I smoke about once every month or two. Sometimes a cigarette, sometimes a cigar and sometimes in the winter a pipe. If it is as addictive as they claim, it has yet to show. I have no feeling of "needing" to smoke. I do it because it is a very enjoyable experience.
I feel as though the addiction springs from the person and not the drug, just as some people are addicted to gambling or facebook or video games. Some people just get addicted to anything that once gave them a positive emotion.
Are you challenging the notion that cigarettes are addictive? I can't imagine this was your point. If you would like, I will provide evidence citing that cigarettes are, in fact, very addictive.
Edit: well you edited your comment twice since my reply, so I'll be right back with some information for you.
I vaped unflavored nicotine for about 2 years. Intermittent at first, heavy daily use during the second year, equivalent to a pack of cigarettes per day or more. I quit because enjoyment decreased to the point where it was no longer worth the hassle.
I experienced zero addiction for the first three months, and even after the full two years addiction was mild. I reduced my dose gradually over two weeks. There were no physical withdrawal symptoms, and only minor craving which went away after a few months abstinence. I'm no expert on heroin addiction, but I find it hard to believe it's equal to nicotine. Perhaps whole tobacco would be different.
No, the difference is, at least from what I've seen (am not sure if the research supports this, but it would be interesting if it did not), some people (like myself) seem to be more susceptible to smoking addiction than others. I know quite a few people who have no trouble smoking intermittently, with months in between, and then quitting with hardly any effort. Maybe they just have more resolve or willpower, but I've seen them smoke more than enough to "catch" the addiction like I did, then stop, never really getting stuck into a daily habit. Yes I'm jealous :) On the other hand, I don't want to smoke just "occasionally" either, I just want to quit.
> I feel as though the addiction springs from the person and not the drug
It springs from the interaction between the two; different drugs have different addictive qualities, different people have different susceptibilities to those addictive qualities. Individual extreme outliers -- in both the more easily addicted and less easily addicted directions -- for any particular drug are to be expected, and don't disprove the general feature.
> I feel as though the addiction springs from the person and not the drug
The only people who claim that are ones who haven't been addicted to cigarettes :-)
If you're only smoking once a month, the nicotine isn't building up enough to make withdrawal a problem. I'm not even sure there's enough nicotine in one cigarette that you would notice any withdrawal symptoms. And in a month, the nicotine from the previous cigarette is long gone.
Besides that, the hardest part of quitting is getting rid of the habits around it, and if you're only smoking once a month, you're not forming any habits. Try smoking a cigarette with your coffee first thing every morning for 6 months, and see if you still believe it's not addictive :-/
That said, I'm sure the strength of the effect can vary from person to person.
Smoke a pack of cigarettes over the course of a few weeks, and then pay close attention to your body the first week you stop. You WILL crave cigarettes during that week. That is the feeling of physiological dependence. The pack of cigarettes has affected your body in ways you can't control. It isn't a "personality" thing (like other addictions which are purely psychological). Although, obviously, people will react differently to this subsequent craving, and will have different levels of strength in resisting it, if they desire to do so.
I do agree with you that the occasional cigarette can be very pleasurable.
Well, you can control it by not smoking for a week or so. Admittedly I don't know of any proper studies, but I have always heard rules of thumb around 1 to 2 weeks. For myself it was about a week, and not really that bad of a week compared to what I expected.
I feel as though the addiction springs from the person and not the drug, just as some people are addicted to gambling or facebook or video games. Some people just get addicted to anything that once gave them a positive emotion.