I bought your book some two weeks ago, and already I have smoked my last cigarette. I won't ever smoke again. While using your book I made some discoveries about myself and about how addictions work and I thought I should share them with you, since it was your book that brought me to these discoveries and they might be useful to others.

When I started to analyze my behavior and its imagined payoffs it seemed to me that the there was a spiritual component to it beside the chemical and habitual. Before this I had thought that it was a matter of chemical addiction or psychological factors triggering habitual responses though now I see that there is more to it. Or rather, the psychology of addiction is more profound than I first thought.

We are all in search of something, though we are rarely aware of it. Some would call it God or Nirvana, in psychology its usually considered to be a desire to be back in the womb, to once again be one with or mommies. The drug addict is searching for the wonderful first high, as if he could find what he needs in a chemical. Some search in sex, others lead their lives by the book so they don't have to think. We do it all to escape from a feeling hidden deep in our consciousness, a feeling that is very painful for most. We feel that we don't belong here, we don't feel at home and we don't feel very welcome.

The fact that we see others smoke makes us believe that they have found it, or at least that there is something to be found. However when we try it our selves we find nothing but nausea. But of course, the path to heaven is a hard one, we think while we set out on another fruitless search. The more we smoke the more we invest in our search. The more we have invested the harder it is to let go. Maybe its the next one, maybe the next cigarette will open the gates of heaven thus the craving for just one more.

As these thoughts came to me the first time, I became aware of this feeling, like a whale swimming beneath the surface of my mind, and I began to meditate and think about it. I accepted that I don't feel like I belong, that inside my mind I am alone, no matter how many good friends I have. There is a proverb in Zen that goes: Accept, adapt and overcome.

Now, whenever I feel the need for a smoke, I just tell my self: Whatever It is that I need, I won't find it in the cigarette. I have all I need inside of me. and it craving disappears. Acceptance is the key.

I hope this makes sense to you, its hard to describe complex matters as these in a foreign language.

Thank you, and good luck with future editions.

Joakim "Jocke" Berntson, Trollhättan, Sweden