Aspiring Spirit

For many people around the world, smokeless tobacco is 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. Unfortunately, this can all too often prove dead wrong.

All different types of people use this highly addictive substance and no one is safe, dependent on race, income, or sex. 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 teens and in many cases preteens, it is a dangerous substance.

The truth of the matter is that teens and smokeless tobacco are getting to be too familiar with 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 nine or ten years old.

Rural Caucasian teens have the highest risk of using smokeless tobacco products, and if the teens live in a house with an adult user, their chances of also using smokeless tobacco rises dramatically. Approximately 9.3% of all high school students in the United States use smokeless tobacco products. Among the white male student body, the average is about 1 user in 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 possibly fitting in with one’s peers. It also 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 in an attempt to lose weight.

On the down side are serious consequences that make the reasons to chew look pretty weak. Use of smokeless tobacco causes a number of diseases, along with tooth and gum problems, bad breath, and of course the financial spending of the user to supply this product. Most tobacco users using one can per day, over thirty years at current prices will spend up to $50,000 on chewing tobacco, assuming they live that long.

There are no known cures for either the oral or the gastrointestinal cancers smokeless tobacco causes, and this may cost a fortune in treatment and sadly, perhaps funeral costs.

Quitting smokeless tobacco is widely believed to be much more difficult than quitting smoking. Part of the addiction includes a great amount of nicotine absorbed by the body when chewing or dipping. This amount is two times as much as that received from smoking a cigarette.

But how can one beat their smokeless tobacco addiction? Various products are available to help users quit snuff and chew, such as a product that uses spearmint leaves to mimic the tobacco without supplying the nicotine. And some success has come from receiving same shot that inhibits receptors in the body for smoking. But the way to quit forever without withdrawal, stress, and weight gain is through using a hypnosis program.

Hypnotherapy 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 motivation for why you crave a dipp, and then it attacks the mental habit itself.

First you’ll want to consider the emotional motivation for using tobacco products. Dopamine is a “feel good” chemical produced by your body and released by your brain during pleasurable activities. In times of stress, the dopamine produces a general feeling 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 gives pleasure and relaxation. The very essence of hypnosis is relaxation, and self-hypnosis is superb for promoting stress relaxation and stress relief.

Additionally, hypnotherapy works to break the cycle of expectation created by your mind. When you chew tobacco after dinner, your mind begins to signal to your body that you require a chew after every dinner. By blocking or removing this thought process, you won’t feel the need to pack your cheek after you pack your stomach.

By extinguishing these two root causes of chewing tobacco use, hypnosis programs can extinguish the compulsion to dipp or chew, stopping your need for the extra release of dopamine. Thus hypnotherapy works in freeing you from this lethal habit and allows a stress free method of quitting.

Alan B. Densky, CH offers NLP & Hypnosis CDs to overcome smokeless tobacco. His site offers hypnotherapy CDs for appetite, weight loss, smoke cessation, and stress related symptoms. He provides a library of hypnosis & NLP articles, and offers FREE NLP and hypnosis newsletters & MP3s.

- Alan B. Densky, CH