Smoking, Addictions and EFT
EFT and Dealing with a Smoking Addiction
Hi,
EFT is a powerful tool for helping people overcome addictions including that of smoking. In fact it is used with all types of addiction issues including alcohol, drugs and food.
One of the ways that EFT can be applied to help a person stop smoking is to deal with the person’s original motivation to smoke. Generally cigarettes do not have a pleasant taste at least initially so in order for the person to become a smoker their motivation has to be sufficiently powerful that they are able to overcome this aspect of the cigarette. Typically people start smoking at a young age.
Step 1: Smoking – Finding the Original Motivation
Trace it back to when the person first became motivated to smoke. Many people easily remember this, but if they don’t, EFT can be used to help access this early memory. When you have identified the event, ask “What did cigarettes do for you?”
“It does nothing for me” is a common answer, but that is the adult speaking. For the adult that may seem to be true, because whatever was the initial motivation for smoking is often no longer relevant to the adult. However the interesting thing is that although it is no longer relevant, it is still running like an old computer program. The consequences of this is that it still dictates their behavior – smoking! (That is why adults are often mystified as to why they smoke).
“What did it do for the younger self?”
The answer to this question is most illuminating. “It made me grown up”, “It made me special”, “It made me confident” , “It made me feel like a rebel” are just some of the common answers people give. If you watch the body language when they offer this information, you can almost see their face light up with the pleasant emotions it brings forth!
Step 2: Breaking the Linkage Between Pleasure and Smoking using EFT
This association between pleasure and cigarettes is what needs to be broken. Tapping out the original event where this association was made can have a powerful impact on the person’s motivation to smoke now.
It is often worthwhile to check out whether for example if they answer, “smoking makes me confident”, there is another underlying issue that it would be worthwhile to deal with to make sure they have no need whatsoever to smoke. In this example, they could be using cigarettes to hide behind. Deal with the confidence issue using EFT and there is no longer any need to smoke.
You may also need to do further EFT on the associations the person holds in their mind about smoking, such as:
“I want to smoke when I think of drinking”
“I want to smoke when I think of driving”
Step 3: Knowing When You Have A Result with Smoking using EFT
The ideal emotion you are aiming for when using EFT on an addiction issue such as smoking is indifference, not hate, not love! People who don’t smoke are for the most part indifferent to cigarettes.
When we have no emotion about cigarettes, they lose their hold over us. They become insignificant. When that happens you find that you stop thinking about them. You basically forget about them as they are no longer important to you.
All the best,
Tania
Tania A Prince
EFT Master
NLP Trainer
