Lifeless, powerless.

The point is that the real power or the real pleasure that we believe the cigarette has, does not come from the cigarette ( of course not - it is dead, inanimate material ) but comes from ourselves - from the feelings and beliefs that we have unconsciously attached and linked to cigarettes.

This happens very subtly.......

Your body is fine and complete before you begin to smoke.

You are able to get on with all aspects of your life without giving the slightest thought to cigarettes EVEN if everybody around you, like your parents are smoking.

When you were young did you feel your day was ruined if you could not smoke?

Did you feel nervous, uncomfortable or unable to concentrate because you could not smoke? 

Of course not.

Your life went on perfectly normally as a non-smoker.

 

KEY IDEA

Before you were a smoker, you were able to get on with all aspects of your life without even giving a thought to cigarettes even if everyone around you was smoking.

Then, one day you decide to smoke. To experiment. You force nicotine into your body. 

You smoke. 

Your body responds by either coughing or if you smoke too much by producing physical sensations of sickness or a dizzy feeling. 

This is simply our bodies setting off alarm signals - trying to tell us we are putting an unwelcome poisonous substance into our body.

BUT we ignore it.

We keep on smoking, because deep down..... we are convinced there must be something in it...... and although we will swear that we are not hooked, " I can give up anytime I want - I just don't want to do it now" - we continue on.

But very soon we begin to realize we NEED that next cigarette. 

We get a certain feeling ....... a certain emptiness ........ a desire ......... that we feel a cigarette will fill.

We feel uneasy as if we are lacking something ......... 

We reach for a cigarette - and within seconds, fresh nicotine is supplied and this unexplained hunger or emptiness is filled.

We feel relief and a great pleasure that that empty feeling is gone.