The Full Story:
The nicotine addiction myth.

I've known a secret for over thirty years and now it's time to share it with you. You are not a nicotine junky. There, I said it!

Even after I've let the cat out of the bag, you are probably wondering, what the heck is he taking about? I'm addicted to nicotine. I crave nicotine. I have a nicotine fit when I can't have my cigarette. Besides, all the experts agree, my brain needs nicotine, my body craves nicotine and I can't talk on the phone without my cigarette. What could be more obvious, I'm a nicotine addict!

I'm Paul S. Palmer, director of the Palmer Smoking Clinic, I'm an expert in hypnosis specializing in smoking cessation. (see Palmer's Bio) The most challenging part of my job over these past 30 years has been to convince my clients that their smoking addiction was really a habit problem and not a chemical problem. As bizarre as that notion may sound at the moment, I challenge you to hear a few of my examples before you declare me a nut case. I promise, you'll be surprised and enlightened.

If cigarette smokers are slaves to nicotine the way everyone says they are, how do you explain this odd behavior?

Smokers are able to turn off their addiction to get a good nights sleep.
Many smokers have stopped smoking completely at work.
Illinois smokers no longer smoke at bars and restaurants.
Cigarette smokers don't graduate to cigars, pipes or chewing tobacco.
You don't smoke in the new car or in the new house.
You don't smoke in hospitals, public buildings, theaters, airline flights, etc., etc. and you do just fine.

How do you explain the cigarette smokers unusual ability to pick and choose where they are addicted? The smoker's world is getting smaller everyday and most nicotine addicts seem able to adjust to this without much discomfort. Does any other chemical addiction work like that? Because the boss sent a memo, you cancelled your addiction to nicotine at work! How is that possible?

If this is a chemical addiction, explain the phone call.

The smoker needs nicotine, that's what you've been told. You have a craving because you are trying to maintain a level of nicotine in your body. Well, how can that be true if you just finished a cigarette, satisfied your need for nicotine, and the phone rings. Tell me you can talk on the phone without a cigarette. Chemical need or habit? Smoking situations apparently cause you to reach for the cigarette far more often than any lack of nicotine in the body.

Real chemical addictions grow.

You need more and more of the chemical to feed an addiction, sound right? Well, cigarette smokers have been pretty fickle about their relationship with nicotine all these years. Over the past 60 years, smokers have evolved from smoking short non-filtered (heavy on the nicotine) cigarettes to filtered cigarettes, then to highly filtered, to low tar and nicotine brands. Lights and ultra-lights are the cigarette of the day! What kind of an chemical addict goes in that direction? Think about it, smokers are doing it backwards! You should start out with ultra-lights and gradually work your way up to the real cigarettes, like the old movie stars used to smoke, no filter and a big blast of nicotine.

And when those unfiltered cigarettes don't do it for you anymore, you could always move up the tobacco chain to cigars, pipes and chewing tobacco. You could always get a bigger nicotine fix when ever you wanted it. Have any cigarette smokers gone that route? Hardly any, I would say.

Need Nicotine? Got you covered.

There has always been help for your chemical addiction. You need nicotine? You've had a pill, the gum, the patch, or an inhaler. If your brain is addicted to nicotine there are drugs to block the pleasure centers that are tickled by nicotine (opiate blockers) and of course anti-depressants to make you feel happy when you quit. You could slowly wean yourself off your chemical addiction with the taper down technique — recommended by every stop-smoking expert for over 20 years — now since abandoned. There is vitamin and herb therapy, non-tobacco cigarettes, electric cigarettes and laser beams.

If this were just a nicotine issue, I think we have you covered. But it's not.

If it's not a chemical addiction, what it it?

It's a habit problem. It's a BIG HABIT PROBLEM. I'm talking about a multi-layered habit with layers you should easily recognize. First, you have the thousands of connections you developed over the years between the cigarette and the things you smoke it with. Talking on the phone, finishing a meal, your cup of Joe, and all your smoking haunts represent your smoking pattern. Next, add the number of trips back and forth to the mouth per day, which falls into a range of 200 to 600 repetitions. You also have mannerisms that are part of the package, how you hold your cigarette, how often you flick your ash and even how you extinguish your butt. All of these represent the largest habit pattern you'll ever acquire.

I'm not saying smokers haven't noticed their smoking patterns, I'm telling you that we've missed the boat completely on the significance of this pattern when you try to quit and that this pattern is the primary cause of your discomfort. How could everybody have missed the elephant in the room? We were told by the experts that smoking was a chemical problem, period.

All the mysteries of quitting are solved.

The fact that smoking is a habit problem explains everything. Once you look at smoking as a behavioral problem all mysteries, questions and conundrums are cleared up. Any instance where you didn't act like a chemical addict is now explainable. Smokers can obviously adjust their habit pattern to accommodate the shrinking smoking environment but you can't turn a true chemical addiction on and off to suit your situation. The habit also explains why smokers fall off the wagon so quickly (some, with one puff). Nicotine is not instantly addictive. When you pick up a cigarette, you are waking up an old habit pattern. We expect habits to come back to us in an instant. No one is surprised that you can jump in a swimming pool or hop on a bicycle after years of non-use and these habits come back to you in an instant.

Habits can also remain active for months (two to five months) after you stop using them, and in the case of large habits like smoking, make you uncomfortable if you don't use the habit. You can't explain all the anomalies of smoking by pointing to the chemical that medical experts said twenty years ago is out of your system in two to three days.

Why is it important to recognize the habit problem?

Recognizing the habit for what it is can help you quit better, it's that simple. Dealing with a massive behavior pattern is completely different then dealing with a chemical addiction. How you quit has everything to do with your success. You wouldn't treat a nail bitter the same way you would treat a heroine addict would you? The two are completely different problems aren't they? Then they call for completely different treatments.

At the Palmer Smoking Clinic I have been working with the behavioral part of smoking for over 30 years. I have created a way to quit that goes after the most important part of smoking, THE HABIT. I use hypnosis with all it's benefits to help the smoker quit, quickly and comfortably. (see Why Hypnosis) I'm proud to say that no one else has this unique stop-smoking program.

Appointments: 708-233-1111

Palmer Smoking Clinic

http://www.stopsmokingchicago.info/