BestQuitSmokingTip

What is Nicotine Addiction

Many people who smoke tobacco have questions about why cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco and chewing tobacco are habits that are very hard to break. What’s needed is an understanding of nicotine addiction and why this addiction is so difficult to overcome. More people stop using cocaine and heroin combined than those who stop using tobacco. To comprehend this problem, let’s take a look at nicotine addiction and nicotine withdrawal for an explanation. It’s not that you’re weak-willed or that you have an “addictive personality.” Rather, it is the powerful nicotine addiction syndrome that frustrates your efforts to quit.Nicotine is the psychoactive ingredient in tobacco leaves that causes nicotine addiction and nicotine withdrawal symptoms. The term “psychoactive” means that by using nicotine, you are changing your mental state.

Nicotine is a central nervous system stimulant; many people use smoking tobacco and other forms of nicotine use as a “pick me up” when they are tired, stressed, or feeling depressed. For example, alcohol is a central nervous system depressant, causing relaxation in small doses. Tobacco leaves contain the drug nicotiana, the chemical name of nicotine. It can be inhaled (smoked), or absorbed through the mucous membranes as in chewing tobacco. Nicotine addiction is the hardest addiction to overcome due to the uncomfortable nicotine withdrawal syndrome that occurs within only a day of nicotine cessation. These withdrawal symptoms are truly troublesome and most often cause the smoker or chewer to relapse to avoid them.

Yet, nicotine addiction is not an unbeatable foe! The American Surgeon General and other public health officials around the world devised smoking cessation products that really work! Since nicotine withdrawal is the primary cause of relapse back into using tobacco, efforts have been focused on helping tobacco users beat those uncomfortable symptoms. Since the introduction of these products, millions of people world-wide have saved their lives by tobacco cessation.

Initially, the nicotine patch was available only by prescription. Today, these nicotine withdrawal aids are available for purchase in your local drug store. The nicotine patch works by delivering a carefully measured amount of nicotine into your body each day, so nicotine addicts experience a gradual decline in the amount of nicotine that your body receives; this prevents nicotine withdrawal in most tobacco users. As your use of nicotine decreases with the nicotine patch, so do the nicotine withdrawal syndrome of intense craving, dizziness, shaking hands, insomnia and mood irritability. If you decide to quit smoking tobacco “cold turkey,” you can expect these intense symptoms to occur for 4-7 days. But using the nicotine patch will greatly enhance your chances of successful smoking cessation.

The nicotine gum is also helpful for nicotine addiction. Once available only by prescription, Nicorette gum is now available over the counter in your drug store. Whenever your nicotine addiction creates a craving for nicotine and you are experiencing nicotine withdrawal, all you need to do is chew a bit of this gum, which is pleasant to the taste and delivers an adequate amount of nicotine into your system to save off nicotine withdrawal symptoms.

The most hazardous effect of smoking or chewing tobacco is not nicotine itself, but the harmful effects of inhaling smoke into your lungs or absorbing nicotine through your mouth. These are the effects that cause severe cases of cancer of the lungs, esophagus, stomach, and mouth. If you can master your nicotine addiction, tobacco cessation will be much easier.