Textual analysis of addictive behavior of cigarettes' smokers undergoing stop smoking treatment

This paper takes as its starting point the following observation : the ques tion of temporality is less present in the scientific literature about addi ction than is the problem of the product. To put to the fore the temporal d imension of tobacco addiction, we performed non-directive interviews with 5 0 cigarette smokers undergoing treatment to stop smoking. We used textual a nalysis, the Alceste software program of textual analysis (Reinert, 1986, 1 992) and four types of semantic levels relative to the notions of time were found : 1) the psycho-environmental context of the introduction to tobacco or the time involved in developing the habit; 2) the loss of choice and th e interiorisation of smoking or the period of becoming hooked; 3) the psych o-pathological context of stopping, and/or re-starting smoking or the perio d of disillusionment and crisis; 4) the psycho-physiological context of smo king or the period of separation and rupture. Alceste was useful for catego rizing verbatim transcripts of non directive-interviews into four types of semantic worlds explaining smokers' addictive behaviors. This is the demons tration of a pertinent application of textual analysis using reliable crite ria that allow the generalizability of the results.