I'm just a social smoker, yet my husband is convinced I'm addicted to nicotine. How can I tell?

In general, you are probably addicted to nicotine if you experience nicotine withdrawal symptoms whenever you have not been smoking for more than 20 minutes. The symptoms usually start out mild and get more severe, peaking within 2 or 3 days. The initial, more mild symptoms may include a growing craving to smoking with increasing obsessive thinking about smoking, headaches, hypersensitivity, sweating, sleep disturbances, or increased appetite with cravings for carbohydrates and sweets. The more severe withdrawal symptoms include phlegm production with heavy coughing, fatigue, anxiety, depression, muscle aches and cramps, constipation or diarrhea, nausea, impaired performance, or weight gain.

By using a general rule of thumb, you can "guesstimate" whether or not you are actually drug dependent or only habit dependent:

• You are probably not actually addicted to the drug, nicotine, if you smoke five or less cigarettes each day.
• You are possibly addicted to nicotine if you smoke ten or more cigarettes each day.
• You are probably addicted to nicotine if you smoke between fifteen to twenty cigarettes each day.

Even though you may not be drug addicted to smoking, you may still be heavily attached to the mood management that cigarettes give to you, as well as the soothing effects of the habit and the way that it occupies your hands and thoughts. Being physically addicted to nicotine is only one aspect of smoking dependency. There are other chemicals in the smoke of tobacco that affect chemicals in the brain besides nicotine, and these effects are very pleasurable as well. Your quitting plan should include ideas about how to cope with the habit changes as well as your nicotine addiction.