People who smoke cigarettes must learn that the reason quitting is so difficult are that it is an addiction. This is a difficult thing for a person to admit to. The word addiction is a condition to be denied. This is often shown when the smoker tells everyone how they could quit anytime and assure those concerned about their health that they smoke only because they like to. Those who think about what smoking really means to their bodies realize that the truth is the habit that started off as a trying to be cool and fit in with their peers has lead them to a lifetime addiction that has the opposite effect with the people they now hang out with. Nicotine is a highly addictive chemical which has been proven, as recently as a study completed spring of 2007, to have similar effects on the dopamine system of the brain as does heroin or cocaine.

The question is whether this knowledge empowers the smoker to quit or scares them into thinking they cannot possibly do it. Different researchers believe, and report, differing opinions about the addiction of cigarette smoking. There are opinions that the addiction is not just physical like heroin or cocaine but is, at least in part, an emotional addiction as well.

The average smoker smokes fourteen cigarettes daily. Daily is the keyword here since only one in twenty smokers misses a day of smoking. The need to smoke daily is a sign of addiction. Other signs of being addicted include the frequency and need. This is measured by seeing how long the average smoker can go before having that first cigarette. Sixteen percent of smokers wait only five minutes from waking before they have their first smoke. Nearly fifty percent have had a cigarette with thirty minutes of waking. These are certain signs of someone addicted to the nicotine in cigarettes.

Another sure sign of a nicotine addict is the reluctance to give up their drug despite the damage it might do to their health. This shows up in the instances of smokers who are treated for serious illness and return to smoking shortly after major smoking related surgeries. Nearly fifteen percent of those operated on for lung cancer begin to smoke once again. Even when they are diagnosed with a smoking related illness a high percentage of smokers do not quit smoking.

The fact that it is an addiction should help to explain to smokers wanting to quit why it is so difficult to do so. The body requires the nicotine and even missing the normal smoking time for the next cigarette by a few hours can disrupt the physical aspects of the smoking addiction and creates the craving. What smokers need to remember is that all addictions can be beaten. This goes from heroin and cocaine to nicotine and alcohol. They key is to be motivated and prepared to deal with the early difficult symptoms of quitting and watching the rewards that will follow when they have kicked their nicotine addiction.