Including withdrawal in the dependence criteria is consistent with most theories of dependence (e.g., [57, 70–73]; see [74]). There is a strong association between withdrawal and future cessation success [41, 57, 59, 75–78]: although [74]. Also, withdrawal severity indexes smoking heaviness across the ontogeny of TD [40, 62, 79, 80], appears to distinguish heavy, regular tobacco users from light or intermittent users [81, 82], and is significantly related to TD [43, 44, 83]. In addition, withdrawal is aversive and therefore constitutes a problem or cost of dependent tobacco use that the dependent smoker must endure if s/he persists in such use [74].
