hypnotherapy, smoking and drinking, page-19

Hi Everyone.

So, state of play almost 4 weeks down the track?
Hypnotherapy, smoking and drinking- Part 2

My mate has been smoke free for the entire time. The other day he mentioned that he admits to thinking about a smoke a couple of times during activities that he would generally smoke in, e.g. driving a fair distance with Pink Floyd on was a sure time he would have smoked. The thinking about a fag is different from wanting one though and he states nil cravings since his first hypnotherapy session.

As he promised himself, his mindset was for 2 vices to be removed. So far so good for the fags; the second one was for the drinking. As per my previous post, his drinking had gotten out of hand. A couple of bottles of spirits and a handful of beers a week, maybe a few glasses of wine- you can't keep that up.
Last week he went for a second session with the therapist, firstly to let him know how it went with the fags, and secondly to re-iterate his desire to get rid of his drinking problem.
Myself, I agree with Bruceyg- that there's only one way to give up smoking and drinking, and that's cold turkey. Certainly that was the only way that I was able to give up both.
My mate, however, states that he can't imagine ever not being able to sit down with one of his kids, or a friend say, and not have another beer if it seemed ok to do so. (He reckons that would just feel too weird!)

In his second session the therapist asked him if he wanted to stop completely or just moderate his drinking habits somewhat, to which my mate told him he would choose the latter, to cut down the excess that is, see how that went, and if he couldn't keep it toned down then he would opt for the more severe option of cutting it out completely.

The practical side of the second session went quicker than the first one. He used the same technique of the hand in front of the face and the touching of fingers that I described earlier, but he believes it took effect in a lot less time. One difference he mentioned was that he was allowed to close his eyes this time and just picture in his mind the touching of the therapists finger against his own.
As before, the hypno talked about the negative issues of excessive drinking in a somewhat monotone of a voice, and as before my mate didn't have any further input into the conversation as such- the clients job seems to be just to sit there, relax and listen.

I must mention however, that prior to this second session, when my mate had sat down and told the bloke about his desire to cut down on the drinking, the therapist asked him in a conversational manner questions such as:
You want to give a drinking do you?
Why on earth do you want to give up drinking?
How are you going to get by without the drinks?
What do you think is wrong with drinking too much?

From his account he could have been asking about how many ice-creams he had each day and why he would want to give up ice-creams. But as my mate was answering these questions pre-hypnosis, the same answers were being used during the session.
It seems to be a misconception that you are asleep during hypnosis. He recalls during the session that the words used by the therapist really mirrored his own that he gave pre-session but it seemed different when they were given back to him.

Whoever out there thinking that hypnosis won't work against alcohol problems, up until now I probably would have agreed with you- I mean, surely it couldn't be that bloody simple, could it?

As related to me: That night my mate sat down with his wife to watch a movie on the tele, each with their scotches and cokes, (hers diet coke) but he only sipped his. His wife, by my mates account polished her down in pretty quick time, (I believe she has a decent drinking problem too) but he found no desire to finish his so offered the rest to her. Later on he made a couple more drinks, again only having a small amount before giving the rest away.

Certainly this may still be a male pride thing, you know, I've gone this far and I'll be buggered if I'm not going to give it my best crack; but consider that he was smoking around 5 packs of fags a week and drinking way too much, and now after a couple of user friendly sessions of hypno, as a 50the birthday present to himself he no longer smokes and no longer drinks under the legal driving limit- could there be something in the slapping of 2 mullet together by a hypnotherapist?