London, March 4 - Actor Mel Gibson says it would have been much easier for him to kick the butt 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,' he said.

'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,' he added.

After struggling with habit for a long time, the 'Lethal Weapon' star admits that quitting smoking is just the start of a new health regime for him, reports dailystar.co.uk.

'I try and eat right and exercise a little,' he added.

IANS