Chapter 7

Addictive personality theory

IN THIS CHAPTER

• A Convenient Excuse • Smokers Who Fail To Escape • Degrees Of Addiction • Lies, Damned Lies, And Statistics • Effect Not Cause

The addictive personality theory is just that – a theory. The belief that some people are more prone to addiction than others because of the way they’re made stems from looking at the situation from the wrong perspective. The traits shared by addicts are not the cause of their addiction: they are the result.

A CONVENIENT EXCUSE

We’re agreed that there is a complete absence of logic in filling your lungs with poisonous fumes. This is why smokers are constantly making feeble excuses to justify why they do it:

‘It helps me relax.’

‘I have a lot of stress at the moment. I’ll stop when things get easier.’

‘It’s my life. I’m allowed one little indulgence.’

We’ve established that all these excuses are founded on the myth that smoking provides some sort of pleasure or crutch. But even when all the usual excuses have been shot down in flames and it’s pointed out that their real reason for smoking is nicotine addiction, there is one last desperate

plea that some smokers fall back on to justify their decision not to tackle their addiction.

‘I have an addictive personality’

They’ve been led to believe that there’s something in their genetic make-up that makes them more susceptible than most people to becoming hooked, and this makes it harder for them to escape. It suits them to believe this. It’s a convenient excuse, but not one that will do them any good. Believe in the theory of the addictive personality and all you do is ensure that you remain forever trapped.

Sadly, their misconception is backed up by a number of so-called ‘experts’, who support the theory of the addictive personality. The term is bandied about so often that it’s easy to be fooled into believing it’s an established condition. It is not. It’s a theory, largely based on the fact that a number of addicts are addicted to more than one thing, e.g. drinkers who are also smokers or gamblers, or heroin addicts who smoke and are heavily in debt.

But all addictions involve the same kind of trap, so it’s obvious that someone who is susceptible to one addiction will be susceptible to others. It’s nothing to do with genetics; it’s all to do with not understanding the trap and believing the myth that these things give you a genuine pleasure or crutch. Remember:

The misery of addiction is not relieved by the thing you are addicted to – it’s caused by it

SMOKERS WHO FAIL TO ESCAPE

The fear of success drives smokers to seek reasons to avoid even trying to quit. The addictive personality theory gives them the

perfect excuse. If you think you have an addictive personality, you will regard quitting as an impossible task. ‘How can I override my own genetic make-up?’ This illusion can also be reinforced by your failed attempts to quit by using willpower.

It is further confirmed by people who have quit by using the willpower method and are feeling deprived because they still believe they’re making a sacrifice – the braggers and whiners we covered earlier. If they’ve abstained for years and are still craving their little crutch, and we’ve established that it’s nothing to do with willpower, it’s tempting to believe that there must be some flaw in their genetic make-up which keeps drawing them back.

But there is another explanation.

They’ve been conned

Braggers and whiners are still labouring under the illusion that they are making a genuine sacrifice. Their willpower is pulling them in opposite directions: they desperately want to satisfy their craving, yet they desperately want to be a non-smoker too. They are caught up in the tug-of-war of fear and eventually they lose – all because of an illusion.

We’ve established that you are not ‘giving up’ anything. This gives you an enormous advantage over the braggers and whiners. Make sure you’re not fooled by the illusion that keeps them in the trap.

Pleading an addictive personality is just another excuse for doing something that you know is completely illogical. You don’t want to stay enslaved by the Big Monster, with all the fear, misery and sickness that goes with it. That’s why you’re reading this book. You have made the decision to escape and you are well on the way to doing just that

.

Escape is easy, provided that you keep an open mind. If you cling to the excuse that you have an addictive personality, it means your mind is not open and you risk sentencing yourself to remaining enslaved for the rest of your life.

When you keep trying and failing to quit, you end up feeling stupid and helpless. Putting your addiction down to a flaw in your personality can appear to be the rational explanation you need. With Easyway, you discover the real explanation. The spread of misinformation is so relentless that anybody can be conned, and most people are to some extent, even non-smokers. You weren’t stupid to get hooked and neither were the millions of other smokers. Nor are you stupid or weak for being unable to quit. You’ve just been following the wrong method.

Once you see the true picture of how addiction works, the illusions disappear, and you realize that you are complete without your little crutch. With it, you are a slave.

DEGREES OF ADDICTION

So why do some people fall deeper into the trap than others? Why can one person have the occasional cigarette, while another ends up puffing their way through 60 a day? Doesn’t that suggest that one is more prone to addiction than the other?

Well, yes, it does, but why should that have anything to do with their personality? There are numerous differences between people that can explain why one is prone to smoking more than another. All the people who are reading this book right now will smoke different amounts due to different circumstances, such as money and opportunity, but all of you feel the same way about smoking and are trying to find the same solution.

The first experience of smoking is revolting. For some people, that’s enough to put them off ever smoking again. Others see it as

a challenge that must be surmounted if they are to earn respect, and make a point of smoking as much as they can. And there are some who can’t afford to smoke more than a few cigarettes a day.

Our behaviour is largely affected by the influences we are subjected to as we grow up: different parents, teachers, friends, things we read, watch and listen to, places we go, people we meet, etc.

All these factors will have a bearing on how quickly we descend into the trap and they vary for everybody. But they are all controllable and reversible. They have nothing to do with genetics or anything fixed in our personality. Be quite clear:

Anybody can fall into the smoking trap. And anybody can escape just as easily

LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND STATISTICS

Addiction is a lonely place. Despite the knowledge that millions of people in the world are suffering from the same addiction, smokers and other addicts all think their own problem is unique to them. When you come out of your cocoon and speak to people about your problems and discover they are experiencing, or have experienced, exactly what you are going through, then you begin to see that addiction is not a weakness in the individual but a weakness in the society that brainwashes individuals into the trap.

Next time you have to go outside to smoke, pay attention to the other smokers out there with you. Birds of a feather flock together and smokers certainly appear to be flocking when you see them huddled together in the rain outside their workplaces, ‘enjoying’ a cigarette

.

As a smoker, there is a sense that you’re a different breed from everyone else. You appear to share similar character traits with other smokers and you feel more comfortable in their company.

The temptation is to believe that these traits are evidence of a shared personality – an addictive personality that led you to become a smoker. The reality is that they are the result of smoking.

The reason addicts feel more comfortable in the company of similar addicts is not because they’re more interesting or fun; on the contrary, the attraction lies in the very fact that they won’t challenge you or make you think twice about your addiction because they’re in the same boat. All addicts know that they’re doing something stupid and self-destructive. If you’re surrounded by other people doing the same thing, you don’t feel quite so foolish.

The good news is that once you’re free from the addiction, you also get free from the harmful effect it has on your character.

The belief that you were doomed from birth to be a smoker will be self-fulfilling if you allow it to remain in your mind. Think about it logically. The addictive personality theory is based on statistics, but if you examine the statistics closely, they make the likelihood of an addictive gene appear far-fetched.

If there were an addictive gene, you would expect the percentage of addicts in the world to have remained fairly constant throughout history. Yet in less than a century, the incidence of nicotine addiction has changed dramatically.

In the 1940s around 80 per cent of the US adult male population were smokers; today it’s less than 16 per cent. A similar trend is evident throughout most of Western Europe and Australasia. So are we to conclude that the proportion of people with addictive personalities has fallen by 64 per cent in just over half a century? That’s a major genetic shift in humankind!

At the same time, the number of smokers in Asia has soared.

What complex genetic anomaly is this that rises and falls so rapidly, and even appears to transfer itself wholesale from one continent to another?

It doesn’t really matter if you believe you have an addictive personality or gene anyway – the fact is that it is easy to get free just as long as you know how, regardless of whether you have an addictive personality or gene or not.

EFFECT NOT CAUSE

It’s essential you understand that you didn’t become addicted to nicotine because you have an addictive personality. If you think you have an addictive personality, it’s simply because you got addicted to nicotine.

This is the trick that addiction plays on you. It makes you feel you’re dependent on your addiction and that there’s some weakness in your character or genetic make-up. It distorts your perceptions and thereby maintains its grip on you.

The addictive personality theory encourages the belief that escape is out of your hands and you are condemned to a life of slavery and misery. Remember, you didn’t feel the need or desire to smoke until you started smoking. It was smoking that created the addiction, not the other way around.

When you finish this book, the misery and slavery of nicotine addiction will be behind you. Once you have stripped away all the illusions and can see the situation in its true light without any doubts whatsoever, you’ll wonder how you were ever conned into seeing it differently. But like millions of people around the world, you have been the victim of an ingenious trap. Recognize the trap for what it is, dismiss the idea of a flaw in your personality, and you will be ready to walk free.

Just keep an open mind and keep following all the instructions.