White House victories are rare these days, but President Barack Obama can claim solid progress in his lonely battle to quit smoking.

The president has gone a full nine months without sneaking a cigarette, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs reported Thursday.

Every day is a struggle and there�s no guarantee the president won�t light up tomorrow, it seems. Still, for a president who has been trying to quit for years, the nine-month hiatus is a welcome sign that he�s breaking the addiction.

Obama still chews nicotine gum, which his doctors have advised. In a physical he had in March, Obama was pronounced fit but told to �continue smoking cessation efforts.� It was around the time of that medical exam that Obama smoked his last cigarette, according to the timetable laid out by Gibbs.

Smoking �is not something that he�s proud of,� Gibbs said at the daily White House press briefing. �He knows that it�s not good for him. He doesn�t like it. He doesn�t like children to know about it, obviously, including his.�

Dr. Regina Benjamin, the U.S. surgeon general, said in an interview that she�s encouraged by Obama�s success so far.

�I want to say that it�s just as important that your teenager stop smoking as it is for the president to stop smoking. Every person should stop.�

Quitting smoking is tough under any circumstance, but imagine simultaneously leading the free world. Amid North Korean provocations and WikiLeaks documents dumps, hardly a day goes by when a smoker might not be tempted to light up.

�I think he would tell you even when in the midst of a tax agreement and a START (nuclear treaty) deal, and all the other things that accumulate, that even where he might have once found some comfort in that, he�s pushed it away,� Gibbs said.

Few topics at the White House are as verboten as Obama�s smoking. Just as senior aides won�t reveal the president�s golf scores, they are loath to admit they�ve seen him smoke.

Obama gets irritable when asked. At a news conference last year, the president bristled over what he termed a �cute� question to get him to reveal more about his smoking habits. He then confessed he had fallen off the wagon at times.

(Source: Daily Mail)