mad pierrot said:
Did you know that smoking is more addictive than heroine?
Absolutely!!! I have read of studies that bear proof to that statement. Being a reformed smoker, I know how difficult it was to quit. Although I have never been addicted to any drug other than nicotine, I do have first hand knowledge of someone who has dealt with addiction to both heroine and nicotine.
In the first year that I was stationed in Japan, I lived in a barracks on base, when a man who had just transferred in from Thailand, moved into the room accross the hall from mine. He seemed like a pretty decent guy, and was mostly quiet and just stayed to himself, but I knew that he was loaded most of the time, and from his mannerisms and physical appearance, figured that he was hitting skag. This was during a brief period of time when there was a moratorium on random drug tests for members of the US military while the courts tried to sort out the constitutionality of the tests, but rumor was that the tests were to resume the next month. One day he came over to my room and told me that he was taking a week leave, and was going to be in his room going cold turkey. He wanted me to know what was going on so that I wouldn't call the medics if I saw him jonesing, puking in the latrine a lot.
He was pretty sick for a few days. I checked in on him a couple of times a day to see if he needed anything -- mostly cigarettes. He soon got better, and started going back to work. After that, since we worked different shifts, I didn't see him much until one day I ran into him in the NCO club. I pulled up to the bar, and he bought me a beer, thanking me again for helping him out. He said that kicking the habit was a success, and although it was rough going, he was clean and intended to stay that way. We had a few more beers, and discussed our failed attempts at quitting smoking, in light of the relative ease with which he had been able to kick heroine.
As for smoking, I was a heavy smoker, and although I quit for over two years in my late 20's, I went back to it, using the excuse of job stress, etc. Finally, after several attempts at slowing down, or quitting for brief periods of time, I quit for good in 1983, at the age of 33. From my own experience in quitting smoking, and from the experiences of others whom I have known who have quit or tried to quit, I would have to say that quitting is simple, but difficult.
The simplicity is in the principle of the method -- you have to want to quit really bad, and no crutch is going to help you. Cold Turkey is the way to success, but only if you are honest with yourself about your addiction, and have decided that you are not going to let it control you. Like I said, in principle, quitting is simple ... the difficulty is in actually doing it.
