Addiction involves an actual biologic physical craving by the cells of your body for the chemical substance nicotine. Nicotine is found only in tobacco in an additive state. The longer and more frequently you use tobacco products in any form, the stronger your addiction becomes. The stronger your addiction becomes, the more intense your withdrawal symptoms are likely to be. Once you are addicted to nicotine, you are always addicted to nicotine. That does not mean that you never get over the withdrawal symptoms; you’ll get over those in a relatively short time and may suffer surprisingly few ill effects.

What it means to be, “Once an addict, always an addict,” is that if you ever indulge yourself in a tobacco product you’ll be immediately “hooked” again and at the same level as you were when you quit. It is very important that you realize this. If you smoked two packs a day, and you quit for twenty or more years, and you try a smoke twenty or more years from now, within a day or two of that first smoke you will probably be back to two or more packs a day! Your addiction is no different from that of an alcoholic or a hard drug junkie. One drink and an alcoholic will go right back to being a drunk ... one snort and a coke head will go right back to being a hard drug user ... and one smoke, chew or snuff and you’ll be right back to the habit level you just left. That is what addiction means. You are a tobacco addict and you must never forget it! This is not a moral judgment but statement of a physical and biological fact. Addiction will not be a problem for you unless you expose yourself to the ingestion of nicotine at some time in the future.