If you think smokeless tobacco is "up to snuff" and safe, think again. Whatever it is called - spitting, dipping or chewing - it is every bit as dangerous as smoking. A lot of medical professionals believe more so because people are unaware of the dangers. Cancers of the lips, tongue, mouth and throat can rapidly grow in people who use smokeless tobacco and leave debilitating and grotesque - even lethal - results.

Despite the dangerous and painful consequences of smokeless tobacco, quitting with usual methods remains very demanding. A lot of people think the reason lies in nicotine, a natural, super toxic element found in tobacco that is the plant's defense against being eaten by insects. Judging equal quantities, nicotine is more lethal than snake venom or strychnine, and three times more lethal than arsenic.

When dipping, the nicotine travels to the brain in less than 10 seconds, where it produces a flood of dopamine, resulting in a soothing feeling. Nicotine also promotes adrenaline production, so it both energizes and calms. However, the mental element of smokeless tobacco addiction is much stronger and leads to far more obstacles to quitting smokeless tobacco than nicotine.

A lot of users took their first chew as early as nine years old. In as little as a few months, using smokeless tobacco becomes a fixed habit that delivers reliable stress relief. In addition to the psychological conditioning, a social conditioning takes place, as images of many sports celebrities dipping also attract young users.

Knowing that there are individual emotional and physical reasons that play a role in a chewing habit makes it easier to develop a plan to prevail smokeless tobacco addiction. Let's look at each component separately and look at effective methods to curb them.

Dipping for Relaxation and Pleasure: Just like using a pacifier to soothe an anxious infant, over time, people who use tobacco products begin to associate putting an object in their mouths with relaxation and satisfaction. Curbing the effects of tobacco usage involves addressing all aspects of the addiction.

Dipping Tobacco is a Conditioned Response: The classic case in point of a conditioned response relates to Pavlov and his dogs, which were trained to anticipate food - and thus began salivating - when a bell was rung. In relation, if, for example, you always chew tobacco after each meal, you will consequently have a craving to chew when you get finished eating.

In your mind, the images of folding the napkin and pushing the play away may be connected to using snuff, even if you are not conscious of it. Becoming aware of the trigger images or situations can help you overcome cravings.

The Physical Addiction to Nicotine, But ! : In spite of the intense addiction, medical professionals maintain that the physical component of nicotine addiction is broken after people quit using tobacco for a week. It's my solid belief that nicotine addiction comprises a mere 10 percent of smokeless tobacco dependency. Therefore, 90 percent of the battle to quit dipping is overcoming the mental and emotional components. So what does this mean for people like you who wish to quit?

Quitting becomes much more feasible if you can:

A. Deal with and eliminate the tension or anxiety that compels you to use smokeless tobacco B. Cancel the conditioned responses to chew in certain situations

But how does one surmount those issues?

Self-hypnosis offers a way to address the emotional and psychological components of the addiction while eliminating difficulties, which will eliminate the withdrawal symptoms. When we comprehend how self-hypnosis works, it makes the decision to quit dipping much easier to assume.

When people dip for relaxation and pleasure, it's to quiet feelings of stress. People often play the same images over in their minds, like a bad movie, which leaves them feeling anxious and tense. Using self-hypnosis and different Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques, you retrain your brain to instantaneously and naturally stop stress-inducing images and substitute them with soothing images and mental movies. This creates relaxation and satisfaction while eradicating cravings and oral compulsions. You lose the impulse to put the chew in your mouth, and you don't get any urge to substitute food in its place. This suppresses weight gain.

In order to combat the conditioned response of chewing smokeless tobacco, the NLP Flash technique erases the associations of dipping during certain activities or situations. This means your subconscious won't trigger the craving. Further, the Flash can even be used to create a compulsion to deny smokeless tobacco.

Employing specific and strategic NLP procedures makes the decision to quit dipping easy and painless by sidestepping withdrawal symptoms, cravings and weight gain. The method depends on training the unconscious mind to adhere to the same thought patterns that produce your mental addiction to smokeless tobacco in the first place, to eliminate the habit.

Your brain is a powerful toolfar more powerful than an addiction. With commitment and the help of self-hypnosis and NLP, you can quit smokeless tobacco forever.