Kicking the smoking habit is known to be one of the hardest things to do. The addiction can be so overwhelming to so many people that they feel like they will be chained to smoking forever. And now more than ever, pharmaceutical companies charge in to the rescue on our TV screens, in our magazines and on our radios touting the new wonder patches, pills and inhalers that will supposedly make kicking the habit as easy as turning off a light switch.

But why is it that these drugs fail 95% of the time in getting smokers to quit for one year? Is it really nicotine that makes it so hard to quit smoking or is it the powerful beliefs of the mind? Nicotine is completely gone from the bloodstream in 72 hours from the last cigarette. But this is when the cravings become the strongest and this is the smokers first real challenge to over come a real physical desire. But the physical cravings gradually go away and studies have shown that after 30-45 days, the addiction is all psychological. And this is where most smokers who want to quit fail. With the physical cravings being so short-lived and being such a small part of failing, Nicotine Replacement Therapy or NRT only prolongs the physical addiction which is gone soon anyway but does nothing for the stronger phsychological pull that the smoker will eventually have to face anyway.

Like steel cables, the smoker has made pleasurable relationships with smoking such as hanging out and talking with other smokers. The good feelings they got were actually from the camaraderie and the companionship but because they were smoking during those times, the smoking is heavily associated in the smokers mind with these pleasures although the smoking had little or nothing to do with it.

Since smokers often smoke during or after meals or when drinking coffee, the pleasures they got from these things alone are now identified with smoking and they have difficulty imagining that they could actually enjoy one without the other.

But here is the funny thing. Smoking itself is not an enjoyable experience. The body actually rejects it. Hacking coughs, smelly clothes and hair, yellow nails and teeth, having to go outside where smoking is prohibited. All these things are what really make up the smokers world. But movies, TV and magazines have made smoking look so enjoyable and not to mention, cool, that reality of it is left at the door.

That's what 39-year smoker Rick B. discovered for himself and this was the discovery that set him free from a lifetime enslavement to smoking when nothing else he ever tried worked at all. In his own words: "I must have said a thousand times, 'I enjoy smoking'or'that cigarette will taste good right after dinner', but that was because they (the Tobacco Industry) made me belive that smoking cigarettes was a natural and pleasurable thing to do. What I soon learned was that I really love not smoking!"

Rick was soon able to enjoy a life that he thought he would never know again. Foods tasting great, no more shortness of breath. His teeth are white again. He has a lot more energy and he thinks much more clearly. the big secret to his success was by retraining his mind with his own personal technique to see smoking for how it really is and disconnect any perceived pleasure from it.

And that is the secret behind ending most bad habits: severing the minds association of pleasure with them.