Now I don't. And that was because I won this fight many years ago.
After my moment of truth - when I was forced to accept that I was an addict, not a free man - I knew that this fight was the most important fight of my life. It took me eighteen months to kill the desire to smoke. And that is the key. Smoking is, above all, an emotional problem, a habit, not so much an addiction.The method I used to become a free man again was almost identical to this. I say almost because what took me a year and a half could have taken much less. Weeks or even days.
There is no drama or special supplements in this method. No 'will of iron' is necessary. And above all there is
no fear. (One of the biggest problems for most of us is our fear of change.)
It is a guide to your enemy. I suggest that you look into this.
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Instant Addiction
Medical scientist Joseph R DiFranza has spent the last ten years investigating nicotine addiction in new
smokers.
He has found it normally takes very little experience of nicotine – in many cases as little as ONE cigarette –
to change the brain, so that it stimulates the craving to smoke.
The survey followed 679 seventh graders – children about 11 years old – and tracked them for two and a half
years. They gave the children eight interviews during that time. By tracking their answers to a ten-question
quiz that Dr. DiFranza developed – the Hooked on Nicotine Checklist – the scientists could see if the
adolescents were addicted. And how long it took for them to become addicted.
The checklist includes questions like –
*Do you ever have strong cravings to smoke?
*Do you smoke now because it is really hard to stop?
Any young person who answered yes to any of the ten questions was found to be 29 times more likely to fail
if they tried to quit smoking.
Also, those who answered yes were 44 times more likely to be smoking at the end of the study period, and
58 more times likely to be smoking every day.
On average, the teenagers were only smoking two cigarettes a week when the first addiction symptoms
appeared.
And, of these teenagers who experience addiction to smoking, 10% do so within two days of their first
cigarette, and 25 – 35% show signs within a month.
The data completely upset conventional wisdom.
"We were quite shocked ourselves," Dr. DiFranza said, "We thought that with the kids who were developing
symptoms so quickly, we were going to the extreme examples. The opposite turned out to be true – kids that
were developing symptoms of addiction within a few weeks of starting smoking were the rule rather than the
exception."
"Of all the adolescents who reported some symptoms of addiction, one third were only smoking once a
month, and half were smoking once a week.”
Even occasional teenage smokers can have the same symptoms of nicotine withdrawal that prompt adult
smokers to light up again and again. "Some kids experience withdrawal symptoms earlier than others."
Once children start smoking, many rapidly lose control over their behavior. They lose their freedom.
Studies of adolescent smokers show that symptoms of addiction can appear within the first weeks of
smoking. Among the 217 inhalers, half had lost their freedom by the time they were smoking 7 cigarettes per
month.
"They experienced withdrawal symptoms, which some rated as unbearable," DiFranza reported.
"Amazingly, in the early stages of addiction a single cigarette can suppress withdrawal symptoms for weeks,
even though the nicotine has gone from the body in a day."
In other words, the impact of nicotine far outlasts its presence in the brain.
Factors that predicted addiction were an adventurous, novelty-seeking personality, a depressed mood, and
familiarity with the cigarette advertising character Joe Camel.
Dr DiFranza’s work has been confirmed by a dozen other studies in the last few years.
