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Self-Test for Denial of Lifestyle Risks to Health 

Nicotine Smoking (Chewing, Dipping, Patching), Other Dependencies, Chronic Psychological Stress, Overeating/Excess Body Weight

Important: Although created to help adults dependent on nicotine, this assessment is of equal value to people who no longer or never used it. The same health risk denial that disables and destroys cigarette smokers threatens adults with other addictions or dangerous levels of stress or body fat.

This test for the health-risking defensiveness commonly called 'denial' is a recent addition to this author's list of health-improving, wellness-promoting assessments. Please keep in mind that no results of such testing tell absolute facts. They indicate important possibilities for you to consider.

Truthful Statements

Based on his 40 years of first-hand clinical health care experience and study done when hardly anyone else was doing something similar, the author of the program Nicotine Dependence Relief and Recovery is entirely convinced that the following statements are true. Please read all of them before going further.

1. The addicting substance, nicotine, in cigarettes, dip and chew is a naturally occurring insecticide used to kill both insects and animals. Any poison at all is too much and no matter the source or how it's taken. That includes 'nicotine replacement therapy' products such as nicotine patches and nicotine gum.
2. People don't puff on cigarettes; they suck cigarettes. Puffing is blowing as in, 'I'll huff and puff and blow your house down.' Puffing seems more agreeable and so less health-risky than sucking (inhaling).
3. Regular practice breathing the reverse of how people breathe when sucking cigarettes has a comforting effect that reverses interest in smoking (dipping, chewing).
4. Psychological stress contributes but is NOT the basic or root cause that makes people smoke (dip, chew) or do more of it. If it was, they wouldn't smoke almost as much when the opposite of stressed . . . for example, out socializing with friends.
5. What basically makes people smoke (dip, chew) enough to harm themselves and others is nicotine addiction. That consists somewhat of a physical need that causes craving nicotine and some habitual behaviors but consists primarily of a few false ideas people have and don't realize they do when those 'nicotine notions' are thought and hurt them by blocking motivation to become and remain abstinent, completely free of nicotine. Only the presence and persistence of those not-smokers'-fault nicotine notions can reasonably explain ex smokers so often relapsing days, weeks and even months after physical need for the drug has ended.
6. A common spice called 'clove' has something non harmful in it that when regularly tasted reduces the craving for nicotine and excess appetite.
7. The portion of the human brain that helps make better decisions and avoids needless risks isn't sufficiently formed until we're in our mid 20's. It is another part of the brain and some of the ideas, nicotine notions, associated with it that keep people sucking, dipping, chewing insecticide (nicotine) and get them to go back to using it. That part is more 'primitive' (much less directed by experience) and sometimes makes adults act more like teenagers. That is the basic reason hardly anyone begins (takes the very first drag, dip, chew) after the age of 25. The few who do almost never continue.
8. It is important to avoid thinking of smoking (dipping, chewing) as a habit . . . even as a bad habit. The smoking people confuse with and call 'habit' is addiction. Besides, most behaviors we call habits are useful such as carrying car keys in the same place. Thinking of nicotine use as a habit makes it seem less important to get and stay rid of and so blocks the required strong desire or motivation.
9. Adults unintentionally and unknowingly, in a way, hypnotize themselves into believing smoking (dipping, chewing) helps, when it doesn't, by repeatedly telling themselves that it does help. 
10. 'Stopping' is NOT a meaningful measure of success. (A popular writer used to say that stopping smoking was very easy. It was so easy that he stopped every day.) Being unwilling to smoke cigarettes (dip, chew) even when tempted to and without substituting anything unhealthy (eating junk food, for instance) is the measure of success that counts.
11. To be successful staying free of nicotine it's important to avoid just as much as possible talking or discussions about smoking (dipping, chewing) and subjects related to it for at least the first three weeks after getting rid of cigarettes, dip or chew. The exception is talking to a health care professional offering assistance.
12. The truth is that no one smokes enough cigarettes to do significant harm unless he or she is addicted to the drug, nicotine. Addiction is the root cause of ongoing and occasional but heavier (binge) smoking. Smokers need and deserve to be offered help with that root cause and almost never are. The reason is that non smokers, those who might offer or support offering addiction-appropriate help, are as much in denial about causation as people who smoke.

Rate How Different or New and Believable to You

A. Now, please answer this question. Overall, how new to you or different from what you've seen and heard before, discovered and told by some other source, were those statements?

Lump together and average those statements on a scale from one (1) to seven (7) . . . with seven (7) being essentially new or different. You haven't seen or heard them originating from (uncovered and told by) someone other than the author of this test. A rating of one (1) means there's essentially no difference. You've seen or heard all of them. And they were discovered and said by another source. Of course, feel free to choose a number between one (1) and seven (7).