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and other hard drug addicts are able to control their behavior when internally 

 motivated. So are obese persons and smokers who choose to quit. The difference 

 lies in the difficulty or price each must pay to achieve abstinence. With hard 

 drugs, including alcohol, there is a profound and debilitating intoxication, severe 

 physical and mental withdrawal and most importantly an overwhelming pattern.of 

 preoccupation with drug talcing. In short the entire life of an addict is consumed 

 with obtaining as much of their drug as possible and staying intoxicated. These 

 individuals must make enormous life changes in order to successfully abstain. 

 Their behavior patterns must be drastically altered and their social structure 

 revolutionized in order for them to successfully rehabilitate. Smokers, obese 

 persons, and coffee drinkers do not have the same burden in order to change their 

 behavior. An honest objective assessment of these two groups inevitably results 

 in the conclusion that they are fundamentally different. 



Smokers, coffee drinkers and obese persons share in common similar 

 experiences of pleasure regarding taste, aroma, feel, anticipation and satisfaction, 

 All of these experiences are mediated in the brain and elsewhere in the body at a 

 molecular biochemical level. Psycho-active substances cause some of the pleasure 

 in each of these behaviors. At no time is the user intoxicated, impaired and unable 

 to control his actions. At ail times individuals who are engaged in enjoying these 

 activities can choose to modify them. If they do so, they will predictably 

 experience the loss or alteration of a pleasurable activity but they will not 

 experience detoxification nor will it be necessary for them to radically change their 

 social structure and behavior pattern. This means at no time will this group have 

 to stop their usual daily activities, seek hospitalization, be in life-threatening 

 situations, or experience profound physiological changes in their bodies as a 

 consequence of abstention. This is not to minimize the power of ingrained 

 patterngjof behavior or the experience some people have in changing those 

 behaviors. However, the quantitative and qualitative differences between addicts 

 seeking to quit their addictions, and the second group, seeking to change their 



