Dr. James H. Berry, DO, medical director of Chestnut Ridge Inpatient Acute Dual Diagnosis Program and assistant professor at the West Virginia Health Science Center's Department of Behavioral Medicine and Psychiatry, answers a few short questions for smokers.

Let's say you want some extra boost to your willpower, but you're not interested in getting medicated. You know there is a growing interest in vitamins and dietary supplements for all types of benefits. Shouldn't there be something natural that can help? Perhaps there is.

Addicts under the addictive spell of smoking always have a reason or an excuse to smoke, whether these make sense or not. The real question is whether they truly believe their lives will be better if they free themselves from the familiar thrall that smoking reliably provides them.

I was once addicted to a game -- Pac Man. Most evenings, and sometimes even during the day, I would repair to the mall to play that game in an arcade.

Although clinical trials show nicotine replacement therapy patients do better at quitting cigarettes, surveys of smokers who have quit or tried to quit typically do not find any advantage for those who rely on NRT.

Each year, nearly 450,000 Americans die from smoking related illnesses. So why do smokers continue to light up when statistics like these make it clear that they should quit?

Addicted smokers are unlikely to ever become recreational smokers, as much as they wish they could. The wish to "just have one" is a wish that, for most addicts who successfully quit their drug, must remain unfulfilled.

Tobacco use is the greatest preventable cause of death and medical disability in the United States. Tobacco kills no more than heart disease or cancer; however its deadly impact is preventable.

Most people who are addicted to smoking need help to quit. There are programs to help, but unfortunately many are not getting the help they need because health insurance plans don't cover treatments.