Smoking Cigarettes - Is It REALLY a Drug Addiction or a Powerful Habit?

Firstly, if smoking was all about a 'nicotine addiction', then it would stand to reason that patches should work 100% of the time for every single person. But they don't. If you're replacing your nicotine 'craving' with a patch, then why aren't they 100% effective?

Patches have actually been shown to be only 7% effective. That means that 93% of people who try patches to quit fail! You see all nicotine replacement treatments have one fundamental assumption, which isn't entirely accurate. That is 'the only reason you're smoking is because you're addicted to nicotine, if we can give your body nicotine in another way, other than puffing on a cigarette, you'll quit'. If that's true, and I've already got nicotine in my body from a patch I'm wearing, than why do I still feel like a cigarette? Why do I still want to smoke?

The simple fact of the matter is that no amount of nicotine running through your veins will EVER address the biggest thing keeping a smoker smoking - the PSYCHOLOGY of smoking. It'll never address the ritualistic and habitualness' around smoking. It'll never address the psychological connections you've got between certain activities and situations in your day and a cigarette, they just go hand in hand don't they?

And what about second hand smoke? If the chemicals in cigarette smoker were truly addictive to the human body, than anyone getting second hand smoke for long enough would feel the need to rush outside and have a cigarette. But they don't do that do they? But the smoke is definitely harmful to your body. This has been proven by people contracting second hand illnesses while never having smoked a cigarette in their life. This shows the smoke is bad for the body, but the smoke itself doesn't get anyone 'addicted'. Back when you used to be able to smoke in bars, clubs and restaurants people who worked there were surrounded by smoke constantly may have even contracted illnesses because of it, but they never started smoking just because they kept breathing it in.

Also, how do you form a habit? You form a habit by the repetition of an action. They say it takes roughly 10 draws to finish a cigarette. So if you smoke a pack of 25 cigarettes a day, like most of my clients, that means you're doing the action of bringing your fingers to your lips 250 times a day! What else do you do 250 times a day? Not much I'm sure. If you were to do any action 250 times a day, I'm sure you'd agree that you would have a pretty powerful habit in no time at all.

This brings me to another very important point worth mentioning at this time. Often when people try to quit cold turkey or via other methods, they might experience some things that they will automatically attribute to 'nicotine withdrawal'. Things like irritability, moodiness, agitation and frustration.

Now think about this. If you are so used to doing an action 100, 200, 300 times a day, like brining your fingers to your lips, trying to STOP that all of a sudden is going to cause some irritability, moodiness, agitation and frustration isn't it? Of course it would. But people will attribute all these effects to 'nicotine withdrawal' It's simply not the case, especially when we all know that the actual chemicals in cigarettes, including nicotine, are completely gone from your body within 2 to 3 days. If that's so, what could possibly be causing that agitation days, if not, weeks later? It can't possibly be the effects of nicotine. It's the psychology of smoking that causes this - the exact thing that hypnosis deals with directly.

This is reason for feelings of withdrawal and very soon I'm going to share with you another reason why you might experience these feelings. Something that I know will shock you!

The final factor that I'd like to share with you about drug addiction is this. The number one indicator of whether or not a drug or chemical is TRULY addictive to the body or not, is what your body goes through when you STOP taking that drug or chemical all of a sudden.

Now the truly addictive drugs out there are heroin, cocaine and amphetamines. If you're a daily user of these kinds of drugs and you have been for a while and you stop all of a sudden, your body experiences a SEVERE PHYSICAL TRAUMA! I've seen the effects of this first hand, and it's awful! You experience vomiting, nausea, night sweats, heart palpitations, anxiety, panic attacks, delusions, shaking, severe muscle cramps as well as insomnia. You'll awake several times in the night needing a fix.

You see their bodies have become so dependent on those drugs; their bodies need them just to 'function', just to 'feel normal'. And once the drug starts to leave the body, they need more just to keep the withdrawal symptoms away.

This is why replacement therapies are very important for a true drug addict. A heroin addict needs a replacement, synthetic version of heroin, such as methadone to help their bodies slowly and gradually adapt to functioning without heroin. But a smoker doesn't need nicotine to get them off nicotine.

Now let me ask you this. Have you ever seen someone go through those kinds of withdrawals I mentioned above when they quit cigarettes? Of course not. You might get the agitation, irritability and headaches, but you don't physically 'lose it'. Your body can absolutely cope fine without nicotine in it.

To highlight this fact, I'm sure you can think of times where having a cigarette was just out of the question and you coped just fine. Taking a flight is a perfect example. Maybe before you step into the airport you're puffing away like crazy, but as soon as you walk in, something in your mind just clicks "right, I just can't smoke for the next x amount of hours" and you're fine. But as soon as that plane pulls up and you're walking off, you're mind then goes "click, you can have a cigarette soon" and now all of a sudden your running over people to get outside, but for hours before hand you were fine.

Or maybe you're one of those 'secretive smokers' or maybe you have a job or regularly go somewhere where smoking just isn't possible. You're probably fine in those situations, but as soon as you're on your own, or you jump in the car, step outside - CLICK, you have to have a cigarette.

All these examples just show how often a craving for a cigarette is SITUATIONALY triggered NOT biologically triggered. Because if you a true drug addict, addicted to a drug, it wouldn't matter whose around or where you are - you need a HIT and your body will violently react until it gets it.

The fact that woman will often QUIT, just like that when they find out they're pregnant, also shows how psychological smoking really is. But if that same woman was truly addicted to heroin, cocaine or amphetamines, would she be able to quit just like that? NO WAY! She'll keep using and her baby will be born addicted on his or her birth. But even if a woman is not able to quit during her pregnancy, and I have seen a few who haven't, her baby is not going to be addicted and withdrawing from nicotine. Obviously, we all know it's not good for the baby and it can lead to birth defects, but more often than not, they are generally ok. They are experiencing nothing as bad as what they could be if their mother was on seriously addictive drugs.


Article Source: Nick Terrone