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CHARLOTTE – North Carolina bars and restaurants are now smoke free, but for the 45 million Americans who are smokers, kicking the habit can be difficult. But experts say a form of laser therapy may be able to help.

“When a person smokes a cigarette, their endorphin level goes up, and we refer to that as your feel-good chemical,” Rich Miller, owner of Anne Penman Laser Therapy in Charlotte, said. Miller says the laser stimulates those same endorphins.

“We raise that endorphin level up to higher than cigarette level, and by doing a follow up within 48 hours, we make sure that is maintained, and there is no longer a physical addiction,” he said.

Three treatments are administered over that time, the first of which lasts an hour. One of the other keys to laser therapy's success is knowing the things that trigger cravings. For smoker Terry Nicoludis, that was golf.

“When I would be on the golf course and hit a stressful situation, I would smoke a cigarette,” he said.

Studies show the average pack-a-day smoker is putting a cup of tar in their lungs every year. But Miller says with laser therapy, patients like Nicoludis can celebrate years of being smoke free.

“I smoked from the time I was 14 until the time I was 56, so 43 years of smoking ended in this office,” Nicoludis said.