Chewing Tobacco - How To Stop The Addiction

Posted by Nick Niesen on October 26th, 2010

If you think smokeless tobacco is "up to snuff" and harmless, think again. Whatever you like to call it - spitting, dipping or chewing - it is every bit as harmful as smoking. The majority of medical researchers judge more so because users are not as aware of the threats. Cancers of the lips, mouth, tongue and throat can swiftly grow in people who use smokeless tobacco and cause grotesque and debilitating - even deadly - results.

Even with the painful and dangerous consequences of smokeless tobacco, quitting with usual methods is very demanding. Many people think the reason lies in nicotine, a natural, super toxic chemical found in tobacco that is the plant's guard against being eaten by bugs. Analyzing equal quantities, nicotine is more deadly than snake venom or strychnine, and three times deadlier than arsenic.

When dipping, the nicotine makes its way to the brain in under 10 seconds, where it creates a flood of dopamine, which brings about a relaxing sensation. Nicotine also increases adrenaline production, so it both energizes and calms. However, the psychological element of smokeless tobacco addiction is much stronger and creates far more impediments to quitting smokeless tobacco than nicotine.

Many users took their first dip as young as nine years old. In as little as a few months, using smokeless tobacco becomes an ingrained habit that produces reliable stress relief. In addition to the psychological conditioning, a social conditioning takes place, as images of many sports celebrities dipping also attract young users.

Knowing that there are individual emotional and physical issues that contribute to a chewing habit makes it easier to create a plan to overcome smokeless tobacco addiction. Let's look at each component separately and look at effective methods to curb them.

Dipping for Relaxation and Pleasure: Just like using a pacifier to soothe an anxious infant, over the course of time, people who use tobacco products begin to associate putting an object in their mouths with satisfaction and relaxation. Curbing the effects of tobacco usage involves addressing all facets of the addiction.

Tobacco Dipping is a Conditioned Response: The classic case in point of a conditioned response relates to Pavlov and his dogs, which were trained to anticipate food - and thus began salivating - when a bell was rung. In relation, if, for example, you always chew tobacco after each meal, you will consequently develop a craving to chew when you get finished eating.

In your mind, the images of pushing the plate away and laying down your napkin may be connected to using snuff, even if you are not conscious of it. Becoming aware of the situations or trigger images can help you defeat cravings.

The Physical Addiction to Nicotine, But ? : Despite the intense addiction, doctors say that the physical part of nicotine addiction is broken after people quit using tobacco for a week. It's my solid belief that nicotine addiction comprises a scant 10 percent of smokeless tobacco dependency. Therefore, 90 percent of the battle to quit dipping is overcoming the emotional and mental components. So what does this mean for people like you who would like to quit?

Quitting becomes much easier if you are able to:

A. Deal with and eliminate the tension or anxiety that compels you to use smokeless tobacco
B. Cancel the conditioned responses to chew in specific settings

But how does a person conquer those issues?

Self-hypnosis offers a way to address the emotional and psychological factors of the addiction while eliminating impediments, which will eliminate the symptoms of withdrawal. When we understand how self-hypnosis works, it makes the decision to quit dipping much easier to assume.

When people dip for relaxation and pleasure, it's to quiet feelings of stress. People often play the same images over in their minds, like a bad video, which leaves them feeling very stressed. Using self-hypnosis and various Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques, you retrain your brain to instantaneously and automatically stop stress-inducing images and replace them with soothing ideas and mental movies. This creates satisfaction and relaxation while eradicating cravings and oral compulsions. You shake the inclination to put the chew in your mouth, and you won't get any desire to substitute food in its place. This controls weight gain.

In order to resist the conditioned response of dipping smokeless tobacco, the NLP Flash technique erases the associations of dipping during certain activities or situations. This means your subconscious will no longer trigger the compulsion. Further, the Flash can even be used to create a compulsion to reject smokeless tobacco.

Drawing on specific and strategic NLP methods makes the decision to stop chewing smokeless tobacco quite easy and painless by averting cravings, withdrawal and weight gain. The process is dependent on training the unconscious mind to adhere to the same thought patterns that produce your mental addiction to smokeless tobacco in the first place, to eliminate the habit.

Your brain is a powerful tool?far more powerful than an addiction. With steadfastness and the aid of self-hypnosis and NLP, you can quit smokeless tobacco forever.

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Nick Niesen

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Nick Niesen
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