Hello Sidney, Thanks for your message. You’re making many valid points but I’m afraid I still see it differently. Nicotine doesn’t allow to ‘deal with situations, people and oneself’. A few minutes after you’ve finished your cigarette the nicotine level in your blood starts slowly decreasing until it reaches a level where you get a craving. If you are stressed and you have a cigarette, all you are getting relief from is the craving, not the stress. You are, however, feeling somewhat better and you wrongly make the association Nicotine = Stress Relief. In reality smoking doesn’t do anything to lower your stress level, otherwise you’d have a world of relaxed smokers and very stressed non-smokers, wouldn’t you? As for my reasons of quitting, you are right. Until I was told that I had to quit, I didn’t. Many times I expressed the wish to stop smoking but I didn’t even try. And why was that? Because of all the stories I’ve heard about how horrifyingly difficult it was to stop, how crippling the cravings were, how totally hopeless the whole thing was. Then, when I did it, I was rather surprised to find out that it was hard but not as shockingly evil as some people made it. I am not belittling the effort and energy required to stop smoking (you quoted me wrong as I never said it was ‘so easy’). I am simply saying that with a bit of determination - and much, much less drama - it can be done. And people do it all the times. People that achieve their goals know very well that positive reaffirmation (I can do it!) works much better than self-doubt (oh, I don’t know, they say it’s so hard, I don’t think I can do it, I’m a squid after all). Finally, I don’t know how many people I have helped quit with my positive, can-do attitude. Probably only two, but then again most of the people I know aren’t morons like me and never started smoking in the first place!