Many people believe they are addictive to smoking and because they hold on to this belief they actually make the process of stopping smoking much harder than it needs to be. People who smoke have been led to believe that they are addictive to smoking by two groups of people. The first group of people that want smokers to believe they are addictive to smoking are the cigarette companies. The reason for this is they know that if you believe that you are addictive to smoking you can then find it difficult to stop, thus increasing their profits.

The second group of people that want you to believe that you are addictive to smoking and actually back up the cigarettes companies are the drug companies. The drug companies that produce nicotine replacement products make billions of pounds profit on various products such as patches, gums, or medication. But nobody is asking these drug companies one simple question.

"If the nicotine in the cigarettes is so addictive then why are people in their thousands not getting addictive to the nicotine patch?"

I've been helping people to stop smoking successfully for a number of years now with the help of hypnosis and not one person as come in to see me because they are addicted to the patch. But if you begin to think about this it should be happening all over the country but its not and the reason for this is because smoking is a habit.

A habit is when you automatically do something without really thinking about it. So you may wake up in the morning and the first thing you do is to have a cigarette. You have a meal and after the meal you have a cigarette or you jump in your car you have a cigarette. If you begin to pay attention to when you smoke you will probably notice that there is a habit attached to most of the cigarettes that you do smoke.

Now because smoking is a habit people can sometimes mistake the strangeness they get when they stop smoking as a withdrawal symptom. I can show you what I mean by this if you fold your arms. The chances are when you fold your arms you probably cross your arms the same way again and again because this is a habit. But let me ask you now to fold your arms the opposite way so your left arm is on top of your right arm or your right arm is on top of your left hand. Now the chances are that when you did this it felt strange because folding your arms this way is not the habit.

Now this strange feeling is actually the same kind of feeling that many people mistake as a withdrawal symptom when they stop smoking. It is something that I always inform my clients about when they attend a stop smoking session because they are creating a new habit.

If you are still not convinced from the arguments that I have made so far, let me ask you another question.

"Have you been that busy doing something that a couple of hours have passed and you have not had a cigarette?

If you have answered yes to this question then this should never have happened especially if you believe that smoking is addictive. It would not matter what you was doing, if it was time for a cigarette then your mind and body would give you withdrawal symptoms so that you knew it was time for a cigarette. Here is another question for you to consider.

"Do you generally wake up during the night for a cigarette?"

If you have answered yes to this question, are you waking up for a cigarette are is it because you need the toilet. If it is a cigarette that you are waking up for could it then be that have fallen into the habit of waking up at a certain time for a cigarette.

If you answered no to that question then you have just proved that smoking is not an addiction. It would not matter if you were asleep because if it was time to feed your body with nicotine you would be waking up because of withdrawal symptoms.

I really do hope that this article as really made you think differently about your smoking habit. If it as then when you decide to stop smoking you need to choose a method of stopping smoking that can affect your habit patterns in a positive way.

In a future article we will be looking specifically at the subconscious mind and what methods are available in order to change your habits patterns.

If you have any comments about this article please contact Gary Maddison at enquiries@quitforgood or visit his website at www.quitforgood.co.uk.