There's no such thing as addiction

Okay, that may be a little too general, but it's got me wondering. I had a conversation about this with some friends recently and I don't think they bought into my thoughts. But hear me out and, whether you agree or not, you can't really argue with the logic.

Alcohol. Addictive. I'd say yes. You stop drinking (if you are a solid drinker) and you go through physical withdrawal symptoms. Unpleasant ones.

Coke/Hash/Morphene, etc. I'll go out on a limb and say addictive. You stop using and there are some really crappy side effects (I hear).

Pot. I don't know. Everybody who smokes it says not addictive. ok... so that leads to...

Smoking. Must be not, right? I mean, if pot isn't, then how can smoking/nicotine be?

I have more though.

If smoking is so 'addictive', how is it that so many people are able to just quit cold turkey. Stop one day. Done. The only side effects that I know of (and I quit after over 10 years of smoking) are cravings, some 'bad' moods and you tend to gain weight due to the hand to mouth habit.

Compared to what a junkie goes through or an alcoholic, this sounds pretty tame.

I contend that smoking is actually more of a habit. Not that habits are a piece of cake to break, but a habit isn't addictive. It's ingrained. The side-effects of smoking could be negated if we could only learn to replace the hand to mouth with something positive besides food and could get over our childish "I'm going to pout/bitch/moan because I can't have what I want".

So, now that I've pissed off a bunch of smokers, let's look at this from another angle.

People that are overweight are often looked at as weak willed or indulgent. People that can't control themselves and are even, perhaps, lazy.

If the tobacco industry was accused of putting substances in cigarettes to make them addictive, is it so beyond belief that people in the food industry would not do something similar? What if something as innocuous as chocolate has an ingredient that many, but not all, found addictive. People on diets often talk of breaking down and binging. What's the difference between that and a smoker who takes a 5 hour flight and then puffs up several cigs back to back?

The results are the same - unhealthy. Yet, fat people are looked down on and smokers are "afflicted with an addiction".

My bottom line is how much we, as humans, can do if we set our minds to the task. Should you decide to stop smoking, all you have to do is decide you want to and it's done. I mean really want to. Not the "my life would make a great screenplay that I'll write one day" type of want to, but the "if I don't take my hand out of the garbage disposal before I turn it on, I'll regret it" kind of desire. Same goes for those with weight problems. If you want to, you can learn healthier habits, train yourself to eat the better foods.

Speaking of habits. Why is it some are so easy and some are so hard? Bad habits are so easy to keep up with - smoking, not exercising, eating poorly, etc. Yet, something like brushing your teeth, damn, it's so easy to just not do it. You'd think after 30+ years of doing it, you'd just *have* to do it or you wouldn't feel right.

Nope.

Could stop right now and not miss a thing.

That's messed up.