Nov. 18 Event Encourages Smokers to Quit or Reduce Usage
By Mike Lauterborn
© 2010. All Rights Reserved.
11/16/10
Stamford, CT – According to the American Cancer Society, there are 44 million people who still smoke in the United States. Fortunately, there are various providers and organizations available to help.
In support of the Great American Smokeout Thursday, November 18, one provider, Stamford-based hypnotist Meg Tocantins, is offering a half-price program for smokers who decide to quit.
Since 1975, the American Cancer Society has devoted to the cause the third Thursday in November. On this day, smokers are encouraged to abstain from smoking all day or at least reduce their daily cigarette usage. Every year, millions of Americans participate in the activity, which often helps lead to permanent cessation of smoking.
To qualify for Tocantins’ half-price offer, smokers must contact her on Nov. 18 to schedule an appointment in the Nov. 19 to Dec. 31 window. To set an appointment, smokers can visit her website at www.relaxationsuite.com and click on “Contact Us” for specific instructions and guidelines, or call 917-292-8115.
Tocantins looks forward to the Great American Smokeout every year. “It’s a time when smokers are more aware of their habit.”
She has helped hundreds of people, who had tried other methods before and failed, quit smoking. She hopes her offer will give smokers more incentive to try to quit smoking, but to also consider hypnosis as a cessation solution.
“I give each smoker the tools they need to quit smoking forever. Most walk out of my office after the first session as non-smokers – they throw away their cigarettes. Later they tell me that quitting this time, using hypnosis, was easier than trying other methods,” she said.
The American Cancer Society has a dedicated website for the Smokeout event: www.cancer.org/Healthy/StayAwayfromTobacco/GreatAmericanSmokeout/index It is designed to give smokers guidance, tools, information and resources to help them understand the cons of smoking and benefits of quitting. This includes tips and tools to help smokers quit for good, a Stop Smoking Quiz to help a smoker understand his/her smoking patterns and develop a personal quit plan, and downloadable tools to help plan a quit day.
The site also provides a Cigarette Cost Calculator so a smoker can see how much money is being wasted on cigarettes. For instance, a person that smokes one pack per day (or 20 cigarettes per day) for each of 365 days consumes 7,300 cigarettes. At an average of $9 per pack, that calculates to $3,285.
“When they come to me, most people have tried to quit a few times before, either with the nicotine patch, cold turkey or medications. It didn’t stick,” said Tocantins. “What hypnosis does is create an immediate cessation without the challenge other methods present like figuring out what do after quitting. What do you do while drinking coffee? Having a cocktail? These are real challenges. Smoking is a really nasty habit and ingrained in so many peoples’ lives.”
About the stigmas around hypnosis, Tocantins added, “Some people are hesitant about it and afraid that I’ll have them cluck like a chicken. I say to them, ‘I can’t get your ATM password. You’re always in control.’ The state that you’re in when hypnotized is a state all people can be in, though you will need to want to be hypnotized.”
Tocantins regularly monitors smoking trend reports released by both the American Cancer Society and American Lung Association, and said, “Smoking trends are always getting a little higher with youth, who think they’re going to live forever. In general, though, cigarette usage is gradually decreasing… which is great.”
“Women are not quitting as often as men, which I’m concerned about,” added Tocantins. “The high price of cigarettes is helping drive down usage.”
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