Smoking is a bad habit that dies hard. It is hard to quit smoking. Many have tried to quit but many have failed. Recently, smoking has become the habit of women and adolescents too. Many people believe that smoking is a social need. Many people feel embarrassed not to smoke when they are with the company of smokers. In order to avoid this embarrassment, they try to smoke.

When they try to smoke in the beginning, they may not like it but when they have become addicted to smoking then smoking becomes a pleasurable habit. Many that have become addicted to smoking cannot do any work unless they smoke. When a person is already addicted to smoking, then smoking becomes a health hazard to him or her. A person who is addicted to smoking is fuming the lungs daily with the drug nicotine.

This drug will enter the bloodstream and when the drug reaches the part of the brain known as the hypothalamus, it will gives the body the sensation of pleasure and well-being. This sensation of pleasure and well-being drives people to smoke.

The level of pleasure achieved is in accordance with the level of nicotine in the bloodstream. Smoking gives more pleasure when there is more nicotine in the blood. A person who demands a certain level of pleasure from smoking will not stop smoking until the bloodstream accumulates the desired level of nicotine. A person will only stop smoking momentarily when he or she has achieved the level of pleasure that he or she desired. The level of nicotine in the blood drops when a person stops smoking. In order to gain the same level of nicotine and sensation of pleasure, the person has to start smoking a cigarette.

This drive to have the sensation of pleasure and well-being makes it difficult for a person to stop smoking. When a person is worried, he or she will also smoke. When a person is sad, he or she will also smoke. When they smoke, they get the feeling of well-being. People smoke in order to gain the sensation of pleasure and well-being which lasts as long as the drug nicotine is in the bloodstream. When the level of nicotine drops, they have to take up a cigarette again.

We have to understand why people smoke and what do they gain from smoking before we can develop methods to stop people from smoking. Addiction to smoking is a behavioral problem and it is a behavioral disease. The governments are trying to stop people from smoking. One of the ways that the government used to discourage people from smoking was to display pictures of various diseases on the cigarette boxes. Those that are addicted to smoking know that smoking can lead to various diseases and displaying these pictures will only accentuate the knowledge that smoking is a bad habit but those that are addicted to smoking will still smoke.

One very important point to realise is that people behave according to what they believe and not according to what they know. Many people know that smoking is dangerous to health but that does not stop them from smoking. Many doctors also smoke although they know that smoking is dangerous to their health. People does not behave according to what they know but people behave according to what they believe in. If we can change the way people believe, we can also change the way people behave. Addiction to smoking is a behavioral disease. When belief changes, behaviour, too, changes.

We can treat addiction to smoking by treating the belief towards smoking. Using the ‘self-talk therapy’, by the grace of Allah we can change the person’s belief towards smoking. ‘Self-talk therapy’ is a method using a technique where you hear and repeat certain positive words to yourself until your belief changes. The therapy works very well when taken as prescribed. Many people have stopped smoking after taking this therapy seriously.

If you want to stop smoking, you may use this therapy. The positive words are recorded in the form of CD (compact disc). It consists of twenty short sentences and each sentence is repeated three times. When you hear these sentence spoken to you, you must listen to them attentively and after that, you have to repeat the same sentences aloud to yourself after you have heard the sentence .

Each ‘treatment session’ takes about seven to ten minutes and you have to undergo the ‘treatment’ at least three times daily. After taking the treatment for about three months or less Insha’Allah, a person will stop smoking. If you are interested in the treatment of behaviour please contact Shahrul at 012 626 7945 or 03 6185 3089