{"id":541,"date":"2020-10-14T18:00:25","date_gmt":"2020-10-14T18:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/wordpress\/?page_id=541"},"modified":"2020-10-14T18:00:25","modified_gmt":"2020-10-14T18:00:25","slug":"nicotine","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marshallbrain.com\/nicotine","title":{"rendered":"Quitting Nicotine Forever or, kicking the nicotine habit or, stop smoking now"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by\u00a0Bruce Shankle<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am big tobacco’s worst enemy. Why? Because I am an ex-nicotine user and I can show you how to quit. I wasn’t just a casual smoker or someone who tried a chew of tobacco. I was a hard-core 3-pack-a-day chain-smoker for a decade and then a 2-can-a-day snuff-dipper for another decade. I know as well as anyone else what it means to be addicted to tobacco. More importantly, I quit nicotine forever, and I am willing to share with you, no strings attached, everything you need to quit too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You’re a smart person. Most tobacco users are quite intelligent. You’re so intelligent in fact, that what I’m about to say may insult you because it’s something that’s obvious and you already know this.. If you regularly smoke cigarettes, cigars, or a pipe, or use smokeless tobacco products, you are an addict. You are a user<\/em>. You are a nicotine junkie<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You know you’re addicted because you’ve tried to quit at some point and you always end back where you started using tobacco again. However, you don’t understand why<\/em> you are an addict. Sometimes you fool yourself into thinking you like what you’ve become. But there is a small voice inside your head that isn’t so happy that you’re an addict. You’ve never stopped to consider why you can’t control your own mind and body. But you are not in control and it’s quite obvious to you and those around you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You know that your health is being adversely affected, but you are powerless to do anything about it. Quite the opposite; you are gladly destroying your own body in exchange for the fleeting effects of nicotine on your mind. But how can this be? You are, after all, a very intelligent person!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you wondered why it is that you can’t control yourself? Why you literally just lose control of your own mind when you’re craving nicotine? Have you ever wondered how addiction works? What’s going on inside your brain, the complicated organ that does the thinking and controls your body? What is your brain doing when you’re craving nicotine? What is happening when you get it? Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you weren’t addicted? How would your brain and decision-making processed work without the burden of constantly keeping the nicotine levels up?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An interesting fact is that you weren’t always an addict. You remember that first drag, puff, chew, or dip? Well just before that coughing, choking, gagging, dizzying first experience with tobacco and nicotine, you weren’t addicted. You were not an addict. You were a normal, healthy, human being who was in control of his or her body and mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But somehow you surrendered. You surrendered to something like peer pressure or social expectations or family tradition or maybe just curiosity. But you did surrender. You gave up your control and your freedom and you stepped into the mind and body trap that is nicotine addiction. You didn’t realize you were stepping into this trap because you’d never been addicted to anything before, so you literally had no clue. But now, after living in the trap for so long, you understand what addiction is. You are the very definition of addict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s sad about this trap is that you don’t even know who YOU are any more. What I mean is, the only “you” that you now know is the smoker-you, or dipper-you: the user-you. This version of your personality, the one that rationalizes the use of tobacco to itself and who is self-destructive, isn’t who you were before you fell into the trap. And, more importantly, it really isn’t who you want to be. There is a small voice of your former self who is standing on the sidelines of your mind either whispering or screaming for you to snap out of this chemically-driven mind-trap you’ve gotten yourself into. This small voice in your head wants you to stop being an addict, forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What you need to realize is that you don’t have to be an addict. You don’t have to be trapped. You don’t have to continue damaging your body in order to put a chemical in your brain that makes you feel “normal”. Actually you don’t even remember what normal is anymore. Your day consists of peaks and valleys of emotional ups and downs tied directly to the level of nicotine in your blood. That’s not normal, that’s a drug-addict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So now you have a choice to make:<\/p>\n\n\n\n