Battling Addiction

Smoking is pleasurable, up to a point. That, after all, is why so many do it. If there were no gain, the practice would quickly die out. But a lot of meaning is stuffed into that innocent phrase ‘up to a point’. While the short term benefits of smoking cigarettes is real, the harm is equally real - and it’s potentially much more serious and long lasting.

There are several common factors that tend to lead someone to smoke. Stress, peer pressure and other psychological factors are present for virtually everyone. Substituting a toxic chemical for a healthier means of dealing with them is often viewed as simpler. But the long range consequences can be dire.

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Nicotine is one of the most well known components of inhaled cigarette smoke. But is it addictive? Yes and no. The details that make clear that paradoxical statement are interesting.

Nicotine itself is not addictive. But then, neither is heroin. It’s what the body does with that compound that produces the result. Think that’s quibbling over words? Read on…

The average cigarette delivers between 1.2 – 2.9 mg of nicotine, according to data from the National Institute of Drug Abuse. But, of course, very few smokers limit themselves to one per day. The average one pack-per-day user will absorb between 20-40 mg per day. That may not sound like much, but the effects are considerable.

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Stopping smoking often brings on cravings for that foregone cigarette. There’s no one magic method for dealing with withdrawal cravings that works for every individual. Each person employs a different stop-smoking method and each one will react differently as nicotine levels are reduced. But there are a handful of techniques that have proved effective for a wide group.

Cigarette smoking is a habit. As such, when you quit, you want to continue the habit, by definition. For the first two weeks, as the body flushes the chemical products of smoking out of your body, it reacts by trying to return to the status quo. That’s a biological mechanism that works in a number of circumstances.

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One of the common effects of quitting smoking is weight gain, usually from 5-10 pounds, sometimes more. But, though common, it’s not inevitable.

Weight gain from a stop-smoking program can have a number of causes.

For many individuals, it’s a natural response to cravings from nicotine withdrawal. They substitute food for smoking. Increase the amount of calories taken in, as snacks add up, and sooner or later you’ve gained several pounds.

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By Michael Russell

Drug or alcohol addiction is a sneaky disease. It keeps you believing that everything is under control and it all depends on your will whether you want to quit or not, but in reality it doesn’t work that way. An abuser who keeps thinking that “its no big deal” and “everything is under control” is in a state of denial. This can keep a person in the cycle of addiction for years.

Once the addict comes to term with his addiction and recognizes that a problem does exist, you can help the person stay on the road to recovery.

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By Lloyd Morgan

Statistics say that over 70 per cent of smokers want to quit. So what’s stopping them? For many, the thought of going through lengthy withdrawal symptoms is enough to send the hand snaking towards the Camel pack. In reality, the pangs are far less than people fear. But how long do they last?

Giving up smoking is like getting addicted in reverse so it’s important to understand the nicotine addiction process. Scientists used to think addiction was a long drawn out process taking up to a year. Now they’ve come to recognize it begins with the first puff when nicotine enters the brain.

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By Daniel Fargher

Quitting Smoking doesn’t have to be a struggle with your will power, or an endless battle with withdrawal symptoms. To quit smoking successfully there are several key steps you need to take and several things you need to look at. Contrary to what most people and ‘experts’ think and say, using patches, gums will power and eating celery sticks will get you nowhere.

Before we look at the ten steps you need to go through to quit smoking we should briefly look at a few statistics.

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By Chris Woodall

Maybe your family has been urging you to do it for a while, or you have been meaning to, but it is now finally the right time: you are ready to quit your cigarette habit. If you have quit caffeine in the past, you know that withdraw symptoms from any sort of drug are not very pleasant. Remember, though, that the temporary discomfort of withdraw is just one of the side effects when you stop smoking, and that there will be good benefits down the road as well. Be prepared for the side effects when you stop smoking, both bad and good, and remember that the ultimate goal is great health.

Here is a discussion of what to prepare to experience:

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By Lloyd Morgan

Arsenic, cyanide, ammonia, cadmium…They sound like part of the arsenal of some resourceful poisoner. But some people are voluntarily sucking these toxic substances into their bodies 20 times and more every day. Yes, these scary-sounding chemicals are just a few of the 4700 or so noxious components of tobacco smoke. Here’s a roundup of five of the most famous.

Arsenic is notorious as the poison of choice for aristocratic murderers in old movies. In real life too, it earned itself the sobriquet “poison of kings, and king of poisons” as a result of popularity among high society wanting to quickly and undetectably remove someone. It lost popularity when a method was found for detecting it in the body. Now it’s used as an insecticide. Around five micro grams of arsenic trioxide is inhaled with every cigarette. It takes a lot more to kill you right off but arsenic is carcinogenic at much lower levels.

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By Dan Gluckman

Overcoming Nicotine Addiction
Nicotine addiction is extremely powerful – ranking up there with heroin in terms of its strength. However, your physical addiction only represents only about 20-40% of your dependency — the bulk of the addiction is purely psychological. That’s good news! As humans, each of us can obviously influence the behavior or our own mind.

How do cigarettes actually affect you?
After years of smoking cigarettes, your thought processes and behaviors gradually begin to revolve around smoking. In other words, you develop the thought processes and behaviors of a smoker. I am no stranger to this. When I smoked, each cigarette gave me satisfaction and shaped my words and thoughts, getting me hooked on smoking.

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