London, March 3 (IANS) Hollywood actor Mel Gibson, who is battling his addiction to nicotine after quitting last year, says it would have been much easier for him to quit if his mother hadn't been a smoker when she was pregnant with him.

"It is a hellish habit to break. Your neurons are involved. My mother smoked when I was in her womb. I first had one when I was nine years old and I thought, 'Yes, I missed this!' I knew I missed it," Hollywood.com quoted him as saying.

"And 45 years later, after every single artistic decision; every decision I'd ever made was done with a cigarette. To not have that is pretty hectic. It's worse than crawling the walls, which I did for a while.

"There's no more fun things left. I just don't do anything fun anymore; but that's dying isn't it? I mean you die in stages. You let things go in pieces. It's mostly over halfway through."

Gibson admits quitting smoking is just the start of a new health regime for him. "I try and eat right and exercise a little."