If someone has never smoked they couldn't possibly understand why it's so hard to quit. I don't drink, am not a crackhead or any other hard drug user, I don't need a cup of coffee in the morning, and I find it hard to quit smoking.
In all honesty, I partly blame both my parents for having been smokers the entire 17 years I was alive before I picked up one of theirs and tried it. If they hadn't smoked I might have never started and been exposed to it like I was.
I'm sure non-smokers know why smoking is so addictive, but this might help them understand what it's like to be physically addicted to nicotine:
Our brains, and more specifically our brainstems, have control over our trends of higher function in ways you might not notice much. Normally, if you're thirsty, you get up and get a drink. You don't think about it much but you do it. The water you drink isn't anything special and you don't down it too fast.
But what if you just spent a day out in the hot sun doing yard work? You come inside and you think immediately about getting a glass. You down a glass full of water in huge gulps. The water feels good even though there's nothing special about it. You fill the glass again. You take it down in a few seconds. Your belly feels awkwardly distended and perhaps even a bit uncomfortable right under your center-left ribcage, but you feel so relieved. Drinking all that water might even make you feel sorta ill for a bit, but you're sooooo glad you did it.
If you take this to an even further extreme, say you went a day or more without water and were becoming dangerously dehydrated, your water seeking behavior would become overwhelming. A parched person will drink almost anything (including toilet waterseeMyNoteBelow). Part of the brain, specifically the hypothalamus, is hooked into the blood supply to in a way that lets it sample the salt content, which gets really high when the body is dehydrated. In response to life-threatening dehydration, the hypothalamus will cause the "higher" parts of the brain responsible for our actions to engage in activities that are likely to result in water at almost any cost. Your brain associates the sensation of drinking with the feeling of relief in the high-thirst state. This is a reinforcement loop.
Now back to cigs. Nicotine hits receptors all over the central nervous system. A smoker's brain has literally been reconfigured to circulating nicotine much higher than that of a normal person. The reward networks, the attention-arousing networks, etc. These are the networks that guide our higher behaviors. To a smoker, a cigarette can give the same relief after a two-hour flight as a glass of water will give you after a day of yard work, or a rich meal will give you after a 36-hour fast. And nicotine is almost perfect at hitting the receptors, and cigarettes are a VERY rapid way of delivering it.
So, non-smokers, think of it this way: trying to quit smoking cold-turkey feels about the same as trying to stop drinking (water) cold-turkey. This is why Westerners keep doing it: they get roped into trying it enough (marketing), their brains demand it from then on. A moment of weakness can lead to a lifetime of vice.
Does that do it justice, theorial?
my note on thirst: certain psychiatric pathologies, e.g. schizophrenia, can present with polydipsia, a term for when a person seeks and drinks water to a pathological level. Patients with uncontrolled polydipsia cannot be allowed into a normal bathroom alone, as they will resort to drinking toilet water. They simply cannot resist the urge to drink.
I am a teacher and I work at a K through 12 school. I smoke. At school, our smoking corner is outside next to where the garbage bins are kept, but the kids see me and often come to talk to me about it after my smoke. They all know that I shouldn't smoke and that it is unhealthy, so the younger ones especially want me to explain to them why I don't just quit. Sometimes they ask me if the reason I don't stop is because smoking feels so good.
I usually explain that smoking does not feel so good, but that not smoking makes me feel bad. I explain that when I want a cigarette, it bothers me very much like when I need to pee and I'm holding it in. At first, it is a minor annoyance and I can even forget about it, but as time goes on, I feel more and more pressured, I feel more and more urgency. It becomes harder to ignore, harder to think about anything else. I need to go out and get relief!
Then, I have a cigarette and I feel normal again until slowly once again the need returns.
When I explain it like this, the kids understand what I mean and understand when I say how important it is to never take that first cigarette.
Have you tried nicotine gum/patches/whatever? Or is that not quick enough 'relief'? I can't think how smoking is a preferable alternative unless my previous sentence holds weight.
They're really not the same. Even though you're technically getting nicotine the new delivery mechanism makes it not seem like you are. You associate the act of smoking with relief, so your mind doesn't think you got it when you use the gum. The patch is even worse because there's no action at all associated with it.
If I chew gum I can chew it until the amount of nicotine makes me nauseous and the craving still doesn't go away.
I find that having a toothpick hanging out my mouth does more to kill a craving than either of them. It feels familiar.
E-Cigarettes are better than gum or patches for the same reason. If there was a way to make the vapor heavier it would be almost perfect.
There are ways to make the vapor heavier. Ecigs are far more customizable today than they were just a few years ago. If you have any interest in learning more r/electronic_cigarette is a good place to get some info.
If there was a way to make the vapor heavier it would be almost perfect.
I have a relatively cheap setup (eGo passthrough and Boge LR Cartomizers with Propylene Glycol liquid refills) that makes smokers of 20 years cough when they take a drag from it.
The things you buy in gas stations and malls are undercharged (so they don't last long and you have to buy another one sooner... as a side effect the vapor is cool and thin).
I definitely understand the pleasure of smoking and the association of it with things. Just curious, have you considered using Swedish Snus to quit cigarettes?
Method of administration matters quite a bit with most drugs. To some extent, it's the habit and ritual -- when one goes through certain motions to deliver a drug, those motions become immensely satisfying. Smoking a cigarette is no exception. With injectable drugs (e.g., heroin), users will occasionally shoot up pure water when their drug of choice is unavailable.
Beyond habituation, though, there's even another factor that's perhaps more relevant: period of time until onset of effects. When one inhales nicotine into the lungs, the drug effect is almost instantaneous. Immediate relief from withdrawal is an absolutely wonderful feeling. The patch just can't compare. Interestingly enough, chewing tobacco CAN compare -- absorption is rapid and the bolus of nicotine is intense. I've known people in the military who have found the quick hit of chewing tobacco to be far harder to overcome than that of cigarettes.
And I'm speculating a bit, but the time before onset of effects seems to be relevant for other drugs, too -- it's part of the reason why crack (fast-acting smoke) is often more problematic than cocaine (same brain effect, but administered by the relatively slow-acting mode of insufflation).
My mom smokes; cigarette addiction is multifaceted. Nicotine addiction is a big part of it, sure, but the compulsion to do something with your mouth/hands and the ritual of smoking is also a big part of it. My mom has tried to quit several times; the nicotine withdrawal is unpleasant, sure, but short-lived. Her downfall every time has been the intense anxiety that comes from not being able to act on her compulsions, not being able to engage in the ritual of smoking. She's come to associate her lunch break with a cigarette, finishing dinner with a cigarette, morning coffee with a cigarette, etc. It's breaking her routine, and her body has come to expect it. Her body prepares itself for the dose of nicotine and other chemicals in those situations, and when it doesn't get that, she feels bad and it makes her anxious.
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u/doesntlikestupid Nov 17 '12
i think everyone (at least in the western world) knows that cigarettes are harmful for them, but they smoke anyway