Consider these facts about nicotine addiction:

You might wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom - but you aren't awakened in the middle of the night by cigarette cravings - so you're not addicted to nicotine.

Nicotine has a short 2 hour half life in the body - if you were truly addicted to nicotine you would be woken up several times in the night, every single night, by the nicotine cravings (much like a hard drug addict might experience).

Think on this - you aren't awakened in the middle of the night by cigarette cravings - because you're not addicted to nicotine.

When the indoor smoking ban was introduced in 2008 it is estimated that some 400,000 smokers stopped smoking.¹

So 400,000 'addicted; smokers suddenly found that they could quit smoking - just because they were banned from smoking in public places.

Hmmm - it sounds like those smokers weren't addicted to nicotine...

When the prices of cigarettes are raised cigarette consumption declines.

Well over 100 studies from high-income countries have confirmed the inverse relationship between cigarette prices and cigarette smoking.

The consensus among researchers working in this area is that a 10% increase in the price of cigarettes in developed countries will result in a 3 to 5% reduction in overall cigarette consumption.²

If people were addicted to nicotine smokers would be robbing banks and mugging old ladies to get the money to pay for the increased price of their next fix. This doesn't happen.

They just cut down on the number of cigarettes consumed. That's because the cigarette smokers aren't addicted to nicotine.

According to the 2008 Pregnancy Risk Assessment and Monitoring System (PRAMS), of women who smoked 3 months before pregnancy, 45% quit during pregnancy.

Amongst women who quit smoking during pregnancy, 50% went back to smoking nicotine within 6 months after delivery.⁴

What does this tell us?

It tells us that nicotine smoking is a choice. It is not an addiction. If it was an addiction you wouldn't get 45% of women suddenly deciding to quit nicotine smoking, in an instant - just because they discovered they were pregnant.

And the babies of those women who do smoke through pregnancy aren’t given nicotine injections or patches (as they do with the babies of hard drug addicts), to help their babies cope with withdrawal symptoms.

Nicotine smokers are not addicted to nicotine.

You might believe that you are so addicted to smoking that you simply have to have a cigarette after every meal ?

Ever wondered why it is that you never feel compelled by your 'addiction' to stop in the middle of eating your meal to smoke a cigarette and then, after your nicotine fix, continue eating your meal ?

If you have ever wondered that - it's because you aren't really addicted to nicotine.

And how are you on a long haul flight, or when you go to the theatre where you aren't allowed to smoke ?

Are you edgy and irritable all through your flight for a full 8 hours ?

Or maybe it's really the case that you just settle down in your seat, and relax, and then maybe have a cigarette after you have landed, in 8 hours or so ?

Hmmm - it really does sound like you aren't really addicted to nicotine.

Wouldn't a commercial money making addiction/rehab clinic that assists with withdrawal symptoms from all kinds of addictive substances and drugs include nicotine as one of the substances that it can help with - if nicotine were truly addictive ?

Your own life experience will tell you that a commercial money-making clinic definitely would offer help for nicotine withdrawal symptoms if smoking nicotine was an addiction ?

Well there's a commercial money making addiction clinic in California that does offer help with the withdrawal from some 25 or so addictive substances.

Yet it doesn't include nicotine, or cigarettes, or smoking amongst those substances and drugs.

Hmmm - it really does seem like smoking nicotine isn't an addiction.

If you ever actually talk to ex-smokers, like I do, you'll realise that most people who have successfully quit smoking have done it cold turkey - they took the decision one day that 'enough is enough', and stopped smoking on that day.

The decision usually follows one of three events:

1. People who woke up one day and were suddenly sick and tired of smoking. They threw their fags away that day and never looked back.

2. People who get sick. Not smoking sick, meaning some kind of catastrophic smoking induced illness. Just people who get a cold or a flu and feel miserable. They feel too sick to smoke, they may feel too sick to eat. They are down with the infection for two or three days, start to get better and then realize that they have a few days down without smoking and decide to try to keep it going. Again, they never look back and stuck with their new commitment.

3. People who leave a doctors office where they have been given an ultimatum. Quit smoking or drop dead--it's your choice. These are people for whom some sort of problem has been identified by their doctors who llays out in no uncertain terms that the person's life is at risk if they do not quit smoking NOW.

So, if you ask around your friends, many, many ex-smokers have quit cold turkey.

One day they made a decision to quit smoking and since that day they have successfully never smoked another cigarette.

That's because nicotine smoking or 'vaping' really isn't an addiction.

'Over 25% of the UK population are former smokers.³

i.e. at one time in their life they smoked, then took the decision to stop smoking - and don't smoke any more.

So some 15 million people in the UK alone have beaten their 'addiction' and successfully stopped smoking. That's a lot of people. It's because nicotine smoking isn't an addiction.

Nicotine isn't an Addiction !

The good news, if you think that you are addicted to nicotine, is that you don't have a nicotine addiction.

And the knowledge that nicotine is not addictive and that you are not addicted to nicotine will help you and make it easier for you to quit smoking tobacco cigarettes, electronic cigarettes and e-cigarettes.

The bad news (yes, you guessed it, there had to be some bad news...) is that YOU are a Nicotine Industry marketing man's dream !

You are NOT addicted to nicotine - you only BELIEVE that you are !

You have allowed yourself to be brainwashed by the marketing of the Nicotine Industry, and by your smoking friends, and by your surroundings, and by your environment, and by yourself, into genuinely believing that everyone who uses nicotine is addicted to nicotine !

It's all part of the nicotine trick !

And part of the way that the Nicotine Industry exploits its consumers.

If the consumer believes that they are addicted to nicotine then they will be less likely to try to quit their 'addiction'.

And those who do try to quit their addiction will put less effort into quitting their addiction - and consequently fail.

And this is what happens when people who are convinced that they are addicted to nicotine try to stop using nicotine - they fail.

It becomes a form of self-fulfilling prophecy where people who think that it will be diificult end up failing in what they set oout to do.

If you believe that something is going to be difficult - then it will be difficult - and you'll put less effort into trying - and you will be more likely to stop trying the moment that you have a little 'wobble', when you are in a situation where you might usually feel that you need to smoke nicotine.

Essentially the smoker is more easily tempted to start smoking again in times of 'stress', so that their situation feels 'better' in some way.

That nicotine addiction belief, in the mind of the smoker, really does make resisting the temptation to smoke  a hundred times more difficult for them...

The consumption of nicotine, through either ingestion, inhalation, 'vaping', or smoking, is not an addiction and you do not need nicotine replacement therapy or electronic cigarettes or e-cigarettes or e-cigs to help you to kick your 'addiction'.

Smokers, in general, don't have an 'addiction', and they don't have a 'habit' - instead they have developed a 'psychological dependency' on nicotine.

All forms of nicotine 'replacement' therapy don't replace the nicotine at all, they just substitute one form of nicotine delivery with another - they merely serve to maintain and extend your nicotine dependency - they work AGAINST what you are trying to do and not for you.

You don't need to 'work up to', or 'gradually progress to', that wonderful state of being a non-smoker and being free of slavery to, and dependency on, your chosen nicotine delivery system, in the form of tobacco cigarettes or electronic cigarettes.

You become a non-smoker in the instant that you take that decision to stop supporting the Nicotine Industry -  and you stop smoking - determined to never smoke or vape nicotine ever again.

YOUR NEXT STEP...

If you have tried, and been unsuccesful, at quitting smoking or vaping using the techniques outlined in Stop Smoking - The Best Way then:

Contact Peter to make an appointment for a free initial consultation for a course of smoking cessation therapy.

or go to Smoking and Vaping - Best Help, Advice, Therapy & Treatment

The Surrey Hypnotherapy Clinic TM

For professional, caring and confidential help, adviice, therapy or treatment for, or about, any of the above issues or topics, or similar, just contact Peter, preferably by e-mail, to arrange an appointment for your free initial consultation.

Acknowledgements

1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7480856.stm

1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7480856.stm

2. http://www.treatobacco.net/en/page_120.php

2. http://www.treatobacco.net/en/page_120.php

3. http://www.nosmokingday.org.uk/downloads/media-fact-sheets/Wales.pdf

3. https://www.bhf.org.uk/heart-health/risk-factors/smoking/downloads/media-fact-sheets/Wales.pdf

4. http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/tobaccousepregnancy/

4. http://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/maternalinfanthealth/tobaccousepregnancy/index.htm

5. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100713144920.htm

5. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100713144920.htm

6. Craving to smoke does not signify physical addiction

6. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Reuven_Dar/publication/221846588_Craving_to_smoke_does_not_signify_physical_addiction_A_comment_on_DiFranza_et_al_2012/links/0912f500b90e81d171000000.pdf?origin=publication_list

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/221846588_Craving_to_smoke_does_not_signify_physical_addiction_A_comment_on_DiFranza_et_al_2012