Quitting Smoking

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Author:
Steven Harold

When smokers think about quitting smoking they will consider what it is they are trying to stop. Part of that thinking, (depending on how easy or hard they find it to stop) may be whether smoking is a habit or an addiction.

If you were to ask the person in the street this question "What is more difficult to stop - a habit or an addiction?", you would no doubt get a majority saying that an addiction is far harder to stop. In fact calling something that we get an urge to do, an addiction, can rob us of our power. It is almost like saying 'I can't stop because I am addicted' or 'I can't stop because I am not in control'. An addiction has many people perceiving that they have little or no control. This is part of the issue with stopping smoking. If you view it as a total addiction, and have accepted the above perception of an addiction, then you have now made quitting smoking much harder in your mind.

Of course an addiction is quite a general term. There can be different types of addiction such as a physical or a psychological addiction. A physical addiction is when the body craves for something and a psychological addiction is when the mind believes it wants or needs something.

Now, coming back to stopping smoking, is it a physical or psychological addiction, both or something else? This area has many differing opinions. After all with over 4,500 chemicals entering the body with any single puff it would seem logical to assume that there must be some physical addiction. Yet when sleeping for 6, 7 or 8 hours and then waking up in the morning the vast majority of smokers will NOT smoke immediately upon waking. They may have breakfast, or wash, or have a cup of coffee first before lighting up. If smoking really was a 100% physical addiction then surely the body having been without those 4,500 chemicals during sleep would be craving for a cigarette so much that the smoker would have to light up immediately. However in many cases this does not happen.

The majority of airlines have a non-smoking policy. Some of the long haul fights might last for 12-14 hours. This policy would be impossible to keep if smoking tobacco was a 100% physical addiction would it not? The vast majority of smokers find coping with a long haul flight no problem at all.

So can smoking really be an physical addiction? Answering that question might just be enough to help you quit smoking for good.

Steven A. Harold Quit Smoking with Hypnosis

A Quick Note From The Publisher... If you like the article above, you may be interested in the following article which is also related to Smoking... Stop Smoking Aids Stopping smoking is a serious commitment. It takes willpower, support, and determination to succeed. That is why you should seek and get all of the stop smoking aid that you can in order to quit for good. Here is a brief “Stop Smoking Guide” to introduce you some of the most popular and accessible quit smoking aids. You need to be strong enough to cope with the smoking cessation stress and determined to quit smoking forever, before these stop smoking aids can help you. Assuming that the decision and the determination are there, let’s see what other stop smoking aids are available. Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) Cigarettes, similar to other drugs, contain addictive substance – nicotine. Nicotine is the reason you get addicted to cigarettes and it is one of the main reasons for quitting being so hard. A nicotine replacement therapy works on the principle of replacing cigarette nicotine with nicotine from other sources. After your body continues to receive its daily nicotine doses, you have less symptoms and this leaves you more stress-free time to cope with the behavioral side of the problem. There are various forms of nicotine replacement products. For example, the nicotine gum is a very popular stop smoking product. You do not need a prescription for a nicotine gum and all you need to do it to chew a gum any time you have the desire for a cigarette. Stop smoking gum is usually one of the inexpensive quit smoking products. A stop smoking gum containing nicotine cannot harm you in general but it might not be suitable for certain medical conditions – diabetes, dental disease, heart problems, high blood pressure, etc. It is not recommended for women who are pregnant or trying to get pregnant as well as for breast-feeding mothers. The nicotine patch is another...