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It is with great pleasure that I write about Gary. Gary has every reason to want the world to know his story. He initially came to see me for weight loss.

This story is one to inspire you and yours.

First of all, let me give you a little background about addictions or bad habits. In terms of your body's energy disruptions, the addiction is due to the same reasons regardless of what the actual bad habit or addiction is. For example, someone may keep putting on weight due to overeating, whilst someone else may not be able to stop smoking. But the fact that they are both addicted is due to the same reasons.

So, back to Gary's story. Gary came to see me for hypnotherapy to lose weight. I introduced him to EFT and added a little to our sessions at the beginning. He sometimes lost weight only to put it back on. He kept complaining that "this isn't working" and that nothing works. I kept telling him that I was determined to solve his problem and to stick to the sessions so that together we can solve it. I was at the end of a long line of hypnotherapists he had been seeing for 12 years. When he finally told me he had been in therapy for this for 12 years with no lasting result, I switched the treatment to EFT-only and EFT in hypnosis and insisted that he stick to the treatment, promising I will keep going until we solve this. And he had been to some great hypnotists who had put him in deep trance to find out root causes, and still even his subconscious was in denial! Several sessions later (maybe 10), I finally got a clue. I noticed a pattern.

Gary drank a lot, which explained the weight problem, and when he drank, he over-ate in order to cope with the amount of alcohol in his system. I knew I had to bring him to a point where he would accept this news. By this time, the weight was piling on from session to session, and even I was panicking sometimes. A few EFT sessions later, he was finally in a head-space to accept this news. He initially denied it. But he did take it in. He went to the AA, like I advised, to get a second opinion. His life, his real life, began that day. Last week, I received a special honor from Gary. His special commemorative coin signalling 5 years of sobriety. It has pride of place in my clinic now for all to see. He told me that he remembers I was the one who said "I am going to get to the root cause of your problem". I remember also saying something like "Just stick to the treatment, you will get there". Gary took about a year with me to reach that point of freedom. I saw his latest picture last week. He has lost some weight since I last saw him. More importantly, he is free and enjoying his new life.!

Why am I telling you Gary's story? Well, there are other people with addictions whom I have started helping but they decided "it isn't working". And unlike Gary, who stuck it out, they gave up and they are still to this day addicted. They may be addicted to cigarettes, sweets, alcohol, co-dependent relationships, or whatever it was they seeked help for in the first place. Gary was just as much of an addict as any of these equally lovely people. It was what he did that set him apart. The difference in what he did and what they did is that he trusted in the process and kept going. He kept at it until we solved his problem and set him free.

It takes longer for some individuals to get over the issue. This is because of many hidden root causes and extreme psychological reversal. If you are struggling to be free from an addiction or bad habit, you are not in a competition with anyone. It is up to you which person you choose to model your EFT treatment on - Gary the winner who stuck with the treatment despite a 12-year struggle, or the quitter who tells themselves "it's not working" and uses that as an excuse to stop the treatment. I hope you (or your clients) will use Gary as your model. He is such an inspiration. Again, I want to make it crystal clear that I am not saying Gary is a better human being than others. I am certainly very proud of him but I do not compare people and neither should you. Do not fall into the trap of comparing yourself to others and feeling ashamed. What I am saying is that it is the action that Gary took that made him a winner. And if you do what Gary did, you too can succeed. You can win - but you have to accept that it may be a number of sessions before you can. Really all you need to do is simply attend sessions and engage in the EFT when you attend. That is not difficult to do. And if need be, many practitioners operate a sliding scale taking into account the financial effect of an addiction.

Thank you Gary for allowing me to write about your success in order to show others the way.

© Suzanne Zacharia 2010. Complementary and alternative health education and empowerment is my passion. My name is Suzanne Zacharia and I am committed to empowering people to take control of their health and wellness. A virus caught along with 5 other students at university at the end of 1986, plus medical negligence, meant that I got smokers lung at a relatively young age. In desperation for help with my symptoms and quality of life, I turned to complementary therapy, and this is beyond a decade that I have outlived one doctor's prognosis. I am now a complementary therapist, author and trainer. My big passion is to to help others stop smoking, as in my http://www.stop-smoking-ebooks.com. New to EFT? A practitioner who wants more? Get my EFT guide a newsletter here!

4 Comments

Dear Susanne,
I would so like to hear fron these sessions - what made him turn around? please share all you can.
Nina

I'm just as curious as the others as to what 'it' was that finally after a year of EFT, resulted in the resolution of his addiction. Also was this a monthly, bi-weekly session etc? Details would certainly be appreciated. Namaste....

Hi Nina,

Gary was living in denial for many years. This is easy to hide in hypnosis treatment. He had seen some of the best hypnotists in the country and still no result. I think it is the actual pro-active nature of EFT that can make all the difference. For example, I noticed that when he tapped on himself while I tapped on myself, he would get too tired. That piqued my curiosity, and so I started asking more probing questions. In the end, I gave him the task to write down everything her ate, which turned out not really that bad. The week after, the task was to write down everything he drank. He did not bring that list with him. I was expecting that, as advised my my supervisor, and so I was armed with information I had printed out from the AA site for a second opinion to back me up and finally take away the denial. When I presented this lovely man with the information, he took it and investigated for himself, and realized that he did indeed have a problem with alcohol.

A lot of people I have seen for weight drink too much. They are not in the majority, but it certainly is a common problem. And whilst they (and people helping them) concentrate on the food, it is the alcohol which is not only the cause of the weight but also a symptom of the emotions behind the weight issue.

One of the reasons why I wrote the article is that I had a spate of clients leave instead of continuing the addiction treatment with EFT, because they could not see the final result fast enough. But that is typical addiction-thinking. As someone who was so addicted myself that I now have permanent health issues, I know what it is like. An addict is an addict because they want an instant way out of whatever situation they find too challenging. This is also applied to the view of EFT, that an instant out is needed from their no longer tenable addiction situation. However, I am not blaming the addict client. After all, the literature is full of people boasting an instant result in minutes. I specialize in the long-term EFT client who has been everywhere and not gotten their end result yet. It is not their fault that the end result has not come yet, and it is not EFT´s fault. It just takes some people longer than others. This is the most important message that I hope to convey here. Gary allowed me to write this article so that I can show that persistence is the key; if you stick at it, you will get there. I am very grateful to him for sharing.

Blessings,

Suzanne

Hi Debi,

The ¨it¨ is persistence and time. EFT is by no means a quick fix. Yes, I have helped people release phobias in 10 minutes, a lifetime´s pain in one session, and many other ¨one minute wonders¨. But there must be as many ¨several-year-wonders¨ out there as there are ¨one-minute-wonders¨. EFT is just a thorough, gentle, and long-lasting method. That does not mean that it has to be over in a few sessions. Not everyone can respond so quickly, as there may be layer upon layer upon layer to peel. And even when the clients themselves put the pressure on to produce a faster result, if they are not at a stage where they feel safe enough to go the next step, there is nothing anyone can do to force them into it. We all go at a rate that is right for us.

Gary did not have a year of pure EFT. He came for hypnosis initially, and I introduced more and more EFT, until I realized that the only thing that will really help is to avoid the hypnosis, as it is too passive a technique for someone who simply had to finally face reality in order to move on. I am an avid advocate of the pro-active healing approach.

My notes are elsewhere in storage, so I cannot remember how often we had sessions exactly, but I think it was weekly. I do see clients whom everybody else had given up on, and may see the client a few times a week if need be.

Blessings,

Suzanne

Disclaimer: All information on this website is for educational purposes only, and the content is not intended to suggest that it is a substitute for proper medical care or good common sense.

While EFT has produced remarkable clinical results, it must still be considered to be in the experimental stage and thus practitioners and the public must take complete responsibility for their use of it.

In addition, the articles on this site represent the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the founder of EFT, Gary Craig, nor the owner of this web site, Stefan Gonick.

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