The Psychology Of Stopping The Smokeless Tobacco Addiction
For a large percentage of the world’s population, smokeless tobacco is at least something they have tried, if not something indulged in regularly. Most people associate smokeless tobacco with sports stars, and incorrectly believe that it is a safe alternative to smoking cigarettes. Unfortunately, this can all too often prove dead wrong.
A diverse range of people use this highly addictive substance and no one is safe, dependent on social status, race, or gender. The reasons for using smokeless tobacco vary widely from appetite control to generalized stress relief. And this epidemic is hurting the world. Targeting the world’s future with the predominant users being just teenagers and sometimes preteens, it is a highly dangerous habit.
The truth of the matter is that teens and smokeless tobacco are getting to be excessively close to each other and creating lifelong habits and health risks that are just too great to be overlooked and too dangerous to be ignored. Adolescent use of smokeless tobacco is constantly on the rise, with some users starting when they are just 9 or 10 years old.
Rural Caucasian teenagers have the highest risk of using smokeless tobacco, and if the teenagers share a home with an adult that uses, their risk of following the trend rises dramatically. An average of 9.3% of all high school students in the United States use smokeless tobacco. Among the population of white male students, the average is about 1 user in every 5 students. But what are the effects of smokeless tobacco and what are the advantages and disadvantages of using it? For some people, the appeal is in “looking cool,” and fitting in. Also it causes an unusual sensation in users by first calming them, through the release of dopamine in the brain, and then exciting them with a release of adrenaline. It can also cause appetite suppression, which some users may abuse to try to lose weight.
On the down side are more ramifications that make the reasons to chew look pretty weak. Use of smokeless tobacco causes a number of cancers, along with dental problems, bad breath, and of course the financial spending of the user to supply smokeless tobacco. Most tobacco users with a can a day habit, over thirty years at current prices will spend up to $50,000 on chewing tobacco in their lifetime, assuming they survive their habit long enough.
There are no known cures for either the oral or the gastrointestinal cancers smokeless tobacco brings, and this may potentially cost a fortune in treatment and sadly, perhaps funeral expenses.
Quitting smokeless tobacco is widely thought to be much more difficult than quitting smoking. A part of the addiction is the tremendous amount of nicotine absorbed by the body when chewing or dipping. This amount is twice as high as that received from smoking a cigarette.
But how can one beat their smokeless tobacco addiction? Various products are on the market to help wean users off of snuff and chew, such as a product that uses spearmint as a substitute for the tobacco without getting the nicotine. And some success has come from receiving same shot that inhibits receptors in the body for smoking. But the way to quit and permanently remain tobacco-free without withdrawal, stress, and weight gain is through hypnosis.
A hypnosis program offers a two-fold attack to the habitual chewing or dipping reflex built up by your previous habits and lifestyle choices. It first attacks the emotional reasons why you desire a dipp, and then it attacks the mental habit itself.
First consider the emotional reasons. Dopamine is a “feel good” chemical produced by your body and released by your brain to create a feeling of pleasure. In times of stress, the dopamine produces a general sensation of well being. Some common occurrences of natural release include eating a large meal, or sexual relief. In other words, putting some chew into the mouth provides relaxation and pleasure. The very essence of hypnosis is relaxation, and hypnotherapy is superb for stress relief and relaxation.
Hypnotherapy also works to break the cycle of expectation created by your mind. When you chew tobacco after dinner, your mind starts to signal to your body that you require a chew each and every time you are done eating dinner. By inhibiting or eliminating this thought process, you will not feel the urge to habitually use smokeless tobacco.
By extinguishing these two root causes of chewing tobacco use, hypnotherapy treatments can virtually eliminate the urge to chew or dipp, ending your need for the extra dopamine release. Thus releasing you from this lethal habit and providing a stress free method for quitting.
Alan B. Densky, CH offers Hypnosis CDs to quit smokeless tobacco. His site offers hypnotherapy CDs for appetite, weight loss, smoke cessation, and stress related symptoms. He maintains a library of NLP & hypnosis articles, and offers FREE hypnosis & NLP newsletters and MP3’s.
- Alan B. Densky, CH
