Quitting Through Hypnosis

This time I knew it was for real. I was going to quit smoking cigarettes. Like a true Catholic I picked Ash Wednesday to give up the insidious habit. I had smoked for 20 years.

Ah, nicotine. That glorious rush. That edge. That empty promise that leaves you hacking away in the middle of the night. I fessed up to being an addict. I knew I wasn't one of those "I like the whole ritual thing of cigarettes" people. No, I was a nicotine-addicted son of a bitch. I knew I had to stop sucking the cotton dick or I would never get my biblical three score and ten.

After I decided to quit the anxiety set in?as it always had in the past. That's the problem with quitting. The thought of quitting is as hard as any physical withdrawal. A few days before my quit date I ran into my cousin and noticed how good he looked for a man of 55. He smiled and said, "It's probably because I quit smoking. Been off cigarettes for three months."

He had started smoking more than 40 years ago and was a true addict. I asked him how he dealt with the first few days of torture.

"It was pretty easy. And it has stayed easy. I haven't gained any weight. I don't even think about them."

I was amazed. It was like he told me he knew how to make gold in his basement with his mail-order alchemy kit. I stammered, "How'd you do it? Tell me. I quit before. It's never easy. Never."

"This time it was. I got hypnotized. I don't really believe in that stuff but it worked on me."

I went home and mulled that over. Hypnotism. I had never tried that in all my tobacco battles. I made a phone call and set up an appointment with the Wall Street Hypnosis Center. I figured if it was good enough for those capitalists it would be good enough for me. A woman informed me it would be $270 for three one-hour sessions. She assured me that the center had a 90-percent success rate. I booked the sessions. I figured with butts five bucks a pack and me smoking a pack a day I only had to quit for 54 days to break even on this.

So on Ash Wednesday at 12:50 p.m. I smoked a cigarette outside 165 William St. I took a few long drags and then threw the butt into the gutter. I rode the elevator up to the fifth floor, where I was met by a slim, middle-aged woman named Ruth Barrons Roosevelt. I later learned she was once married to FDR's grandson. As she welcomed me into her spacious loft I handed her my pack of cigarettes and lighter and asked her to trash them. Then I handed her my credit card and said I wanted to get to it.

Roosevelt said, "Good. You get right to the point. At the end of the session I always ask for the cigarette pack. You gave them right up."

Roosevelt had me sit on a comfortable couch and talk about my habit. She asked about the whens and wheres and hows of my habit. I leaned back into the couch and opened up to her. She had a soothing voice and was a good listener.

Roosevelt handed me a glass of water and asked why I wanted to quit. I let her know that I want to live till 80 and if I smoke I probably won't make it. She motioned for me to follow her and we went into a smaller side room. I sat on a comfortable leather recliner and put my feet up. Roosevelt lowered the lights a bit and then came closer to me. She raised her hand in front of my face and told me to look at her ring.

"Follow my ring. That's right. Up and down. Up and down. Good."

My eyes followed this diamond-shaped topaz and I started to feel a nod coming on. As I closed my eyes Roosevelt started to talk to me in what seemed a very distant voice. She had me envision a chalkboard and writing all the letters of the alphabet on it. Then she had me standing on a set of stairs and as she counted down from 10 she said, "You'll go deeper and deeper into a trance. There is nothing to worry about. This is your time. You have all the time in the world..."

Then she had me walking in a country field and finding a comfortable place to sit down. During the session I kept thinking, "So this is all there is to this hypnotism crap." I would catch that and then just keep breathing in and out, deeper and deeper, while Roosevelt said, "It will be easy for you. There will be no withdrawal symptoms. No withdrawal symptoms. You are a healthy nonsmoker."

After a half-hour it was over. I felt like I just took a nap?which I probably did (hypnotism derives from the Greek word for sleep). I left the office, hit the streets and immediately wanted to smoke a cigarette. But I took a deep breath and let it out?something Roosevelt had said to do during the hypnotism whenever I felt the urge to smoke?and it worked. I didn't smoke.

As I write I'm now three weeks and three hypnotism sessions into it, and I still haven't smoked. It's been the easiest bout of quitting I ever had. But it wasn't a walk in the park. I had my moments. It was a war in the mind. Like Milton says, "The mind is its own place and in itself can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n."

What the hypnosis did was to give me a few weapons to fight the urges. So far so good, but a skeptical friend at work checks on me every day to see if I'm still a nonsmoker. He's impressed that the hypnotism worked, although he says, "I'm still waiting for you to get up and cluck like a chicken when I tell you to."

Wall Street Hypnosis Center, 165 William St. (betw. Ann & Beekman Sts.), 349-3989, 800-692-0080.