I quit smoking without really intending to quit. At $5 U.S. per pack, I can't afford cigarettes any more, so I stopped smoking them. Addiction itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, but IMHO, nicotine is a bad thing to be addicted to due to its potential adverse effects on the health of the smoker. I'd personally like to see all drugs made legal and available to adults. Let the individual choose what to ingest, and stop limiting the choices to nicotine and alcohol.

you both make smoking seem like a saintly thing to do, if you asked your friend to quit i bet you anything that he couldn't and purely because of addiction but i suppose religion is a good excuse, i know how narrow minded i must seem but i don't mean to offend.

cannabis should be made legal and cocaine sould be moved into the class c section but some drugs are better kept illegal such as acid. If your not in a good frame of mind before you take it, it can really mess up your mind. My friend thought she was a potato and she was trying to peel off her skin with a potato peeler, we had to hold her down for hours until she eventually went to sleep. She had blood pouring down her arms and legs.

I had no intention of glamourizing smoking tobacco, I simply wanted to point out some of it's roots and perhaps a more positive way to confront the addiction. Since I found that I would smoke more briefly after every time I've tried to quit because I was so hard on myself for starting to smoke again. Also, there is certainly a difference between a habit and an addiction. I've found that when I approach my nicotine use from a spiritual stand point, it's a habit that I can take or leave, and quitting doesn't seem that big of a deal since I can easily find other methods to achieve the same results of grounding my spirit but when I completely disregard the spiritual perspective of my tobacco use and value like a drug and an addiction that I "need" and must have to "feel better", regardless of how much I dislike it. When I was able to quit for 2 months straight cheerfully for the most part until the final days before I started up again I had taken this approach, I immediately noticed I smoked a hell of a lot less.

Knowledge of the dangers and damage nicotine causes has never been helpful with my ability to quit. Instead I just feel bad, knowing that I'm increasing my chances of breast cancer, lung cancer, emphysema, COPD, aging my body, screwing up my blood sugar levels, etc etc. If self knowledge of the damage of nicotine as with any other drug could keep people off of it and/or make people quit, wouldn't there be almost no smokers or drug users? A lot of addiction is fueled by shame and guilt, trying to impede guilt upon the addict can sometimes have the opposite effect. Another problem that I found is that I had no support network. It's very hard to quit smoking tobacca when surrounded by smokers. Like alcohol it's easy to get, socially accepted in most places to some degree and a a popular social activity. During the time I successfully quit for two months cold turkey, the first couple of weeks I isolated and was literally learning how to socialize again. I realized that more then half the people I talked with, we would have our conversations outside while having ciggarettes. When I'd quit for a little bit of time, my friends would still talk to me but not as openly, and my social skills had certainly gone down.

Hugs,

Sincerely,
Ariel Archaicflame