Understanding your enemy.
As teenagers, what most of us thought would be a brief rebellious experiment was quickly transformed into a powerful lifelong chemical addiction as daily multiple nicotine feedings quickly became our way of life. New studies confirm that for some of us it only took coughing and hacking our way through a few nicotine laden cigarettes, or a few pinches of tobacco before the shackles of slavery began to control our lives. Five, ten, fifteen nicotine fixes a day became the norm, our way of life- when will enough be enough became the question. "Tomorrow, tomorrow I will quit” or "I love tobacco, it helps me think" “ “It helps me remain calm”, and many other lies we told ourselves daily. Welcome to the realities of chemical dependency. A world built upon lies; Lies sold to you by big tobacco and lies you told yourself.
Psychologists calls our lies denial. Denial is an unconscious defense mechanism for resolving the emotional conflict and anxieties that naturally arise from living in a permanent state of self-destructive chemical bondage. Three primary areas of denial relied upon by nicotine addicts are dependency denial, cost denial and recovery denial. In each, truth is sacrificed in exchange for peace of mind while remaining hostage in an artificial world of "nicotine normal," or to justify relapse. I know I told my self hundreds of times I could quit whenever I wanted to, I just did not want to quit. Tobacco kept me calm, helped me concentrate, gave me energy.. what horseshit. I know you all used this one too “ I will quit when Skoal reaches XXX per can.” All forms of denial to help you cope with your addiction.
Most nicotine addicts you'll see today are almost completely insulated by a thick blanket of unconscious denial rationalizations, minimizations, fault projections, escapes, intellectualizations and delusions that hide the pain of captivity or create the illusion that the problem is somehow being solved. The average addict musters the confidence to challenge their addiction about once every three years, at which time roughly 1 in 20 will succeed in breaking free for an entire year. These horrible recovery statistics evenutally result in half of us dying by our own hand, with male users losing an average of 13 years of life expectancy and females losing 14 years. Our senseless self-destruction is undeniable visible evidence of denial's depth, and the power of this addiction. The addiction insulated us from the extreme price being paid with each and every puff or pinch - a little more of life itself taken, all to line the pockets of big tobacco.
Sadly for far too many the three years between recovery attempts will be too long. According to the World Health Organization the next three years will cost 15 million of our brother and sister addicts their lives. If you are here reading this you are at a crossroads. You want to quit but are not sure you can. This is where you need to be. It will be tough, you will have to endure some pain but it can be done. As a former can to can and a half a day user I can attest to the fact that this site and the methods here do work. You have a choice to make today, another try in three years may be too late.
