President Obama is opposed to the torture of everyone but himself.

He is normally a wise man with a grasp of complex issues, but he sure doesn’t know much about how to quit smoking.

“I would say that I’m about 95 percent cured,” he said the other day.

Not true. That’s not how it works. I’ve been there.

Granted, my pressures and responsibilities during my smoking and quitting years were a tad less than running a country. And pressure is a factor in trying to quit. The more a person is under pressure, the more likely he is to reach for his regular emotional crutch, whether that is smoking, boozing or gobbling food.

When a person is under pressure, all food is comfort food. Smoking can help you relax inside a pressure cooker. And there’s nothing to calm down a pressured person like half a fifth of Old Rotgut.

Let’s face it: This president had the woes of the world dumped in his lap from day one. And the Loyal Opposition in Congress has piled on rather than helping out. His urge – his whimpering need – to cling to a comforting habit like smoking must be far fiercer than anything I went through.

But that doesn’t mean he knows diddly about how to quit smoking if his remark about being 95 percent cured is any gauge.

Eventually, most successful quitters figure out that the hard way is the easy way. Ditch the gum and the mints and just bite the bullet. “Tapering off,” as the president is attempting, looks easy, but it is actually one of the least successful ways. Virtually none of the ex-smokers I know succeeded without going cold turkey. Tapering off just keeps the turkey hot.

To quit, you must put in the time of adapting to life without cigarettes. For most of us, it takes at least two months – or more – of absolute abstinence to start learning to live without yellow teeth, ash burns in your trousers and a breath like a Turkish ash tray.

It finally gets easier. But every time you have one little cigarette, you start that clock all over again.

You can go 95 percent of the time without smoking, but that 5 percent of the time that you light up one of those little devils involves reigniting the full flame of desire.

For most of us, the 95 percent cure – the hopeless strategy of tapering off – is a lie we tell ourselves because our inner beast doesn’t want to quit. He will tell you every fib in the book to make you think you are quitting when you aren’t.

Tapering off isn’t called quitting. Tapering off is called torturing yourself. And it puts you through pointless days of smoking less without actually succeeding in quitting.

The cold turkey is your friend. It’s the difference between pulling a sticky bandage off all at once or tugging it off slowly... ever so slowly... one... hair... at a time. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!

But you, my sooty leader, didn’t go through two years of 14-hour campaign days seven weeks, and then accepting the world on your shoulders, without being made of sterner stuff than most of us. You obviously know how to suck it up when the situation warrants. You just need to show the same grit when it comes to ending the urge to suck up smoke.

You can do that without all the whiny nonsense about being 95 percent “cured.”

You aren’t even close to being cured until you do the time and do it 24/7.

Contact columnist Bill Hall at wilberth@cableone.net or 1012 Prospect Ave., Lewiston, ID 83501.