People who have alcohol or smoking addictions sometimes seek acupuncture treatments for help. Some found relieve and some didn't. Why? The answer is simple.

Oriental Medicine helps people invoke their inner strengths to help themselves. I often told my clients that you have to believe in acupuncture to get the maximum benefits out of it. It's called the placebo effect. When you wants something badly, your energy will be directed to the task of accomplishing your wish at its maximum powder.

Acupuncture needles invoke the energy in our body to make everything functions in balance. The energy pathways in our bodies are just like rivers on earth or traffic on streets. When energy got stuck and out of balance, like river was flooded because of the waste accumulation and traffic piled up, we need to get the energy flow move, clear the waste from the water, and divert the traffic to move cars. Needles to the energy channels are like turning the traffic lights from red to green so the flow returns to normal.

For either smoking cessesion or alcohol addiction , ear needles are most often used to insert into lung, cerebral, and other points on ears. It only takes a few seconds to do the trick. Needles stay in ears for twenty minutes or so. Then it's done.

Acupuncture treatments help those who really are determined to quit but may not otherwise find the determination. Acupuncture give those people an additional push and help them resolve their confusion and solidify their determination.

Some people who just want to try out acupuncture treatments for fun may not find it helpful.

As to sugar, most people did not realize that craving for sugar is a sign of body imbalance. Sugar is related to spleen. When our spleen is weak, we tend to need sugar and crave for it. It's an indication of spleen's deficient in performing its functions of transforming and transporting nutritions through channels. According to Chinese clock, the spleen time is 10am, when spleen and its associated channels run their most effective functions. The weakest time is the opposite time of 10pm in the evening. If you have to have sugar or sweet, it's better to do it in the morning. Eating sweets, cookies, cakes, ice creams, and chocolates, can aggravate their soreness, achiness and pain.

My acupuncture teacher, Master Kiiko Matsumoto, taught Kiiko Acupuncture Style which indicates an area near T10 to T12 of thoracic spine to be the sugar point area. Needles inserted in the area help resolve sugar issues. If there is sugar imbalance in the body, I sure would needle these points before going after any of the pain issues proclaimed by my clients.