Are You Addicted? Addiction vs Habit

Are You Addicted? Addiction vs Habit

First let's define addiction. The type of addiction I want to talk about right now is the physical addiction, not the mental. We'll deal with the mental aspects of addiction in a moment. For now, let's just address the physical aspects of addiction.

Who tells us that smoking is addictive?

The Tobacco Companies.

They are very certain that cigarettes are addictive, but I must share with you - thousands of people quit smoking every day and not one of them experiences any kind of physical withdrawal symptoms that you would see in a normally addicting chemical like cocaine or heroin. Again, by definition, when I refer to addiction, what I'm talking about is the physical malfunction that bodies go through when being deprived of a substance upon which they have become dependent.

No one's body malfunctions when they stop smoking cigarettes.

In fact, think about it, how long can you go without a cigarette?

Do you sleep at night? How many hours? Do you smoke in your sleep? No? People who are truly addicted to a chemical like heroin or meth cannot sleep through the night, they have to get up to take a hit, just to go back to sleep. No one does that with cigarettes.

What about a movie? If you go to a really good movie, you can sit through the entire show without a cigarette, yet most people don't think they can go 2 hours without  smoking.

What about a long plane flight? You can sit on a plane for many hours without smoking.

Doesn't this make you wonder how addictive cigarettes really are?

Now how many cocaine addicts would say they can go for hours or days without taking a hit? How many heroin or meth addicts? For that matter, how many alcoholics?

You see, even with just looking at your own life you have demonstrated that cigarettes do not have the same addictive characteristics biologically that truly addictive drugs do.

Now, I'm not into conspiracy theories or anything, but think about it, who benefits most by us thinking that cigarettes are addictive? The cigarette manufacturers! Wouldn't the best sales pitch in the world for any consumable product be, "If you start using these in your teens, you will smoke them for the rest of your life." It's got to make you think, doesn't it?

In fact, when I talk to people who become non-smokers, the most severe physical problems I've ever had people tell me about is sometimes headaches - which were more than likely stress related anyway. I also hear about sore throats and sometimes shaking hands.

But let's be honest about these so-called "symptoms." Are they not simply irritations instead? Irritation and malfunction are not the same things. They're not even in the same ballpark! Those symptoms do not cause malfunction. They just cause discomfort, which is not a word used to describe the addictive withdrawals from any other truly addictive drug.

I don't know whether you have ever seen anyone on meth but it's not a pretty sight. For example, the average meth addict if he hasn't had his regular fix will experience some terrible withdrawal symptoms such as sweats, shakes, heart palpitations, nausea, even hallucinations.

Now when was the last time you saw someone experience anything like that when they tried to quit smoking? I mean, they might get a little grumpy, or irritable, but they don't experience any of the physical symptoms that someone on heroin gets.

You've probably heard about people who contracted lung cancer from breathing in second-hand smoke. Now the nicotine and all the chemicals are strong enough to kill them, but they weren't strong enough to addict them. For years people passively breathed in all that nicotine but it doesn't make them want to smoke.

So if it isn't a physical addiction, what is it?

It's a mental habit.

When you wake up in the morning and you have that first cigarette you are reinforcing the habit of smoking. Then 20 (or so) times during the course of the day you are reinforcing the habit of smoking.

Every time the hand goes up to the mouth, about 10 times with each cigarette, that's about 200 times a day you are reinforcing the habit. What else do you do 200 times a day? Nothing, except breathe.

So it's a strongly conditioned habit. And the only reason you are still doing it is because you are still doing it. And the only way to stop is to just stop. Cutting down doesn't work. That's like telling an alcoholic to cut down their drinking. They can do it for a while but it soon creeps back. So you have to just quit smoking.

And because it's just a mental habit you can break it easily ... when you know how.

Then you have things like nicotine patches and gum. Would you believe that patches and gum provide a massive dose of nicotine, one day's supply of nicotine patches is equivalent in nicotine terms to about six packs of cigarettes a day. Now that's standard cigarettes so that's about 12 packs of low tar cigarettes and about 18 packs of ultra lights.

So how come any body who has tried patches or gum and so is getting more nicotine in their blood stream than they've ever had before, still reverts back to smoking?

Why on earth would you still want a cigarette? 

Because it's not nicotine addiction, if it were the patches would work.

According to some of the research that's been done, if you try to quit smoking just by using will power about 3% - 6% of people will stop. If you quit smoking using the gum about 10% of people will stop, an improvement but not much of one. If you quit smoking using patches then about 10% - 15% of people will stop, again an improvement but not much of one.

And if you look at those figures around the other way, about 85% to 90% of people who try nicotine replacement therapy fail. Now that means it doesn't work. 

So that means the problem with cigarettes is not the nicotine, the problem with cigarettes is the habit of smoking.

Of waking up in the morning and having that first cigarette at the same time every day and then 20 or so times during the day having a cigarette at those particular times - with a cup of tea, after a meal, driving a car, when the phone rings, in stressful situations, with alcohol etc.

The act of smoking becomes linked in your mind with these daily situations and so they become a trigger to smoke. This is what a habit is.

So the key to quitting smoking for good is using a method that focuses on removing the mental habit of smoking. This is the key to quitting and staying a non-smoker for the rest of your, now longer life!

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Smoking is a powerful addiction which, once formed, can be difficult to break without help.

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