underlying void or deficiency of some sort. What is really missing in our lives that we continue to desire
substitutes? This question is impossible to answer in this context due to a vast number of possible
answers, many of which may only be known by the addict himself. But the need to smoke can become
very useful in as much as it can reveal and actually overcome this inner lack, whatever it may be.
Instead of criticizing or judging yourself for giving your power to a habit that has the potential to make
you ill or kill you, you can learn a great deal from it and make yourself feel complete again. Because you
may not be able to understand the underlying message that smoking entails, you tend to resign yourself to
the expectation that quitting the habit is a difficult and frustrating task. Yet smoking can make you aware
that you are no longer completely in control of your life, and even offer you a way to reclaim that control.
The excuse that “I cannot give up smoking because...” is an unconscious recognition that I am a
victim of some kind, and that I am suffering from low self worth. There is a part of me that I consider
weak and inadequate. A part of me is not alive and well. The act of smoking makes me admit in a way
that my desire for a cigarette is greater than my desire to stay healthy or, in other words, to love myself. It
is very difficult to give up smoking or other addictions for as long as I preserve this underlying weakness,
projected by such exclamations as “I can’t give it up,” or “I go crazy if I don’t have my cigarettes.”
Learning To Recover Your Free Will
Similar to using a thorn to pull out another thorn, learning to give up the habit of smoking may be one
of the most effective ways to uproot any underlying incompetence and dependency in your life. By
suppressing or fighting the habitual desire to smoke, you merely feed it with more of your own energies.
This all but increases the addiction. Desires want to be fulfilled, or at least we should be able to decide
whether we want to fulfill them or not. The addiction to smoking, which reflects a lack in inner
competence and completeness, can actually become a very effective method to fill you up again and
regain conscious control over your life. How come? Smoking is not the problem you need to combat. Just
seeing smoking as an addiction that may have horrible consequences is a depressing notion, and fighting
it doesn’t raise your self-esteem. Even if you succeed in quitting this habit, you still haven’t regained your
inner sense of freedom and are likely to develop an addiction to something else, like eating sweets,
drinking alcohol or having sex. Instead of waging a war against your anxiety or poor self-confidence, all
you need to do is increase that sense of inner freedom to make your own choices in life.
If understood and dealt with properly, smoking can be one of the most important things that has ever
happened to you. It can lead you to adopt an entirely new way of thinking, thus reshaping your destiny. If
you are a smoker and wish to give up the habit, you first need to understand that your addiction is not an
accidental mistake you made during one of your lower moments in life. You have created this habit not to
suffer because of it, but to learn from it. It is likely to stay with you or change into another addictive habit
until that day when you will have acquired the ability to refer all power of fulfilling your desires back to
yourself. Giving up smoking is not about quitting one addictive habit just to adopt another one; it is about
recovering your sense of free will.
To use one’s willpower to fight an undesirable habit is defeating its purpose and likely to backfire
because fighting something is based on the premise that you are being attacked or in some sort of danger.
With what we know today about the powerful mind/body connection, the fear that underlies the fight
against an addiction is enough to keep the cells of the body jittery, anxious and dysfunctional. They can
never find the peace, balance, and energy they need in order to be “happy” cells for as long as the fear of
not being in control prevails in the awareness of their master. The enzyme-based messages that cells are
sending to the brain and heart are simple cries for help. The host interprets these signals, though, as
depression and nervousness. To “overcome” the discomfort, at least for a few moments, the host feels