STAFFORD - Under chairs, legs twitched spastically, the same way a puppy's leg moves when its belly is scratched.

In the chairs, backsides squirmed, spines contorted, arms folded and hands braced chins.

There were blonds and redheads; men and women tall and short, beefy and thin; baseball hats pointed forward and backward; teenagers and seniors.

Many of them chomped gum, sucked cough drops and grinded hard candies into powder.

In a room filled with people of many different styles - from plaid flannel shirts to designer leather, spike-heeled boots - they had one thing in common: cigarettes, and the inability to quit smoking.

In a third-floor room at the Southern Ocean County Hospital Resource Center at the Ocean Club, 50 people arrived to beat the unbeatable.

Many of them had tried quitting before - the gum, the patch, cold turkey - but failed. One man smoked his first cigarette when he was 7 years old. Another called himself a four-pack-a-day guy.

They gathered this day at the hospital's resource center to try hypnotherapy, a process that appeals to one's subconscious to stop the conscious act of lighting up.

Jaime Pitner, a registered nurse at SOCH and a trained hypnotherapist, has seen thousands of smokers quit after one session - as many as 2,000 at a time.

"You should expect to stop smoking, feel no urges, have no weight gain and feel perfectly OK," Pitner told the class before he dimmed the lights, turned on soft music and began reprogramming their subconsciouses. "Riding a bike, being a plumber, being a surgeon are all skills stored in the subconscious. All we want to do is reprogram the computer. You will not be a zombie. You will be in complete control of yourself at all times."

The sideshow image of hypnosis - the spinning watch, the victim quacking like a duck or barking like a dog - has given way to its use as a practiced medical treatment, through which eating disorders and chronic pain have been relieved or eliminated.

Asking the class to visualize certain events in their respective lives, using deep breathing as a relaxation technique and reiterating the complete and permanent return to being nonsmokers, Pitner finished the session in a little more than an hour. He said 30 percent of the class will stop smoking after a single intervention. Some people will take a second class, for which the success rate is 80 percent.

Joe Leung, 37, of Manahawkin has been a smoker for 20 years.

"I can't explain what I feel, but I don't want a cigarette," he said after the session.

Leung said he has an aunt dying of lung cancer.

"And she never smoked a day in her life," he said. "It was all secondhand smoke. I worry about my children."

Brandon Carroll of Waretown and Sean Tormey of Barnegat, both 19, didn't believe the hypnosis would work.

"I didn't think it would do anything," Tormey said. "It was weird. It was definitely an experience for the mind and the body."

Carroll added: "I have the urge to eat. But I don't feel like smoking."

Leung, Carroll and Tormey all agreed that the real test would be when they slid into the driver's seat.

"As soon as I get in the car I light up," Tormey said.

Kim Chadwick, 50, of Barnegat has smoked cigarettes for 35 years.

"Wow, I really feel good," she said. "I stopped smoking for a month when I was pregnant. For me, coffee is the trigger to have a cigarette. But this stuff will kill us if we don't quit."

During his talk, Pitner eliminated some of the misconceptions about smoking.

"People say they smoke to calm themselves down," he said. "Nicotine is a stimulant in the central nervous system. The calming comes from going outside and taking deep breaths. Smokers are some of the best deep breathers around."

Pitner reminded session members that although hypnosis has had positive results, it is the individual who quits smoking, not the intervention.

"We can't make you do anything you don't want to do," he said. "Even if you fall asleep, the unconscious mind will hear every word.

"Initially, smoking was not a pleasant experience, but once you decided you wanted to smoke, the mind accepted it and it became habit because you were repeating a specific behavior 20 times a day."

Pitner, however, uses only positive imagery. He never uses the dangers of smoking or the health problems it causes.

"You're all smokers," he said. "No one knows the dangers more than you do."