[Mark1150]

Here is a quiz on how addicted you are to nicotine:

A Yes response to any of the questions means you are already addicted
to cigarettes. The number of Yes responses indicates how dependent you
are on them.
1. Have you ever tried to quit smoking, but couldn’t?
2. Do you smoke now because it is really hard to quit?
3. Have you ever felt like you were addicted to tobacco?
4. Do you ever have strong cravings to smoke?
5. Have you ever felt like you really needed a cigarette?
6. Is it hard to keep from smoking in places where you are not
supposed to, like school?
When you tried to stop smoking (or, when you haven’t used tobacco for a while):
7. Did you find it hard to concentrate because you couldn’t smoke?
8. Did you feel more irritable because you couldn’t smoke?
9. Did you feel a strong need or urge to smoke?
10. Did you feel nervous, restless, or anxious because you
couldn’t smoke?

Many of you started smoking when you were in school. Here is some information on studies of nicotine's addictive power.

Studies find that one cigarette is all it takes to show nicotine addiction.
Studies on a cohort of 7th graders found that every symptom on 10 questions had been experienced by at least one young person within weeks of starting to smoke, sometimes after the first cigarette. These results have been replicated many times. Three New Zealand national surveys involving 25,722 adolescent smokers who used this checklist revealed addiction in 25% to 30% of young people who had smoked their one and only cigarette during the preceding month. In another study using Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV criteria, 35% of young people who
had symptoms of dependence had been smoking for one month or less when the first symptom appeared.

How does your experience compare with the studies mentioned above?