There are many alternative solutions proposed to date to stop smoking. Bernard ANTOINE, tobacco specialist-hypnotherapist, proposes a method based on Ericksonnian hypnosis. Interview.
Dentoscope (DT): You are a tobacco specialist-hypnotherapist. Can you tell us about your professional career?
Bernard ANTOINE (BA): My journey is logical and at the same time atypical. I continued my higher education outside France, obtained an MBA in the USA, then I founded an SME that I managed for fourteen years. I decided to quit smoking in 2004 with the help of a method (based on American behavioral techniques) and I resumed at the same time my studies in psychology (Paris V), in tobaccoology (DU) , then in addictology and I trained at the same time in Ericksonnian hypnosis (Ifhe).
DT: What led you to manage the desire to smoke?
BA: I am an ex-heavy smoker. I started very young as a teenager and I put out my last cigarette 25 years later. For years, I tried to put an end to my addiction by trying alone and each time telling myself that I lacked willpower. By putting an end to my own addiction, I decided to devote my professional life to helping smokers to get rid, like me, of this addiction to be finally and definitively free.
DT: Thanks to your ericksonian hypnosis technique, you pretend to cancel the desire to smoke. Can you explain how?
BA: This method is different from those that only use hypnosis or behavioral therapies since it uses, among other things, these two methods. It is suitable for those who have made many attempts as for those who are trying for the first time to get out of this trap. This method does not use any drug or any product which delivers nicotine, it is a progressive method which takes place over a month, at the rate of three sessions spaced two weeks apart. Smokers continue to smoke until the last session, which ends with a hypnosis session. You then become ex-smokers ready to unlearn how to smoke. However, this is not a “miracle” method in which I will have become the magician!
DT: Can all patient profiles leave this dependence serenely and definitively?
BA: This method is suitable for all smokers, regardless of the number of cigarettes they smoke. In fact, there are not as many think: small, medium, or heavy smokers. There are people who smoke and people who do not smoke (there is also no linear relationship between the number of cigarettes smoked and the probability of contracting a tobacco-related illness). Even those who pretend to smoke little are exposed to diseases and they are forced to feed their bodies of this substance without being able to help it.
DT: You also work in a group. What is it about ?
BA: I propose to couples who wish to come together to follow the program, I can also offer this to families who wish (and who can organize themselves) to come and follow the three sessions of the program at my Paris office (Paris 14e).
DT: You set up workshops that take place on site and during working time. What are these workshops?
BA: I also organize intra-company sessions. In general, it is the companies that contact me to organize the deployment of a smoking cessation assistance support program. These sessions take place in the group workplace (between 5 and 15 participants maximum). It is the same program as that offered in individual sessions. The difference lies in group dynamics and the consideration of each smoker. The sessions are therefore a little longer, but the active molecule is the same!
DT: Is there a particular state of mind / conditions to have before starting the process of quitting smoking? From your experience, do you have to have a real motivation / will? And if so, how is it characterized / when are you ready to quit smoking?
BA: First of all, you have to know that tobacco dependence is mainly behavioral and psychological dependence. Nicotine addiction is by far the easiest aspect to manage. Indeed, a few days are enough for nicotine to metabolize by the liver and disappear completely from the body. These are the behavioral and psychological aspects on which it is necessary to do a work to prepare to stop smoking. Nicotine substitutes and other drugs will not help the smoker to manage his emotions, nor to suppress the automatic mechanisms that make him smoke. To put an end to tobacco, it is also a matter of desire to be free, rather than a matter of will fueled by reason (the Will). A smoker who abstains from smoking solely for health, money or other good reasons (dictated by will) and thinks he is sacrificing pleasure will not last long. The motivation to be free again is the solid lasting foundation of the judgment. The smoker must be deeply inhabited by the conviction that he gives up nothing and that smoking is useless to be psychologically freed from this addiction. We are probably ripe for quitting smoking when the addiction to tobacco becomes unbearable and we feel a desire for freedom more or less deeply hidden in the unconscious. There are scientific models that show different stages of maturation when stopped. The easiest way is to trust your intuition and if you feel like you want to try to stop, now is the time to do it. There is no “right time”. Often the smoker waits for the "right time"; sometimes he waits all his life ...
DT: What are its advantages compared to other methods such as patches or acupuncture for example?
BA: This method is guilty, progressive, personalized and natural. It allows you to become aware, and therefore to get rid serenely and especially definitively, of the automatic mechanisms that make you addicted to this addiction. The important thing is not so much not to smoke as to never to resume and to live serenely without tobacco (without frustration).
DT: Can we combine your method with other aids (patches, Bach Flowers, electronic cigarette ...)? If yes, which ones and how are they complementary? If not why ?
BA: I do not recommend the use of nicotine substitutes. As I explained above, a few days are enough for nicotine to disappear completely from the body. If however my smoking patient does not resist the temptation to go and buy these products in pharmacies I will not prevent it, but he will not need it. I propose at the end of the last session an optional and absolutely safe treatment based on homeopathic products.
DT: Do you know what are the success rates of quitting smoking under hypnosis and your method in particular?
BA: On the basis of the results of my programs carried out in companies with occupational medicine, I obtain validated results of the order of 50% success at six months (before six months, the results are not significant) . Beware of methods under hypnosis that brandish spectacular success rates, these have generally not been the subject of serious clinical studies proving these results!
DT: Once you have stopped smoking, after how long can you consider that you have won? Are there rules to follow over time so as not to dive again?
BA: Learning to quit smoking again takes time to get rid of all the provocative situations that make you want to smoke (around six months). The good news is that when you quit smoking, when you are well prepared in behavioral and psychological terms, every day without smoking becomes easier to manage. Still it is advisable to have carried out this preparatory work before the final cessation. It is this work that I carry out with the three sessions which take place over a month or so.
Source: http://www.dentoscope.fr/article-id-114 ... ocus-a.htm
Tobacco: one pregnant French woman in four smokes, what are the consequences?
The Minister of Health recalled that France was the worst European student in the matter: 24% of women smoke during their pregnancy. The risks for the child are however significant.
One in four pregnant women smokes daily in France: this is twice as much as most European countries, which have rates between 10% and 15% of women who use tobacco during their pregnancy. The finding is established by the national survey on the consumption of psychoactive substances 2013. While a recent study calls into question the dangerousness of alcohol in pregnant women, it is now tobacco that raises questions. . But in this area, the consequences on health are not at all questioned. It is even a "serious problem" for the Minister of Health, Marisol Touraine, who recalls that "we know the impact that this can have on babies".
What exactly does tobacco do for the baby? According to the National Institute for Prevention and Education for Health (INPES), obstetric risks are significant, particularly with regard to the child's intrauterine growth retardation. Tobacco also increases the risk of miscarriage during pregnancy. The numbers speak for themselves: cases of sudden infant deaths and stillborn babies are twice as high among women who smoked while pregnant. The rate of spontaneous abortion is higher in smokers, as is the risk of premature delivery, which is doubled. In addition, the higher the number of cigarettes smoked, the greater the risk.
Smoking while pregnant: a new phenomenon
"It is by making young adolescent girls dependent that women will become pregnant while being smokers. Their child, who has become an adolescent, will be more likely to be addicted to smoking in turn" estimated Professor Bertrand Dautzenberg, president of the 'Office for the prevention of smoking, on the France Info branches. "Half of 12-year-old girls can buy cigarettes from tobacconists when they receive tens of thousands of euros for being public health workers. They must therefore be sanctioned for not doing their job" a he considered.
The increase in the number of women who have taken up smoking in France in just a few decades is a real societal phenomenon. A time associated with the liberation of the female condition, tobacco seemed to become the symbol of independence and freedom with the last generations of women. Today, it is therefore with adolescent girls that prevention programs must turn. Marisol Touraine thus wishes "to put in place dissuasive policies".
Studies show that the best barrier to young people's access to tobacco is the price. However, the minister seems to rule out a new increase in the price of tobacco initially planned for July, for measures more focused on the care of nicotine substitutes or on health messages, in particular on tobacco packages.
Source: http://www.linternaute.com/actualite/so ... 0513.shtml
Introduce a neutral cigarette pack, take charge of 100% smoking cessation, specialists argue for a more proactive policy against smoking.
(...)
Enforce the ban on sales to minors
Since 2003, the sale of tobacco has been banned in France for people under the age of 16. In 2009, the ban was extended to all minors. But "this measure has no impact ... unless it is applied," said Maitena Milhet and her research colleagues at the French Observatory on Drugs and Drug Addiction. The study they publish in the Beh shows that minors between the ages of 12 and 17 have very little difficulty in obtaining cigarettes and that their lack of respect for the law discredits the scope of this ban in their eyes.
Listen to Professor Yves Martinet, pulmonologist and president of the National Committee against smoking: “10 tobacconists still sell tobacco to 000-year-old children. "(Interview carried out on December 12, 14)
According to several Anglo-Saxon studies, the impact of this ban on smoking by young people is nevertheless real when it is respected by a majority of tobacconists, when regular checks are carried out and when there is a system of graduated sanctions.
Knock on the wallet
The financial argument is particularly effective, in particular to prevent adolescents from persisting after their first cigarettes. Provided that the increase in the price of the package is massive, as in 2003, when it had climbed 40% in one year. Nearly 1,8 million French people had then quit smoking. But according to information revealed at the beginning of the month by Les Echos, the executive would consider postponing at least the fall in the tax hike initially planned for this summer.
Break the attractiveness of packaging
63 countries have adopted shock photos on cigarette packages, including France in 2011. But it is Australia which went even further by imposing since December 1, 2012 a neutral and standardized package on all cigarette manufacturers .
Listen to Karine Gallopel-Morvan, lecturer in social marketing at EHESP: “Packaging is the silent seller. If we really respected the Evin law, the package would already be neutral ”. (Interview conducted December 14, 2012)
According to studies carried out on this type of packaging, the effect is particularly marked in adolescents. “We lose the attractive effect of the packages specially designed to appeal to teens and to minimize the danger of tobacco. Once ugly, the object that was valued as a sign of maturity loses its interest, “analyzes Karine Gallopel-Morvan. Also among the less young, the effect of the neutral package is convincing.
Studies have shown that this standard package makes smokers think about quitting and encourages them to seek help to quit. The last proof of the importance of packaging, the tobacco companies have sued the Australian government but were dismissed by the Sydney High Court. In France, Marisol Touraine said he was in favor of this type of unattractive packaging and a European directive imposing health warnings on at least 75% of the surface of the packages must be transposed into French law by 2015.
100% refund for smoking cessation
To prevent cardiovascular accidents, 100% treatment for smoking cessation (nicotine substitutes + tobacco consultations) would be a particularly cost-effective measure. According to a medico-economic study, the results of which are also published in the tobacco thematic Beh, the full reimbursement of smoking cessation would represent an investment of 1786 euros per year of life expectancy gained for a smoker while it is necessary to spend 2579 euros on reimbursement of statins in the fight against cholesterol for a gain of one year of life expectancy.
Listen to Dr. Karine Chevreul, deputy director of the Health Economics research unit of the Public Assistance hospitals of Paris: "The WHO estimates that a measure must be reimbursed if its social value is less than the GDP by inhabitant, this is largely the case. "
"We have compared the current scenario of the 50 euro lump sum once a year to a scenario in which social security would fully cover the cost of around 200 euros for smoking cessation treatments and consultations for all smokers who so wish. once every 2 years and for 4 attempts, "explains health economist Karine Chevreul, co-author of this medico-economic modeling. 100% cessation of smoking cessation has already been recommended since 2005 by the French National Authority for Health, and the United Kingdom and Quebec have already taken the plunge. But if the Minister of Health was moving towards a less expensive device for health insurance, by considering for example a 100% support for pregnant women (who currently benefit from a package of 150 euros for substitutes nicotinic) and smokers from disadvantaged social backgrounds, the measure would nonetheless be cost-effective.
The authors of this Beh and the specialists in the fight against tobacco are therefore unanimous, it is necessary to translate into French law what other countries have known how to do to fight effectively against mortality linked to smoking. This should facilitate the task of Marisol Touraine, the Minister of Health, who has promised a major public health law whose fight against smoking will be one of the priorities.
Source: http://pourquoi-docteur.nouvelobs.com/L ... -2752.html
There is even a Resistabac Smartphone application: http://www.leparisien.fr/laparisienne/s ... 808401.php
I dream where none of these "specialists" offers to do ... sport? Or smoke before quitting less addictive tobacco (to roll like the Fleur du Pays without added shit)
After 1 or 2 hours of very intensive sport, when you have "spat out your lungs", you don't really want to smoke anymore I think ...
On this will burn me a little (hey yes I resumed ... for 6 months after almost 5 years of stopping ... without too much problem since I followed "my method": "healthy" tobacco and a little sport)