there's physiological addiction and there's psychological addiction. the former can be physically debilitating, but sometimes it's just annoying (technically anyone who ever gets a high from nicotine is physiologically addicted--the head rush is relief of withdrawal symptoms). but the latter means you're in a mental state where just quitting isn't so simple.
I'm old enough to have been addicted to things and gotten off of them multiple times in my life, usually nicotine and caffeine. I'll go 3-5 years on then 2-5 years off. Each time I get off I have 2-3 weeks where I'm an absolutely miserable person to be around. The first time I didn't realize it and thought I was just moody or having bad days. The second and beyond times (this is over 3 decades) I was well aware that all of the road rage, short tempers, mood swings, etc I was experiencing were exactly the same as the first time I got off.
There's quite a few comments in here where people are planning to take time off over the holidays to get off nicotine. You may have bounced back with no ill effects but there are a lot of us that don't and are aware of how we act when coming off and don't want to put people we coexist with through that fun.
