Some drugs, I think, are generally acknowledged to have much greater addictive characteristics than others, heroin and crack ranking right up there.

Possibly the most addictive being nicotine.

A friend of mine used to be a serious cocaine addict. Serious is his word: he said he was using about twice as much cocaine as a typical addict, this in Southern Florida where there is a lot if it floating around. One morning he woke up more dead than alive, no idea where he was, how he got there or what he had done the night before, and decided "This stuff is gonna kill me. I quit." And he quit cold turkey -- never touched the stuff again.

A few years later he met the woman he decided on the spot that he wanted to marry. Asked her out on a date. She told him that "...I don't think I could date somebody who smoked." He took his cigarettes, crumpled them up and pitched them in the trash, said "OK. I just quit." He never touched tobacco again -- and married the woman, too.

The interesting thing is, when he told me this story, he said, "Kicking the cocaine was easy compared to giving up tobacco. I am still addicted to nicotine -- I just don't use it any more."

tanstaafl.