I never understood the residential treatment programs that will force an addict to quit smoking and or caffeine as well as drugs//alcohol.
I dont smoke but I do enjoy a soda when I wake up in the morning and usually one at lunch and dinner. I am not going to overdose one day because I drank to strong of a coca-cola.
My view on this subject (being a former addict) is that it was hard enough for me to quit shooting dope, I dont know how harder it would have been had I not been able to drink soda as well. Probably would have left me very irritated and uncomfortable. I also know, from viewing others in my treatment stays, that they all looked forward to their smoke breaks like it was a little vacation.
It helped them relieve stress, a means to unwind from dealing with all the new feelings and discoveries they were making during sessions. Think of it like this, if you get admitted into the ER room with a fatal gunshot wound(the drug addiction) as well as a broken finger(caffeine + nicotine addiction), what would you rather your doctor do? Concentrate and use all his skill and intelligence on the possibly fatal gunshot wound AND then after that is complete worry about the broken finger. Or, would you like him to split his efforts in half and work on both the finger and gunshot wound simultaneously and possibly risk screwing up and failing.
Im not saying to keep smoking 2 packs a day and chugging 8 cups of coffee a day. There is just a much more sense of urgency to quit the drugs and alcohol than there is the caffeine and nicotine. He can worry about that stuff later on down the road when he has a handle on his drug affliction. If he needs it as crutch right now to help him stop the REAL dangerous chemicals...so be it.
hope that helped some ~~ Scott
p.s is he entering CARP or DAF by any chance?? I have some experience with the latter.