I spoke with a friend of mine who went through a period of heavy smoking and quit for a similiar reason. He became extremely introverted, and already having a problem dealing with social situations he fixated on them, making things more and more awkward, and loosing his head trying to figure out what was wrong with him. While I'm not the best public speaker :P my fear of medical things going wrong greatly outweighs the other, so when I became introverted that was what I fixated on. THis coupled with seasonal depression kicked my butt.. but now that I've had some time to think it over I think that smoking and having some time to return to a sober state would have much less of a negative effect, Smoking all the time I had no idea what to blame on the smoke and what to blame on some hidden terror in myself.. But, I've still got to hold off a bit and find some work!