Shisha Addiction Therapy – Anxiety and Depression Counseling Dubai

Kristina reach out to me concerned that her husband has a shisha addiction and that if not careful it will not only harm his health but destroy their marriage and family.

 

Kristina and Mustafa have been together for over 7 years and have 3 children. Before having children, they would occasionally go out for a shisha night with friends as an alternative to dinners out or drinking. Mustafa enjoys peace and his alone time and as the house got more and more chaotic with the children he started going to a shisha café after work to unwind before coming home. Kristina complained about this, sharing that he is missing time with the children before bath and bedtime, that he needs to play with the children and then help her put them to bed. He understood and started coming home earlier to be with the children and help Kristina. However once the children were in bed, he started going to the Shisha café. It started as once or twice a week and then became a daily habit. Even on a date night after they finished dinner around 10.30pm / 11pm and Kristina was tired, he would want to take her come and go back out again. Kristina asked if he could cut it down and he said he would see. As a way to try and get Mustafa to stay home with her, she brought him a shisha pipe for the house, however, he explained that he likes the friendly atmosphere, the social aspect

 

Mustafa struggled to see how he was causing her or the family any harm if Kristina and the children were asleep anyway.

 

Mustafa blamed Kristina for being controlling. He couldn’t understand why he showed stay home alone when his family were sleeping, when he is a sociable person and needs to see different scenery that stuck on the sofa in the lounge.

 

Kristina struggles with the fact that Mustafa is not living the family life, that staying out to 2am will affect his energy and mood the next day.

 

She also hates the smell of the smoke and shisha café, when his hair and clothes smell she doesn’t want him to get into bed unless showered and smelling good. This deeply affects their intimacy because he gets home so late that Kristina is past wanting to be cosy and romantic and is left feeling alone and unsatisfied sexually.

 

As a counsellor in Dubai, certified life coach and hypnotherapist in Dubai, I will share with you how I support couples who are impacted by smoking and shisha addiction.

 

Before I get into the tips, it’s important to understand the statistics on nicotine patches. Which show that nicotine patches are only 25% effective in helping someone quit smoking. It’s the habit and emotional benefits not physical that a person gains from smoking cigarettes and shisha, that creates the addiction.

 

Here are the general steps I take to support couples where one partner has an addiction to smoking and shisha –

 

1. Hypnotherapy in Dubai and Online – I facilitate hypnotherapy sessions to help clients completely quit or be more in control of their smoking habits. So, the first thing I would do is ask clients to fill in a chart where they record the following every time they smoke shisha or light up a cigarette. This highlights any patterns linked to smoking and helps the client see what benefits they are seeking from smoking so that we can work through them

 

I ask them to list

 

• • • What am I feeling?
    • What am I thinking?
    • Who am I with?
    • What time of day is it?
    • How do I feel after?
    • What am I doing at the time?

 

I then address their thoughts and feelings in the hypnotherapy audios that I create specifically for each client. Not one size fits all, everyone has different motivations for quitting smoking,  so doing an online personal session I can target their particular situation with helpful suggestions.

 

(If you are interested in finding out more about addiction counseling in Dubai, depression counselling Dubai or hypnotherapy online do reach out to me.

 

2. Reflection – This is where I explore with clients the underlying triggers or events that caused them to turn to smoking or where their need to smoke intensified and became an addiction. I do this process with those that come for anxiety treatment dubai and depression counseling in Dubai also.

 

We address the underlying beliefs and feelings and change them For example; one man started smoking when he was touched up by another boy at school. One lady when her husband cheated, another man when he lost his business. In all these cases strong emotions of anger, betrayal, self-loathing, sadness were present and unless these emotions are released like I do in my breakthrough sessions, people can go from one addiction to another. For example beliefs like, I’m a failure, I’m not good enough, I’m weak, I’m disgusting, I lack confidence will create a need to fill the void with an addiction often. Being able to identify these triggers or events help me to clear these for clients. .  People are less likely to stick to changing habits if the alternative options are difficult, stressful and don’t make them feel better about themselves.

 

3. Healthy Alternatives – I often ask clients to replace the smoking with something that is good for them, like exercise, drinking water, meditation, deep breathing, playing music, and can put a new habit in their hypnotherapy also. People need new ways often to ease boredom, reduce loneliness, stress relief, etc.

 

4. Tasking – I sometimes ask clients to do a task if they smoke, I design this with the client and it is super effective. Like one guy loved it when his car was cleaned inside out, but hated doing it and also rarely found the time to do it. So, for every cigarette he had he had to spend 1 hour cleaning his car or his wife’s car. If he had more than 2 he would need to do his mother’s car and brother’s car. He soon stopped because cleaning the cars outweighed the benefit of smoking

 

5. Values – It is also good to motivate someone by connecting them to their health and fitness values and define some new challenges or goals, to really motivated on why they want to quit.

 

It is so important to remember that when it comes to healing from addictions, hypnotherapy alone may not be effective because the triggers are not addressed and people need new healthier replacements to be fully motivated. So for all addictions I include coaching, releasing emotional blocks and hypnotherapy in Dubai and online.

 

If you are interested in finding out more about my anxiety and depression counseling in Dubai or online, Addiction Treatment Dubai or other programs email or WhatsApp me at nb@nicolabeer.com