'I realised things had to change': Cork man who quit 50-cigarettes a day habit now helping others to do so 

Paul Hunter was a 50-a-day smoker who saw the light and quit - and now he advises people how to kick the habit.

The Ballincollig man has been an ex-smoker for 25 years.

“When I was 19 and in college, I started smoking,” he says. “I being at a party where this cool guy was playing a guitar, and he had a cigarette tucked in under the strings of his guitar. A girl approached him and asked him for the cigarette. He gave it to her and, as she smoked it, she seductively blew out the smoke in his face.”

Was that a smoke signal?

“I thought, wow!” says Paul. “It was a signal to me that if you smoked, it was a way of attracting girls, and I said to myself, I can do this.”

Paul started a habit that led to him smoking 50 cigarettes a day.

Did his habit attract the girls?

“It didn’t quite work that way, to be honest!” says Paul.

Cigarettes became a stress reliever for him.

“They became a part of my life, and I associated them as a stress reliever, and for some time I was under considerable stress. I smoked 50 a day, which now seems astonishing.”

How did he afford them?

“Looking back now, I have no idea how I managed to!” says Paul.

The environment was right for Paul to continue smoking.

“I worked in sales and I had a company car. I could smoke to my heart’s content in the car any time, any place.”

But Paul wasn’t 19 anymore.

“At the age of 35, I noticed my breathing was getting laboured,” he says.

“I going into a building where there was no lift, and I had to go up to the third floor. When I reached the third floor, my breathing was really bad. I was fit for an ambulance.

“The receptionist came over to me and asked me was I all right. She made me sit down and she gave me a glass of water. It was embarrassing.”

Paul was mad with himself.

“I wondered why my breathing was so bad. After all, I wasn’t 75. Things had to change.”

Cigarettes were not helping Paul’s lungs.

“I realised I had to change and that I had to give these things up. Before, I had tried the nicotine patch to give up smoking. It didn’t work. I still smoked even while wearing the patch.”

Paul looked at other ways to quit his cigarette habit.

“I tried acupuncture on my ear. That didn’t work. Before the appointment, I sat in my car and smoked.

“On the advice of a friend, I decided to try hypnotherapy.”

However, Paul’s mind was warped from cigarettes.

“At the start, I made up my mind that wouldn’t work either,” he says.

“The session lasted two and a half hours. I was convinced hypnotherapy wouldn’t work.”

That was 25 years ago, and Paul has not smoked a cigarette since then.

“I walked out of there and realised that I didn’t want a cigarette, which I found strange,” says Paul. “I didn’t think that feeling would last for ever more.”

It has lasted for a quarter of a century though, hasn’t it?

“It sure has,” says Paul, who trained as a hypnotherapist and who now helps other people overcome anxiety, depression, fears and phobias, confidence issues, stress problems, sexual issues, and a whole lot more.

It is easy to be deluded in a cloud of smoke. I know myself as I was a smoker too.

Paul asks me: “Were you ever kind of deluded when you smoked?”

Yes. I tell Paul how I had a crush on a guy in college. While in his company among others one evening, he rolled a cigarette and licked the paper with his tongue. He ed the ‘rollie’ to me. ‘Do you inhale it?’ I asked him. I never saw him again!

But I did smoke again, thinking it was cool.

Paul finds this very amusing and understands how the allure of smoking blind-sides us.

How is it that a cigarette addict, or anyone like Paul with an addiction for decades, can be hypnotised to think differently by a stranger?

“I was not sure what he did,” says Paul, speaking about the hypnotherapist that helped him quit cigarettes. “All I knew was that I was hypnotised.”

Did he try and resist?

“The hypnotherapist discussed all the reasons why I should give up and they were ingrained in my brain,” says Paul.

“I tell people sitting in front of me that are trying to give up to try not to resist the help they came looking for.”

Paul was intent on finding out how this treatment had helped him give up a habit that he loved, a habit that he craved, a habit that he firmly believed relieved stress.

“After being cigarette-free for three months, I was furious to find out how hypnotherapy worked,” he says.

“What had the hypnotherapist managed to do that other methods I tried couldn’t do?”

When Paul found out by studying hypnotherapy, using the power of positive suggestion to bring about subconscious change in thoughts, behaviours and feelings, he set up shop himself.

He found out other things.

“No human is the same as another human,” says Paul. “I would be an idiot if I quoted my potential success rate regarding people quitting cigarettes. You can’t measure your success on somebody else’s success.

“If I am treating a chain smoker, he or she has to commit over a long time, just like a marathon runner has to commit to training in order to achieve their goal.”

A committed smoker has to do something else to quit.

“They have to fall in love with fresh air,” says Paul. “They must come to realise that fresh air is better than cigarette smoke.

“The smoker must choose fresh air, no matter how much they love smoking. They must learn to hate smoking if they are to succeed in quitting smoking.

“We take breathing fresh air for granted.”

Paul’s mind was altered to help him see the light when it was blurred by smoke.

“Now, I hate people polluting my fresh air by smoking,” he says.

He loves other things now that he is free of his addiction.

“The life-change has been astonishing,” says Paul. “In Lanzarote, there is a hill named ‘Cardiac Hill’. When I go on holidays there with my wife, I nudge her and say, ‘Race you up the hill for the cráic!’”

Paul loves the fresh air and he doesn’t let anyone or anything stop him enjoying it.

“I am a bit overweight, but I won’t let that stop me. The fact that I can breathe easy is a wonderful feeling.

“I get the same high over and over again enjoying the fresh air.”

Some highs are very achievable.

“Attracting the opposite sex by smoking is a fallacy,” says Paul. “I still get the same old reaction from girls!”

Paul Hunter, Cork Hypnosis Clinic, Ballincollig Commercial Park, Link Road Ballincollig. Phone: 086-2666670.