<p>People try out all sorts of destructive behavior. It does not translate into addiction. Yes, nicotine is a an addicting drug but that does not mean someone who smokes will become addicted to it. Same as everyone who drinks is not an alcoholic.
Let it be. She’s right in some aspects–she respects your home and values while she is with you and that is really the most you can ask of her.</p>
<p>That we are, Bunsen!</p>
<p>Gouf, alcohol and nicotine are completely differen substances that affect the body differently and have absolutely different addition thresholds. Nicotine is the most addictive of all drugs, as massive research has shown. idad would be happy to supply you with references that he has bookmarked if you don’t believe.</p>
<p><a href=“Nicotine Addiction Can Start Within A Few Days And After Just A Few Cigarettes -- ScienceDaily”>http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/09/000913083509.htm</a></p>
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<p>The problem with that analogy is that nicotine is a vastly more addictive drug than alcohol. It is true that some people smoke as teens and escape the addiction (just like some people play Russian Roulette, get an empty chamber when they pull the trigger, and don’t blow their brains out). However, the odds for nicotine are much worse than Russian Roulette or alcohol. </p>
<p>If someone is being honest, they would accept that the decision to take the first puff is quite likely a decision to be controlled by a drug addiction, smoking all day, every day, until it kills them.</p>
<p>The obvious question? Why take the risk? It’s not like there are any offsetting benefits to smoking, particularly in an era when the vast majority of people look at anyone with a cigarette as a loser.</p>
<p>Ah, but do they view those with a cigar as a loser? Or a hookah? :)</p>
<p>I thoroughly believe in the upcoming ten years we’ll see a transformation of the Truth commercials. </p>
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<p>I do. Actually, my mental image of anyone using nicotine is that of a junkie putting a syringe in their arm. Same thing. I feel sorry for anyone caught by (or walking into) the nicotine junkie trap. It’s a horrible fate. It’s not even dying of some horrible smoking related disease, it’s the way it relentlessly robs you of your health and fitness, year by year. Waking up every morning in drug withdrawal and thinking that’s normal. Horrible way to live.</p>
<p>At the very least we should stop the tobacco companies from adding more nicotine to the cigarettes.
I stopped before they tried that.
<a href=“Nicotine Added To Cigarettes, Legal Brief Says -- Philip Morris Statements To Congress Contradicted | The Seattle Times”>Nicotine Added To Cigarettes, Legal Brief Says -- Philip Morris Statements To Congress Contradicted | The Seattle Times;
<p>I agree with the cutting off of cash. In our family, the forbidden item is tattoos. If mine have enough money for a tattoo, they are clearly stating, “Mother, I’m ready to be on my own. I no longer need your money because you clearly warned me that the money would stop and knowing that, I went ahead and got a tattoo anyway.”</p>
<p>I’m not sure if I want them to get the tattoos or not. I’d really like to have all the money for myself.</p>
<p>My mother smokes. All the time. If she is not eating or sleeping, she is smoking. She spends at least $300 a month on cigarettes. That is 1/3 of her social security income. She says she is going to quit, not because she wants to quit, but because she can’t afford it. So far she has not lasted more than a day or two. I can’t imagine a young person starting this habit.</p>
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<p>Actually, cutting nicotine in cigarettes is counter-productive. The whole point of smoking is to get the required dose of the drug to stop the withdrawal symptoms. A reduced nicotine cigarette doesn’t change the underlying pharmacology. A dose is still a dose. You just have to smoke more cigarettes (making the health problems from inhaling the smoke worse).</p>
<p>I can’t see complaining about increasing the nicotine in cigarettes while allowing the sale of nicotine chewing gum…</p>
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<p>Really? So you’ve been a heroin addict and can speak from experience? </p>
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<p>What about you? Have you been a heroin addict and can tell us that nicotine is more addictive than heroin? </p>
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<p>This is absurd. </p>
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<p>You don’t inhale cigars, so you’ll end up with mouth cancer instead of lung cancer. </p>
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<p>Some people enjoy it. </p>
<p>Sure, cigarettes aren’t good for you. But to claim it’s worse in some way than heroin is absolutely ridiculous, just completely absurd. </p>
<p>Read it and weep, Vlad: <a href=“NICOTINE: HARDER TO KICK...THAN HEROIN - The New York Times”>http://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/29/magazine/nicotine-harder-to-kickthan-heroin.html</a></p>
<p>Heroin is probably worse for you, but there’s plenty of evidence that nicotine is harder to kick.</p>
<p>Here’s another one that’s more nuanced, but nicotine still comes out very badly, especially in terms of creating dependence: <a href=“Relative Addictiveness of Drugs”>http://whyquit.com/whyquit/A_Henningfield_Benowitz.html</a></p>
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<p>I didn’t read the article, but I looked through and I couldn’t find a linked study (if there was one I missed can you please link to that). And since no one’s going to conduct an actual experiment on this, I’m going to go with common wisdom and say no, it’s ridiculous and absurd to say nicotine is more addictive than heroin. I don’t care what doctor or researcher or whoever they got to say whatever ridiculous thing more than 25 years ago. </p>
<p>Vlad, I take it that you speak from personal experience of a heroin junkie who also smokes? Otherwise, using your logic, your post is just as meaningless as the post you are trying to discredit. </p>
<p>BTW… “Worse” is when it comes to addictiveness - you are confusing the health effects of a drug with the addictiveness threshold.</p>
<p>Its obviously much easier to overdose on heroin.
When you resume smoking cigarettes after quitting, you are generally going to gradually resume your usage.
A dose of heroin that you were using two years ago, might kill you the first time after being clean.
Especially if it is some of the extra powerful stuff that has been hitting the streets.</p>
<p>That’s something Iv’e never tried.
Or meth/crack. Meth is supposed to be even more addictive.:P</p>
<p>How to increase dopamine without drugs.</p>
<p><a href=“How to Harness Your Brain's Dopamine Supply and Increase Motivation”>http://lifehacker.com/how-to-harnass-your-brains-dopamine-supply-and-increas-1496989326</a></p>
<p>I do drink coffee however, which also releases dopamine.</p>
<p>^^^I’m definitely a coffee addict. I drink ONE caffeinated beverage a day (usually coffee). If I go without, I get a splitting headache a few hours later. </p>
<p>I’m so glad I never started smoking as I’m not the best at breaking habits. My mom started as a teenager and it eventually killed her. 69 is way too young to die. She was very sorry she ever started and would have been heartbroken if any of her kids did not learn from her example. We all have our issues, but smoking is not one of them.</p>
<p>Heroin and nicotine are addictive in the same way – they both trigger a dopamine release response in the brain. Dopamine signalling in the brain is the mechanism that reinforces behaviors – the brain’s way of training the body to do whatever it was you just did again. Each dopamine release is a behavior reinforcement, in exactly the same way that you pet your dog when he brings you your slippers…</p>
<p>The thing that makes nicotine addiction so diabolical is not that the addiction mechanism is worse than heroin – it’s the same dopamine signalling, but on steroids because of the frequency. You are getting a jolt of dopamine learned behavior reinforcement 10, 20, 30, 40 times a day. All day, every day, week after week, month after month, year after year. Pretty soon, every single activity in your life is powerfully linked to getting a hit of nicotine and triggering another dopamine release. So, you have very powerful physical addiction, and an overwhelming set of psychological learned response triggers that have to be successfully worked through when you quit. For example, the first time I went clothes shopping after I quit smoking (six months after I had gone cold turkey on nicotine), I walked out the store, and my hand reached to my shirt pocket for cigarettes. No thought of smoking whatsoever, a completely involuntary response like Dr. Strangelove. Why? Because every time I had ever walked out of a clothing store in my teen/adult life, I had reached for a cigarette and the dopamine learned behavior mechanism had taught me very well indeed. If you understand this, it’s kind of funny, actually. But, if you don’t understand what’s going on, it makes quitting very, very hard.</p>
<p>One of the most amazing studies I’ve ever seen was a brain chemistry study where they did real time imaging studies that allowed them to see activity in the dopamine receptors of the brain. They took a bunch of nicotine junkies and made them quit cold turkey for the experiment. After two weeks (or so), with all of the nicotine out of their bodies and nicotine receptors returned to normal, they hooked them up to the imaging and had them smoke a cigarette. In less than one cigarette, literally within a puff or two, the nicotine receptors were back to being nearly 100% triggered. Because smoking is done all day, everyday, these dopamine release receptors are completely high jacked (and desensitized) so that nothing else can trigger the dopamine release. A fantastic meal can’t trigger the dopamine release like it would in a normal person – only a cigarette after the meal. Same thing with the stereotype post-romance cigarette.</p>
<p>Quitting smoking is a two stage process. To even start the process, you have to stop using nicotine and get through the physical drug withdrawal. It takes two to four weeks for the brain receptors to re-sensitize. Then, you can begin the process of relearning all of the trigger behaviors. The first time you do any of them, you will reach for cigarettes. First time you mow the lawn in spring. First time you rake leaves. First time you go clothes shopping. First time you cook Thanksgiving dinner. Heck, I had one the other night. First time I’d walked through a casino after I quit smoking six years ago. It’s not like I wanted a cigarette (I wouldn’t smoke if you held a gun to my head), but the trigger response was there, because I had always smoked in a casino.</p>
<p>And, from the study I mentioned above, one cigarette after quitting, puts you right back to square one with brain chemistry of the addiction, even years later. There is some reason to believe that those of us born to smoking mothers already had the dormant addiction when we were born, so that the first experimental cigarette as a child/teen was just reactivating the addiction. This would explain why some people seem to get addicted nearly instantly.</p>
<p>In any case, it’s like Russian Roulette. If you’ve never smoked, don’t risk it. If you’ve smoked and successfully quit, don’t risk it. Never take a puff and you have zero chance of starting or restarting a nicotine addition.</p>
<p>And for those who think they enjoy smoking, I have two words: junkie lies. The only enjoyment from smoking is the enjoyment you get from relieving the withdrawal symptoms. Non-smokers get that “enjoyment” 24/7 because we don’t have the withdrawal symptoms to relieve. We don’t NEED the drug to feel “normal” for a few minutes until the drug wears off again.</p>
<p>Sounds more psychological than chemical.
That’s been my experience. Of course it depends on the amount of dopamine released. It was pretty easy to distract myself into getting the same stimulation other ways. Now if the drug I had been taking had been stronger, it likely would have been more difficult to retrain my response.</p>
<p>A close family member has been a “social” smoker for several years. 1-2x a week, when out with friends drinking alcohol, he smokes several cigarettes. The rest of the week he does not. I am with this one most of the time so I know this, but I also have a couple of casual friends who are similar. It is possible but in my experience rare.</p>
<p>That said, several other friends have had success with this book: <a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Allen-Carrs-Easy-Stop-Smoking/dp/0615482155”>http://www.amazon.com/Allen-Carrs-Easy-Stop-Smoking/dp/0615482155</a></p>
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<p>Is that a response to idad’s post? Because he sure presents a very chemical picture to me! Of course, psychological triggers are a great part of it as well.</p>
<p>My mom said the time when she most missed her cigarettes were with morning coffee or if having a cocktail. </p>