Quitting nicotine is absurdly overblown. I'm sure me saying this will annoy somebody, but I think it's much more of a habit than a physical addiction and people hide behind the physical addiction as an excuse. Maybe if you smoke a pack a day it is a different beast but daily smoking is really not hard to kick.
Maybe it is overblown, I can generally go a while without a smoke, and could probably quit with relative ease if I wanted to. Surely it’s no heroin withdraw and certainly not as bad as alcohol withdraw, but it’s the quickest I’ve ever come to developing any physical addiction symptoms. The withdraw is real too, but mostly bearable.
well it took me ~four years to comfortably quit nicotine from wanting to, to absolute zero. Weed is considerably easier to turn on and off whenever. I get that we're all weird but for some people there is a significant difference here.
I wonder how much of that is addiction and how much is just forgetting what something is like. I have 1 cigar a month (never more, occasionally less) and have done so for about 12 years. I suppose some may say that means I'm addicted. Or does it mean I simply enjoy a cigar? I honestly don't know the threshold. When I see a cigar I'm usually reminded of the enjoyment; I guess that is some addiction in and of itself. It calls into question, what is a memory in and of itself -- and if memories and the desire to relive them are just an incarnation of addiction.
IMHO addiction is where you don't feel like you can adequately function without. For a daily nicotine smoker, being without is a negative consequence that seriously alters mood and efficacy. This is what makes that sort of addiction particularly ravenous as opposed to your measured once a month.
