The Shrinking World

From the British Society of Clinical Hypnosis Message Board

I treated a surgeon recently who was a secret smoker. His treatment was unexceptional so I won't dwell on that, but he said something I found really interesting.

He wasn't the least bit interested in the physical damage smoking was doing to him. As a surgeon, he said, he dealt daily with much worse damage than smoking could cause. His concern was how smoking was shrinking his world.

I didn't understand what he meant and sought an explanation.

"Well," he said. "Before I smoked I wouldn't give a second thought to getting on a plane and flying to New Zealand or Australia, but now, I don't think I'd want to go that long without smoking. In fact, I was invited to a conference in Mexico and I thought ten hours without smoking was too much so I declined.

"I could probably still manage New York, but I don't know how long that will last. And soon I won't be able to get to parts of Europe, or even France. And before long I'll have difficulty getting to the shops under my own steam, and then I'll be stuck in front of my television, in a chair with an oxygen cylinder strapped to it, and a mask on my face.

"I hate knowing that chair will be my world."

Best wishes

Barry Thain

Clinical Hypnotist