Have you ever wondered about why people seek out smoking specifically, what it does for them at an emotional level?

Paul shares his own experience of grief that led him to pick up smoking and how he was able to overcome his addictive tendencies by reconnecting to himself emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

Enjoy Paul’s story here on the You Can Quit Smoking podcast.

Jessi:

Hey everyone, welcome back. I'm here today with Paul Statton, the healing wizard. And I'm so excited to be here. Paul, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?


Paul:

Well, they call me the healing wizard because from my suffering in my life, I've learned how to be a healer. And I train healers and I love to help people know how to heal themselves, which I'm going to talk to in with smoking.

So, I've got an online school. I'll give the links under this video and I've helped people overcome illnesses and stuff from over 50 countries in the last 30 years.


Jessi:

Right on. The healing journey is an ongoing one for me. So, I appreciate that work and I'd love to hear more about you and your relationship with smoking and how you’re able to heal from that. So, what's your story with smoking?


Paul:

It's really interesting because I never liked smoking. But after my first relationship, which went for three years. We were very passionate and close together. Probably when I was about 18 is when the relationship broke up. We both actually started smoking and she didn't smoke either so we started smoking.

And what I discovered afterwards is that with any lung issues and of course smoking affects your lungs, it’s got to do with grief. And obviously what I was going through at the time was grief from the loss of a relationship because we were very passionate, very close. It was quite challenging for me to deal with that, being in love with somebody and then not having them in your life.


Jessi:

How did you come into the smoking then? Is it something you sought out like, "Oh, I'm going to go to the store and try that myself." Were there people around you that were smoking? You got offered one and took it? What did that look like?


Paul:

Obviously, because we broke up, I was in a very uncomfortable space and they often say that people with addictions, it's like an emotional tranquilizer. So, I felt uncomfortable.

And I think I saw someone smoke and just gave an idea, “Maybe I need to smoke or something.” Well, it did work as an emotional tranquilizer, right? So then I started smoking regularly.


Jessi:

Can you talk more about that emotional aspect of what you were feeling before when you called it tranquilizer? Were you very angry, sad? What were you avoiding at that time? And what did the smoking do for you?


Paul:

It wasn't anger. It was actually sadness because of the broken relationship. And it was related to the grief I talked about of suddenly being alone, not being in love and not having someone close to you. And that was really uncomfortable for me. And therefore smoking in some way reduced that anxiety and reduced that sadness is the best way to explain it.


Jessi:

Yeah. It was a comfort for you during a hard time.


Paul:

A comfort, yeah.


Jessi:

So what was happening then where you were like, “Hey maybe this isn't something I want to continue doing?” What kind of effects were you having that were making you interested in quitting?


Paul:

What got me interested in quitting is I had a very heavy cold. I was driving along in my car and I felt really uncomfortable because I couldn't breathe. And I thought, "Oh my god, why am I smoking here? Because I can't breathe." And I thought, “The smoking is not working for me.” It just got me thinking about smoking.

So what I did is I actually wound down the window and I threw the pack of cigarettes outside my window. So I realized, I've got a really heavy cold because you can't breathe, you know, when your nose is fully blocked and snot. “Oh my god, why am I doing this?” And I think just having that cold just made me realize, “No, I don't really want to do it.” And from that day, I never smoked again.


Jessi:

Did you have any kind of physical withdrawal symptoms from that? Was that uncomfortable physically? And then what was going on emotionally? How did you start to cope with the loneliness and the sadness?


Paul:

So then I got addicted to something else which is food. It was a bit of an addiction that I had as a child because I wasn't really comfortable at home. I had a narcissistic person around me and when I felt uncomfortable at home I used to eat food. Mom was a good cook and food can be a comfort thing. So in a way I put in a little bit of weight.

So I actually moved from smoking to eating, especially sweet foods. Because it makes you feel good about yourself, which it doesn't in the long run but in the short run that's what happened.


Jessi:

Yeah we can eat our feelings for sure.


Paul:

Yeah totally.


Jessi:

Did you see any kind of benefits then or were you just lost in that cycle where you were turning to something outside of yourself for emotional support? Were you able to breathe better at least? Did you get any kind of reward from moving on from smoking that was either immediate or long-term?


Paul:

Not really because in the short term I just replaced it because it took me a while to get over that relationship separation. And it's not really until I went into my own healing.

I was really drawn to that because one of my friends, he was in a car accident and he was actually addicted to alcohol. He was drunk at the time and this is the time when people used to drink a lot and drive. People probably don't do it as much now in 2026.

And I was actually binge drunk at the time as well. And I thought, “That could have been me.” And when I went to see him in hospital, I thought he was going to die. Like had this metal rod holding his leg together. The nurses were worried about me because I was fainting because I just couldn't handle seeing him.

And I went and sat in the botanical gardens next to the hospital which is in Adelaide where I was living. And I just pondered my life and I thought, “I can't do this anymore. I'm angry and I'm sad.”

I was actually teaching at the time and was quite successful. I won a national teaching award. But I still wasn't really happy in my life. And I actually had another broken relationship. It didn't work because I sacrificed myself. And I thought, "Oh my god, I'm sad and angry. I can't do this anymore."

So I actually put in for long service leave on that day at university and I never went back. And what I did is I did a lot of courses on healing, on energy and consciousness because I wanted to learn how to heal myself. When I left university, I got a payout. I did a lot of searching to find out who I was.

And this is where I found a lot about addictions and was finding out that addictions were an emotional tranquilizer. And it's because you're not connected to yourself. Therefore, as you said before, you're looking for your happiness outside of yourself.

Or sometimes addiction can be because you're actually addicted to suffering. Smoking obviously has a major impact on your lungs. Eating too much food, even though you think you might feel good at the time, is actually quite destructive to your body.

So when I learned a lot about causes of illness and suffering, I really changed a lot of things in my life and I didn't need addictions anymore. I actually wasn't eating as much and I lost a lot of weight. I actually gave up drinking and I don't drink alcohol anymore.

But then I actually got into healing and helping other people because I thought, “Well, if this works for me, maybe I can help other people.” So therefore, I became a holistic healer. I've been doing this for the last 30 years. And now I've helped people from over 50 countries.

And one thing I do is help people find their own self worth inside like I did, not needing something outside of myself to feel good or to punish myself. And therefore, I help people overcome weight, obesity, or smoking or people addicted to gambling or sex or whatever else. We live in an addictive society because most people are disconnected.

So, that's my journey and that's why I'm really happy to come on your show and share my experience. Because I know smoking is a challenging thing for people to give away and especially in Melbourne. I travel a lot and people smoke a lot in Melbourne, not only cigarettes but drugs as well. But it's really cool now because I’ve reconnected to myself, I don't need those things outside of myself to feel good.


Jessi:

It's the best feeling. I'm right there with you. And it can be easy to hop around if we don't deal with the underlying reason. So that's very important to me in my work with people is like, “Yeah, we’ve got to go a little bit deeper than the surface level stuff.” So I like that.

You were talking about the grief and that being a driver for you. I want to go back to that, but first I just want to touch on the identity piece. So did you ever have an identity as a smoker?


Paul:

I didn't really see it that way because I didn't smoke before that relationship breakup. I didn't see myself as a smoker. I just did it because it was a comfort thing at the time. I didn't identify myself as that.

But you know I done a lot of learning and Eckhart Tolle, he wrote the power of now famous book. He talks about this conceptual identity we have about what we have and what we do. Whereas actually what I did in my healing, when I went through that healing crisis in ‘96, is that I really discovered who I was. And my identity was about who I am as a multi-dimensional being and not identifying as conceptual which could be as a smoker or whatever which a lot of people do. They're looking for validation and identify themselves as something.


Jessi:

There's something deeper than that, more profound than we can even put into words. Something so brilliant about just being human and having worth for who we are. So, I really can resonate with that.

I want to talk more about the grief aspect. So, you said that for you, your situation is definitely connected to grief. Very cut and dry, had a breakup.

Do you think universally, does every person that starts smoking have some kind of grief they're coping with? And if that's so, how can they start to… because I've heard this concept before with yoga that you can release the grief through breathing practices, through intentional work with it. So how does someone let go of that grief? Is it like a somatic thing? Is it more of a mental mindset shift? Like how do you see that transition?


Paul:

It's a really good question. There's a few aspects to it. Now as a healer, I work a lot with the body and in a way your body's like a dashboard. It's like if you look at a dashboard in a plane, what does it do? Right? It shows you when there's any problem that red light comes on that something's not working right.

Well, your body's like that too. Things come up in your body if you’ve got an issue about blocking who you are. And different organs hold on to different emotions. Liver is related to anger. Bladder is related to anxiety. But the lung is actually known as a grief organ. I didn't know this at the time when I was smoking but I found this afterwards.

For the first part of your question, I think all lung issues and if you're smoking you're obviously affecting your lungs is related to grief. And of course what does that grief mean?

Well grief is a perceived loss. It could be the loss of a pet now. A lot more people are attached to their pets than to other people, right? Could be loss of a pet or your parents have crossed over or loss of relationship or loss of a job or whatever it is, right? Because we're going through a major change right now. So people think they lose a lot of things.

But I think the important thing about grief that a lot of people don't actually really appreciate is the perceived loss of themselves which we've talked about before. So I feel the real grief people are facing is the loss of themselves. Because a lot of people are trying to fit into the world which is what I did as a child.

Because I felt like I was living in a muggles family. I was quite magical and I was looking for myself in the world including in relationships. And when that relationship broke up, I felt I lost something.

But if you actually connect to who you are and connect to the divine, not just as a human being but actually connect to the divine as a multi-dimensional being, well is there grief? Like if someone crosses over, like your parent crosses over is that a loss? Or can just connect to them in that dimension? Because I help people connect to people crossed over.

And in that way if they do that, well there isn't the grief. So in a lot of ways grief is actually a misperception or an illusion that we feel we've lost everything. Whereas if you look at things from a divine perspective if we're connected to everything, how can you lose anything?

So to answer your question, I feel smoke is related to grief and I feel that anyone who smokes has got that, even if it might not be conscious to them. But I feel that from my understanding as a holistic healer, the body shows us where we're blocked. So we need to deal with it. So if you’ve got a lung issue, I guarantee you’ve got a grief issue. If you’ve got an issue with kidneys, I can guarantee you’ve got an issue with fear.

And therefore what I do as a healer is help people connect to their body and go, “Okay your body's telling you this. This is what you need to deal with.” So therefore a lot when I'm helping people overcome addictions, I’m looking at, “Okay if you're addicted to food you're probably going to be obese and have issues with your stomach.” And therefore I get people connected to that which means you're not in your power, stomach right?

So it's helping people understand the underlying cause of the addiction and therefore if they clear that…and the ultimate way to do that is to connect to yourself. Because if you've connected to yourself, what we talked about at the start of this chat, you're not looking for things outside of yourself or you don't identify yourself as being a smoker or whatever.

You see yourself as a multi dimensional being. Any other identities of, “I'm a smoker” or whatever it is is actually an illusion. It's a surface human eye, but it's not the full person of who you are, right?


Jessi:

It's just the personality we're trying on and you can change it.


Paul:

Yeah. To fit into the world.


Jessi at midroll:

I hope today's guest is giving you a new perspective on what is possible.
If you want to make sure you never miss a story like this one, take a quick second right now to hit the follow or subscribe button on your app.
Not only does it ensure you get a fresh dose of inspiration every week, but it also helps the 'podcast robots' realize this show is worth putting in front of new people who might be struggling. It only takes a second to tap that button, and it helps us keep this community growing.
Let's head back to the episode.


Jessi:

So, I'm wondering, I just want to clarify. So, is grief something to be avoided or is it something that needs to be expressed and respected with this issue of holding on to grief in the lungs? Because it kind of sounded like "Oh there's no reason to grieve."

But I see grief as a really important part of being human and it's actually a beautiful amazing gift. Although it's very, very painful and hard. And so I'm wondering if we store the grief because we're not allowing ourselves to express it properly?


Paul:

No emotion is bad because I don't look at any life experience as bad. I believe we create experiences to learn from right? So therefore I had to learn about that separation and learn about reconnecting myself to not make my happiness depend on being in love with somebody.So I feel no emotion is bad

We experience emotions. It could be grief, anger, whatever. None of them are bad. It's allowing yourself to feel it rather than taking an addiction, which is an emotional tranquilizer. So, not denying the emotion. It's actually the opposite.

It's to feel the emotion. “This is what's going on for me right now. Oh my god, but what is it teaching me?” That's the important point. So, you connect to the grief. "Oh my god, I'm grieving. What? Why do I feel I've got a loss here? Oh my god, my partner's left me. Well, is my happiness dependent on that partner?" Then you're going to suffer. Or "Is is my happiness dependent on food?" But if it is, well, you're going to suffer if you don't get your food.

So, I feel it's about feeling the emotion, but it's about understanding what the emotion is teaching you. So, when I'm working with clients, I go like, “If you're feeling this, allow yourself to feel it, but understand what it's teaching you, and you learn from it.”

And what learning from it means is you change your consciousness. You become more aware of who you are as a multi-dimensional being. Does that make sense in answering your question?


Jessi:

Yes. And going further with the grief idea. So, I'm sure you've seen this probably in your own experience and then also in working with others is that when people quit smoking… when I quit smoking and I watch others quit smoking, often there's a grieving process after quitting.

The process of losing the comfort that we've been so dependent on, that we've relied on to survive, to get by in the world, to feel okay. When we lose that, there can be a lot of grief.

So, how do you reconcile that? Like the smoking is caused by the grief, but then we have this grieving process by losing it. Is that the grief finally coming out that we've been holding all along or is it just a natural development of transformation?


Paul:

It's a really good point. I think what we do is we get attached to a comfort zone, right? And it could be eating food or smoking. Now, of course, when you give that up, you suddenly go… and in a way you can have a physical attachment to it, like your body needs it.

And that's why people get attached to drugs and stuff because it's a feeling it gives them but it's not ultimately connected to who they are. So, you can have withdrawal symptoms. Absolutely.

And of course, the way I dealt with withdrawal symptoms from smoking, is like, "Oh my god, didn't you want to pick up cigarettes?" I actually ate food instead until I dealt with that. So, I think people do go through a withdrawal process.

And sometimes that's what stops people from actually quitting because that withdrawal process is so challenging for people. "I can't stand this, so I've got to go back." And that's why for a lot of people, they go to centers or whatever to help overcome their addiction. But if you don't deal with the underlying cause, you will always go back to what you felt comfortable with.

So I think it's appreciating that there is a withdrawal process you go through and therefore knowing, “How can I deal with that in the short run? Because in the longer term I want to be healthy and reconnect with who I am.” I think it's appreciating that withdrawal process and sometimes there's a way you know to deal with that but doing it in a way that you're not going to go back to smoking.

For me I was probably never totally attached to smoking because I didn't do it before the relationship and because I felt so painful. And pain is a great motivator to change right? Let's face that.


Jessi:

Oh yeah.


Paul:

When I was so heavy with that cold that day that smoking just felt so bad to my lungs, I thought, “There's no way I can do this anymore.”

So quite often people create pain as a good motivator. "Oh my god I can't do this anymore." Then they will look for the long-term solution which with addictions is always about reconnecting to yourself and not needing something outside of yourself.


Jessi:

I think the relationship with pain is really important. It's like you're in so much pain that it's worth going through the pain and discomfort of change and then stay in the pain you're in. But I'm wondering about, with talking about the withdrawal with the physical symptoms, but when I see the grieving process, it's more about the emotional fallout.


The despair and sadness that people feel, that I felt when I didn't have smoking anymore, it's hard to describe. I felt like I had put so much of myself into this habit for so long and I knew it wasn't working anymore and then I had to grieve that. I had to grieve that there wasn't a quick fix, that there wasn't any way out of dealing with the pain I needed to deal with if that makes any sense. Like the grieving was very emotional with crying. I was angry.


Paul:

I talked about physical but there also obviously there's a lot of emotional grief as well. And even in your mental thoughts, "Oh my god I can't do this anymore. Oh my god I need that cigarette" whatever. And there's a lot of emotional stuff.As you said it's like grief about giving up the grief right?

The motivations got to be big enough for you to go through this process of withdrawal where you're going to have this emotional attachment, physical attachment, mental attachment. And quite often that means having supporting people around you to help you to do that.

That's obviously why smoking, I feel, is a big addiction people have a lot of trouble giving up. I think it's probably one of the hardest addictions to give up from my experience of working with people. So that withdrawal is very tough for a lot of people given what you've said.

So therefore it's creating a system with people where they feel they can be supported to go through that process, knowing they're going to have that emotional pain, physical pain of going through it. So they feel they can get to the end. And quite often if the pain is big enough and you connect them to their outcomes they want, that creates an emotional gap to help people make that change.


Jessi:

Absolutely. Support is very underrated. I feel like a lot of people are like "I got to deal with this on my own." And you can't replace that: just somebody caring about you, somebody able to witness you. And like you said, having that outlet to express it in a safe way.

I want to go back to the grief. I started smoking very young and I'm curious about that aspect with the grief. So what kind of grief are young people going through? I started smoking at 13 years old. What about that time makes it so unique that many people pick up smoking?


Paul:

What we're going through is a major change right now and I've worked with a lot of kids as well. They're dealing with unconscious parents who try to control them or they go to the school system. It's very challenging for them to actually be fully who they are and to accept who they are.

Which is me like I wasn't accepted by any of my family. I was quite magical. I felt like Harry Potter living in a muggles family. So I actually didn't feel acknowledged for who I was and therefore I tried to fit into the world and it didn't work. So as a child, food was my addiction early. But then went on to smoking.

So I feel people get that because it's the grief of the loss of the self. They can't believe they can be themselves to fit into the world. And it's really important at 12 to 13 is really important for a woman, a girl because you're going through the time when you're physically changing growing up, but you start having periods and start growing breasts and you go to high school, the guys start looking at you and go, "Oh my god.” You look at your identity, right?

Because being a teenager is really about looking at your identity because you see yourself growing up. That's one reason why people get skin problems and aces because that is about you're not feeling comfortable in your own skin. I help a lot of kids with eczema at school and I know what the cause of action is. I feel it's related to their inner environment at school or at home where they feel they can't be themselves and there's the grief of loss of who they really are.


Jessi:

Beautifully put. What advice would you have for somebody that's in it right now? They want to quit. Maybe they're afraid to even take the move. They know they want to. They're feeling the effects. They're feeling the pain. But it's just too scary to go through that withdrawal process. Maybe they're scared to even find out who they are. What advice would you have for someone that's in that situation?


Paul:

I think that's a really good cover up. To me, it's about support. And for some people, it's "Oh my god, they don't even want to reach out" like you're saying. So, one thing I do, I've got… I suggest go have a coach like me or someone that you can relate to and talk to and someone who's gone through the experience or they understand it. And I understand it because I've gone through it, you know, I know what it feels like.

The other thing is if you don't feel like talking to someone. That's one reason I have online courses. I got a self-healing course which helps people know how to heal themselves. They can do it at home watching on their own, in pajamas in bed. And they don't feel they've got to talk to someone about it. Sometimes that can help a person by doing an online course which helps them understand "This is why I'm really smoking. Here's some strategies to help me get in my power."

Because see what I do is I give people strategies to help connect who they are which are quite easy to apply but have major impacts on people to help them transform. And the strategies I've learned from what I went through and having clients from over 50 countries. I've learned a lot of strategies to help people shift.


Jessi:

Definitely. It's all about stepping back into that power. That's the place to start because I found that we all have such a unique wound, thing we're dealing with that it's really about tapping into intuition and reconnecting with the self. You put that so beautifully. I love it.


Paul:

And I feel it's really important what you need in terms of looking at support. You need someone who's not going to judge you.


Jessi:

Yes.


Paul:

Not that thinks there's something wrong with you, right? Because I have clients with all different issues and it's never judging them. It's about understanding. They've got a situation right now they can't handle.

There's anything wrong with anybody who's just going through an experience we can't handle. We're always trying to handle in the best way we can. And the best way of the time is to smoke, to feel good right now, or need food. And it's okay. It's like judging yourself.

But in the longer term, that's going to make me unhealthy and therefore you get the passion of, “I can't do this long term.” Because I've had family members who died from smoking. I had an uncle who died at the age of 45 from smoking. And that sort of really hit me as well.


Jessi:

Oh yeah.


Paul:

He used to smoke like four or five packets a day. I was probably smoking one to two packets a day and I thought, "Oh my god, I don't want to be like 45 and smoking." Sometimes seeing other people that impact you and knowing that a lot of that smoking does kill a lot of people and cause a lot of lung issues that also motivates you to change.

But it's finding that person or situation. It could be going to a group or class where you feel supported by other people that are going through what you're going through.


Jessi:

Yeah, absolutely. The stories can be so impactful and that's why I love doing this podcast.

Thank you so much for coming on here and for sharing your story with us and your experience, your wisdom and your skill set because it's really needed in the world.

You mentioned a few of your courses. How can people find you? How can people get in touch with you?


Paul:

So, first off Jessi, I just want to thank you for allowing me to come on as a guest and I hope today just helps one person one way. It would be really, really cool.

So, I do have an online school which is called the Academy for Life Mastery and you can find that on my website. My business is called Lighthouse for the Soul because I'm like a lighthouse. I help people not hit the rocks, right? Or if they do hit the rocks, they can know how to still be afloat. So, I'll give the links to my website where they can access my online school.

Also on that website, they can book a healing session with me as well if they want to see one-on-one coaching with me. I do it on Zoom so I can help people anywhere in the world. That's probably the best way for people to access me and they can maybe do my self-healing course if that's what they feel is appropriate. They can even book a free call with me just to actually see how I can help them and see what they feel might be appropriate for them based on where they're at.


Jessi:

You have a lot of great options there for all sorts of different people. Well, thanks again for coming on and I appreciate everything you shared with us.


Paul:

Thanks, Jessi.


Jessi:

Take care everyone. See you next week.


End of Interview

Paul just shared how there were deeper wounds beneath his drive toward addictive patterns and through self-reflection and intentional living, he found lasting freedom . He also spoke about the power of identity and our body’s ability to communicate with us.

Nick had a similar experience. He found himself immersed in the habit, smoking constantly, until he finally had a hard wake-up call. From there, Nick did the work to shift his identity, change his beliefs, and let go of the shame he had been carrying for years.

Listen to Nick’s story on episode 18 of You Can Quit Smoking.