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If you think smokeless tobacco is "up to snuff" and safe, think again. Whatever you call it - dipping, chewing or spitting - it is every bit as dangerous as smoking. A lot of doctors judge more so because users are less aware of the threats. Cancers of the mouth, lips, tongue and throat can rapidly grow in people who use smokeless tobacco and cause debilitating and grotesque - even lethal - results.

Even with the dangerous and painful consequences of smokeless tobacco, quitting with traditional means is extremely difficult. A lot of people believe the reason lies in nicotine, a natural, super toxic substance found in tobacco that is the plant's guard to prevent being eaten by insects. Measuring equal quantities, nicotine is more lethal than strychnine or snake venom, and three times more lethal than arsenic.

When dipping, the nicotine makes its way to the brain in under 10 seconds, where it creates a flood of dopamine, which brings about a relaxing feeling. Nicotine also stimulates adrenaline production, so it both energizes and calms. However, the mental element of smokeless tobacco addiction is much stronger and produces many more challenges to quitting smokeless tobacco than nicotine.

A lot of users had their first chew as young as nine years old. In just a few months, using smokeless tobacco becomes an ingrained habit that yields reliable stress relief. In addition to the psychological conditioning, a social conditioning occurs, as images of many sports celebrities dipping also attract young users.

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

Dipping for Relaxation and Pleasure: Just like using a pacifier to appease a restless baby, over the course of time, people who use tobacco products start to associate putting an object in their mouths with relaxation and satisfaction. Curbing the effects of tobacco usage involves addressing all components of the addiction.

Tobacco Dipping is a Conditioned Response: The classic illustration 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 use chewing tobacco after each meal, you will consequently develop a craving to chew when you finish 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 conquer cravings.

The Physical Addiction to Nicotine, But ! : Despite the intense addiction, medical professionals say that the physical component of nicotine addiction is quelled after people quit using tobacco for seven days. It's my firm belief that nicotine addiction comprises a scant 10 percent of smokeless tobacco dependency. As such, 90 percent of the fight to quit dipping involves overcoming the mental and emotional components. So what does this mean for people like you who want to quit?

Quitting becomes much more feasible if you are able to:

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

But how does a person surmount those issues?

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

When people dip for relaxation and pleasure, it's to calm anxious feelings. People often play the same images over in their heads, like a bad film, which leaves them feeling anxious and tense. Using self-hypnosis and various Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) techniques, you retrain your brain to immediately and automatically stop stress-inducing images and substitute them with calming pictures and mental movies. This creates relaxation and satisfaction while reducing cravings and oral compulsions. You shake the impulse to put the chew in your mouth, and you don't get any urge to substitute food in its place. This quells weight gain.

To resist the conditioned response of chewing smokeless tobacco, the NLP Flash technique removes the associations of dipping during certain activities or situations. This means your subconscious will no longer trigger the compulsion. Further, the Flash can even be used to create a compulsion to reject smokeless tobacco.

Using specific and strategic NLP techniques makes the decision to quit dipping very easy and painless by sidestepping cravings, withdrawal and weight gain. The process involves training the unconscious mind to adhere to the same thought patterns that create your mental addiction to smokeless tobacco in the first place, to eliminate the addiction.

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

Alan B. Densky, CH is a leader in the use of hypnotherapy stop smoking methods. He now offers a powerful Stop Dipping Tobacco program based on the same methods. See more at his Neuro-VISION self hypnosis site where you can enjoy Free NLP videos and articles.