the drug is made widely available. That means husbands and wives becoming bereaved single parents, kids left without a mum or a dad – and all because of cynical drug company lies and corruption. While there’s still time, I’m going to try to draw attention to this crazy decision and hopefully the innocent smokers of New Zealand can yet be saved from having the same evil stunt pulled on them as the innocent Champix victims in the USA, the UK and Australia.

Hypnotherapy is the best method for smoking cessation: New Scientist magazine

Here’s the NZ Herald article in full

Actual failure rate for Champix here.

18.09.10: I received this message by email, here it is in full:

Andrew wrote:
“Chris, i stumbled onto your site while looking up the side effects or as the Drs
have since told me “adverse effects” of Champix, i immediatly found
solace in the fact that many people’s descriptions matched mine, the crashing
wave of deep and dark depression, bursting into tears for no reason at all, the
feeling of no light in the world and that nobody would even care if you were
gone and worst of them all the belief that that low dark feeling was something
that could only be fixed by taking your own life. Ive just lived this hell after
taking Champix for a mere 4 weeks, first 3 were fine but wow that 4th week and i
roller-coasted from ready to punch someone in the face for talking to loudly to
wanting to floor my car 200 kms into a wall. I had read online about people
reactions before mine kicked in and honestly thought everyone was a nut-job bad
mouthing a drug that worked as i had stopped smoking and felt great, but let me
tell anyone who reads this and brushes off the more extreme sounding posts IT IS
NO JOKE. I went from wanting to simply give up smoking one week to sitting in a
mental health clinic 4 weeks later continually in disbelief at how the hell i
managed to end up there.

Now that Ive had my say to people who don’t believe it happens i want to give
every person that has fallen into that deep depression and suicidal thoughts
that have searched the web for info some hope and a true light at the end of the
tunnel because it was the one thing i was searching for but did not find. The
cause of your feelings is 100% Champix related and your brain WILL experience
happiness and normal thinking again, everyone’s neurotransmitters work
differently but what Ive found is however long it actually took the Champix to
work will roughly decide how long your brain takes to return to normal. Im no Dr
by any means but i was prescribed a low dosage of Valium / diazepan to
“take the edge off” from my Dr who told me in his experience giving
anti depressants not only didn’t work with champix related depression but in
some cases made it worse. Let me tell you the Valium worked to kill the anxiety
that came from continually thinking about killing myself and within a few days
the thoughts the anger and those messed up dreams stopped. So please if your
having the side effects as extreme as some i urge you to see your Dr or if your
in Australia get a referral to the mental access team through the various
Hospitals they helped me so much and i owe them my life literally. Scarily
enough their own words to me were you aren’t the first and you definitely wont
be the last to suffer this from Champix. I implore anyone considering this drug
to really think hard as it seems the chances of you successfully quitting aren’t
far ahead of the chance you’ll be sitting in a psyche ward as i did, even as bad
as cold turkey can feel its not even 1/1000 of how bad the reaction that i
experienced is. My only wish is to spread this exact message through as many
blogs and info sites about bad reactions to Champix, Chris feel free to use my
post anywhere you like, people suffering the effects NEED to see that there is
light at the end of this black tunnel.”

There are many more disturbing accounts like this in the Champix Chantix blog section of this site, and on many other blogs on the web. My urgent advice to smokers is to read around before deciding whether to try this medication.

safer alternative

Cravings Are Not Withdrawal Symptoms

by Chris Holmes

** Update 16/07.10: There is a link in the third comment at the end of this article to the website of Action on Smoking and Health (A.S.H.) which refers to a study on cravings that confirms exactly what I’m talking about here. God knows I never expected ASH to confirm or agree with anything I say, because they have staunchly defended and promoted Nicotine Replacement products until now, but maybe everyone involved in that is getting ready to admit that NRT is a complete waste of money because it’s based on a myth, just as I’ve been saying all along. Now watch them immediately start promoting some other pharmaceutical instead, instead of admitting openly how WRONG they were all this time about hypnotherapy, the Allen Carr approach, acupuncture… no, it’s chemicals, chemicals chemicals all the way!

Anyway enjoy the article!

Cravings Are Not Withdrawal Symptoms

Whether you are a smoker or not, you know what a craving is because we all get lots of cravings, they are not all about tobacco. In hypnotherapy we shut down cravings for all sorts of things routinely: smoking is just one example of that. If anyone reading this doesn’t believe that it is simply because they haven’t experienced it themselves, but it’s an everyday occurence for hypnotherapists – I’ve been doing this for the last ten years. Easily demonstrated too.

For several decades now, smokers have had it drilled into them that smoking is “nicotine addiction, nicotine addiction, nicotine addiction”. Yet for most of the time people have been smoking tobacco in Europe it has simply been regarded as a filthy habit. Odd references to “addiction” have occured down the ages but that is partly due to the unclear meaning of the term, which has often been confused with Compulsive Habit anyway. But I can easily explain why smokers’ cravings cannot possibly be withdrawal symptoms and are not related to nicotine levels in the blood anyway.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I know from my own experience as a smoker in the past that trying to quit smoking with willpower alone – or with nicotine replacement products, Zyban or Champix – CAN be a real struggle, or even seem impossible. According to the U.K. Government’s own commissioned studies into the long-term outcomes of those methods (which the National Health Service recommend) the chances are very much that your success – if any – will be temporary. What smokers don’t realise is, that is NOT because it is really hard to stop smoking, it is because those methods are all based on a myth: “addiction” to nicotine.

If cravings were withdrawal symptoms you would experience them at their worst when the nicotine level was lowest, which would be first thing in the morning if you are a typical smoker. No nicotine has been taken into the body for hours, so those “nicotine receptors” should be “going crazy” the moment you’re awake. Yet most smokers do not even keep tobacco by the bed. So there is a gap – an elapse of time – between the moment they open their eyes, and the moment when they first light up a cigarette.

Of course, there are a few smokers who light up before they get out of bed but I think everyone is aware that this is not the norm. The majority of habitual smokers will normally get up, go to the bathroom, maybe have a shower, go downstairs, put the kettle on, feed the cat… all the time feeling perfectly normal. They are not climbing the walls desperate for nicotine. But why not? They haven’t had any nicotine for hours! IF THE URGE TO SMOKE WAS REALLY A WITHDRAWAL SYMPTOM, THAT WOULD BE THEIR WORST MOMENT.

Also, many smokers feel an urge to pick up a cigarette when they have just put one out, such as when drinking, socialising or if bored. That urge is compelling, but it cannot be withdrawal because the nicotine level in the blood is still high from the previous cigarette. A “withdrawal symptom” is an experience caused by nicotine withdrawing from the system, which only happens later. Another clear indicator is the fact that the urge to smoke will vanish in particular circumstances regardless of falling nicotine levels: many smokers never smoke outside or in the street, so if they go out shopping they don’t want one. Gardening, playing sports… hours may go by, nicotine levels fall away – no symptoms, no “withdrawal”. This is because cravings are not linked to nicotine levels at all. They are compulsive urges prompting the usual habitual behaviour, but ONLY if it is a) possible, b) appropriate and c) convenient.

So if you get on a plane – as long as you’re okay with flying and don’t seriously object to the smoking restriction – you will find that nicotine levels can fall and keep on falling, and hey presto! No pesky withdrawal symptoms! Likewise if you board a bus, ride on a train, walk into Sainsburys or a cathedral, step into an operating theatre or meet the Queen… the brain knows this is NOT A SMOKING OPPORTUNITY so it doesn’t send the signals until you LEAVE that situation and a smoking opportunity presents itself.

Now, I need hardly point out that the social restrictions I’ve just described require INTELLIGENCE, SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE AND DISCERNMENT to distinguish between, and I doubt if any scientist is going to suggest that the nicotine receptors in the brain possess such complex abilities such as would be required to appreciate the shifting rules and mores of modern society. No, they were simply supposed to “go crazy” due to the falling level of nicotine specifically – NOT the fact that you’re chatting to the Queen, halfway to Cyprus or admiring a beautiful stained-glass window.

Real drug addictions are totally different. If a heroin addict gets on a plane and the level of heroin in the blood falls low THEN THEY ARE ILL, it doesn’t matter where they are or what they are doing. They couldn’t make out like they were fine even if they were talking to HRH.

Interested? Want to know more about what’s really going on with cravings? Click on the Read The Book section of the site, and when the Contents page appears, read a bit more. If you want to read all of it, click on Buy The Book. £16.95 for the paperback, or just £5 for the full download version. If you don’t like buying on-line, contact me directly for the other options.

I shut down smoking habits in a single session routinely. You can’t do that with a heroin addiction. I’ve tried. If you smoke tobacco you are NOT a drug addict, and that’s why the nicotine-based approaches rarely work except in the short-term. And that’s down to willpower mainly. The real solution is hypnotherapy, and there will come a time when that is simply common knowledge and everyone will understand that all this endless hype about “nicotine addiction” was just a simple mistake which turned into a gigantic moneyspinner for the drug companies at the taxpayers’ expense.

Lennox Johnston – Nicotine Man!

Lennox Johnston was largely responsible for tobacco smoking being wrongly classed as a drug addiction when it is, in fact, a complex compulsive habit. At first, the medical profession were sure he was wrong. They should have stuck to that position, because he WAS wrong. See Chris Holmes’ book ‘Nicotine: The Drug That Never Was’ for the full story.

An excerpt from Nicotine: The Drug That Never Was (Volume II: A Change Of Mind) by Chris Holmes

ii). The tobacco story has so many curious twists and turns that I am never really surprised when another one pops up. In Volume One I mentioned that I hadn’t quite managed to discover exactly when the “nicotine addiction” story started, as an interpretation of compulsive use and I suggested that if anyone was intrigued about that then they should keep digging and if they found anything enlightening to let me know. This inspired Chepstow-based hypnotherapist Marc Bishop to investigate further and he contacted me recently to tell me about Lennox Johnston, of whom I had never heard.

The fact that I had never heard of him is interesting in itself, because it turns out that Lennox Johnston – and be honest, you’ve never heard of him either, right? – was the first person to use nicotine in isolation to offset the impulse to reach for tobacco. In other words he invented Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) – the very thing my book denounces. Now, NRT is prescribed and sold all over the world, so if we all know about innovators like Alexander Fleming and Louis Pasteur, how come Lennox Johnston is never mentioned when people talk about NRT?

Actually it is probably because he was a bit like me: he made a bit of a nuisance of himself and everybody thought at first that he was wrong… which causes me to feel a certain, odd kinship with the chappie even though he is very much my adversary in this argument, for am I not in a very similar position here, trying to explain why smoking is not what most people presently think it is? Here is an extract from Johnston’s typical pronouncements to the editor of The Lancet circa 1953:

“I think it more sensible and scientifically satisfying to recognise tobacco-smoking as a drug addiction from start to finish. It varies in degree from slight to serious. The euphemism “habit” should be discarded completely… no smoker derives positive pleasure and benefit from tobacco. The bliss of headache or toothache relieved is analogous to that of craving for tobacco appeased.”

It is immediately clear that Allen Carr’s later observations in The Easy Way To Stop Smoking have their origins here in Lennox Johnston’s view, although I doubt Carr had ever heard of him either. He certainly never mentioned him in any of his own writings to my knowledge.

So what did the medical profession think of Johnston’s insistence that tobacco smoking was a drug addiction in the 1950’s? Well, we have managed to find this frank repudiation by none other than the Honorary Secretary of the Society for the Study of Addiction, one H. Pullar-Strecker, in response to Johnston’s assertions:

“Much as one may ‘crave’ for one’s smoke, tobacco is no drug of addiction. Proper addicts… will stop at nothing to obtain the drug that their system demands imperatively.”

Smokers often tell me that they are puzzled by the fact that although they wouldn’t normally go for nine hours without a cigarette during the day, when they are on a plane it doesn’t seem to bother them until they land, or very shortly before they land. The only exceptions seem to be smokers who resent the restriction, or have a problem with flying anyway. Likewise we hear of smokers seemingly untroubled by cravings during a spell in hospital, or more ordinarily whenever they go anywhere where smoking is commonly accepted as being out of the question, such as Mothercare or the Finsbury Park Mosque. It seems that as long as the smoker accepts that restriction, there will be no urge to smoke until they leave that situation. That is certainly not withdrawal, and falling nicotine levels in the body during the nine-hour flight (for example) are clearly irrelevant. The “nicotine receptors” in the brain are hardly in a position to appreciate the smoking ban on aircraft – or observe it – so this certainly begs the question “Why are they not ‘going crazy’ – as the NRT advert would have us believe is the cause of smokers’ cravings – in all of the situations mentioned above?” For of course Pullar-Strecker was right: the heroin addict cannot do that. If a heroin addict gets on a plane and the heroin level in the blood falls low then they are ill, it doesn’t matter what they are doing or where they are situated. That’s withdrawal.

Lennox Johnston was a Glaswegian GP who had been a smoker himself and according to his obituary in the British Medical Journal (Volume 292, dated 29/03/86) he quit smoking twice. It relates how he pondered his compulsion to continue smoking and “wondered what would be the effect of stopping” – only to find that it proved easier than he expected. A year or so later, he started smoking again and after that it took him “two agonising years” to give up.

Later he became an anti-smoking campaigner and began to experiment with pure solutions of nicotine which he often administered to himself, once with near-fatal consequences. He also wrote to The Lancet describing an experiment he devised himself which involved about thirty smokers who apparently allowed him to inject them with nicotine whenever they felt the urge to reach for tobacco, which Johnston claimed then subsided. Although this certainly does not qualify as a bona fide clinical trial, it can be regarded as the first ever attempt to trial nicotine replacement as a concept. The Lancet published Johnston’s letter, and so began the biggest medical mistake of the 20th Century – though of course, everyone thought he was wrong at the time.

Well – not quite everyone. Throughout the history of tobacco-smoking in Europe there have been occasional voices calling it an “addiction”, though quite what those individuals thought that term really meant is not easy to determine now. Yet for most of that history nearly everybody simply regarded it as a filthy habit – which is pretty accurate. A complex compulsive habit to be exact – for a full definition of that see Chapter Ten in Volume One, where I spell out the key differences between that and true drug addiction.

It is only very recently, in fact, that the “nicotine addiction” interpretation has become the general impression, and not everyone believes it even now. There have always been voices in the scientific community who have pointed out the inconsistencies, but they couldn’t explain the compulsive element because they didn’t have the key knowledge of the normal operations of the human Subconscious mind and how it organises and activates compulsive habitual behaviour. So they got shouted down – as did the tobacco companies who tried to point out that other habitual behaviours that did not involve any substances – such as shopaholics and compulsive gamblers – seemed to be of a similar order, but eventually they too accepted the new doctrine and dropped the argument. Not because it was invalid, but because they were pretty much on their own at that point, the anti-smokers were on a roll and have been ever since.

Factually, the tobacco companies were right… but because smoking is damaging to health they didn’t have a chance of getting their point heard as the scientific proof of real harm emerged during the 1960s and has continued to be the justification for everything that has changed since. Every anti-smoking policy or restriction that has been introduced since then has been justified with a reminder of the enormous harm tobacco smoking does to human health.

It’s a pity it never occurred to Lennox Johnston to wonder why he found it surprisingly easy to quit the first time, but it took “two agonising years” the second time. Surely the role of nicotine was the same in both cases and what that gives us straight away is the clue that nicotine isn’t the difficulty: the perception of ‘ease’ or ‘difficulty’ – even ‘agony’ – results from other variables, and that’s why expert hypnotherapy can usually resolve the matter on a single occasion but NRT does not.

The medical establishment thought Johnston was wrong, in fact they ignored him for years and don’t even talk about him now. The tobacco companies thought it was just a habit, as did virtually all smokers at the time. Some still do, despite all this mad nicotine propaganda that is really just marketing for NRT dressed up as medical orthodoxy.

The irony is, the medical establishment were in fact quite correct in the first place. So now it seems as if I’m the mad eccentric, when all I’m pointing out is exactly what everyone knew anyway before Lennox Johnston came along. If they had only stuck to their initial assessment that he was the mad eccentric, then they could have remained quite correct all along and we could have avoided this crazy detour around and around and around the poison nicotine, which is not the real reason people struggle to quit through their own efforts, as I explained in Volume One.

Lennox Johnston lived until he was 86, surviving long enough to see his initially-scorned pronouncements adopted as the standard medical view. By mistake.

Doubt if I will live long enough to see it corrected. Probably won’t get the credit either – but then, neither did Johnston -which is why none of us had ever heard of him!

more info about hypnotherapy for smoking