[Avodah] Smoking Addiction?

[Zev Sero]

Cantor Wolberg wrote:

> I have seen very frum smokers who claim that they are addicted and 
> cannot stop.
> Then, like magic, as soon as Shabbos arrives, they put down the 
> cigarettes (which, of course, are also muktzeh) and until
> havdalah, they don't take a puff.  If they were so addicted, how is it 
> that they could immediately stop for 25+ hours.

They do not claim this, it is true.  Addiction is a poorly understood
phenomenon.  It is certainly not completely chemical.  The mind plays
a huge role in it, in ways that are not well understood.  There were
very many US soldiers who in Vietnam constantly used all sorts of drugs,
and yet as soon as they came back to the USA they quit immediately
without help of any kind.  The change in circumstances was enough to
change their behaviour.  There were others, of course,  who did not find
it so easy.

At any rate, for someone like my zeideh a"h, it is the simple truth
that during the week he found it impossible to give up smoking, but
on Shabbos not only didn't he smoke, but he said that he didn't even
miss it.

-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher