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Quit Smoking
Articles
What
Is Smoking Addiction?
The word "addiction" has been used
to describe smoking and other behaviors such as the use of heroin and
cocaine. On the other hand, addiction is also used on obsessive
behaviors such as drinking coffee, sex, eating chocolate, shopping,
watching television soap operas and fanatic idolizing! There are even
reports of addiction to water, cardiac defibrillators, carrots, hormone
replacement therapy and other unusual behaviors.
The
word addiction simply means that someone has develop relationships or
dependence, whether destructive or non-destructive, with substances,
objects, events and people.
Still,
it has yet to be proven that nicotine, the "so-called addictive
substance" in cigarettes, can exert more control over the user than
other so called addictions, such as coffee drinking or sex. In fact, in
his study on nicotine as an addictive substance, Dale M. Atrens wrote
that the effects of nicotine on the brain are only similar to those of
sugar, salt, exercise, and other harmless substances and events!
Nicotine does not have the properties of reference drugs of abuse.
Another
study by Pritchard and Robinson notes that smoking is almost always done
along with something else. And because smoking still enables the user to
act on choice suggests that the user's behavior is not controlled by the
substance. In fact, a research group found that sugar causes far more
powerful and influential effects over behavior in both laboratory
animals and humans than nicotine does!
So
what exactly is your addiction to smoking? Well, you know you are hooked
on cigarettes. But what you may not know is that your addiction is a
subconscious connection or association to the things you do when you
smoke. To illustrate, ask yourself these questions,
-
What
suddenly comes to mind when you are having a sip of coffee?
-
What
suddenly comes to mind when you're drinking a cold beer?
-
What
suddenly comes to mind when you have just finished a sumptuous
meal?
-
What
suddenly comes to mind when you're taking a break?
Exactly!
Smoking. Indeed, your daily actions triggers you to smoke without you
realizing.
Worst
still, when you repeat these actions frequently like several times a
day, or a for years, your associations to smoking become stronger each
time. Think about these questions.
-
Have
you ever woke in the middle of your sleep just to smoke?
-
Have
you ever broke in cold sweat while attending a 4-hour lecture?
-
Have
you ever got so engrossed in a movie or a book that you forgot to
smoke for hours and ended up in seizures?
We
bet not! Simply as long as your mind is kept off smoking, or you don't
activate these associations, you won't be triggered to smoke.
Another
researcher observes that certain religions don't allow smoking in some
areas, and even the heaviest smokers report no difficulty in observing
this rule. But amazingly, the moment they get back to their routine,
they start smoking once again. Is this spiritual, or is it simply the
ability to control the habit?
So
how are you addicted to smoking then? In the end, your addiction is what
you make it out to be. Because in the end, the ability for you to quit
smoking has always been there, within the power of your mind. The
question is, do you want to discover it?
**References
FORCES International
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