Smoking Addiction or Nicotine Addiction & Rehabilitation

Nicotine is a nitrogen-containing chemical – an alkaloid, which is made by several types of plants, including the tobacco plant. Nicotine is the primary substance that acts as a stimulant in tobacco products (cigarettes, cigars, smokeless tobacco, snuff, spit tobacco, bidis, chew, not scheduled/smoked, snorted, taken in snuff and spit tobacco). Nicotine is highly addictive and has pharmacologic and psychodynamic stimulating effects. Tobacco products contain nicotine. Nicotine is a drug. Therefore, when people smoke or chew tobacco, they are using a drug. Tobacco is one of the most heavily used drugs in the United States.

Nicotine and the Nervous System

Smoking: In tobacco smoke, nicotine “rides” on small particles of tar. When the smoke with this nicotine/tar mixture gets to the lungs, the nicotine is absorbed quickly – nicotine reaches the brain about eight seconds after the smoke is inhaled. American cigarettes contain about 9 mg of nicotine, but because much of the nicotine is burned off, a smoker gets about 1 mg of nicotine in every cigarette.
Chewing: Nicotine reaches the central nervous system in about 3-5 minutes when tobacco is chewed.

Effects of Nicotine

Smoking can be stimulating or relaxing – it depends on a person’s mood and dosage of nicotine. Nicotine acts on the central and peripheral nervous system. The rapid effects of nicotine include:

• Increases in blood pressure and heart rate
• Faster respiration
• Constriction of arteries
• Stimulation of the central nervous system.

Long term exposure to tobacco and nicotine increases the chances of cancer and results in addiction and dependence. Exactly how nicotine produces addiction and dependence is not clear, but there are some theories. In the brain, limbic pathways that use the neurotransmitter dopamine are affected by nicotine and may be responsible for some of the addictive properties. It is clear though, that nicotine is one of the most addicting substances known…just ask anyone who has tried to quit smoking.

Nicotine is highly addictive. The tar in cigarettes increases a smoker’s risk of lung cancer, emphysema, and bronchial disorders. The carbon monoxide in smoke increases the chance of cardiovascular diseases. Secondhand smoke causes lung cancer in adults and greatly increases the risk of respiratory illnesses in children.

Cancer

According to the American Cancer Society, the number one, most common form of cancer in the U.S. today is lung cancer. Over ¼ of all deaths related to cancer are from lung cancer, and of the people diagnosed with lung cancer, over 90% of these people are regular cigarette smokers. A small percentage of lung cancer incidents are due to other chemical exposures, such as paint fumes or other toxins at the workplace.

Studies have shown that there is a direct correlation between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, with an increase in the number of women who are smoking, and an increase in the number of women with lung cancer.

This alarming rate of people dying from lung cancer gives rise to the need to help people effectively quit smoking cigarettes. The best way to get rid of an intense psychological and physical addiction such as cigarette smoking is through detoxification of the body, along with psychotherapy and changes in diet and lifestyle.

Tobacco Deaths

Tobacco is the only product in the U.S. that causes death and disability when used as intended — the single, most preventable cause of death in the U.S. Every year, tobacco use kills more Americans than World War II and the Vietnam War combined. That’s more than 440,000 smoking-related deaths every year. Smoking is directly responsible for 87% of lung cancer cases and causes most cases of emphysema and chronic bronchitis.

Detoxification

Here at Hawaii Naturopathic Retreat Center, we encourage patients with smoking addiction habits to –

• change their diets and
• increase exercise
• to help strengthen and clean the lungs during the detoxification process.

Smoking Addiction or Nicotine Addiction & Withdrawal

The Danger of Smoking

Nicotine is the tobacco plant’s natural protection from being eaten by insects. It is a super toxin that, drop for drop, is more lethal than strychnine or diamondback rattlesnake venom, and three times deadlier than arsenic. Yet, amazingly, by chance, this natural insecticide’s chemical structure is so similar to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine that once inside the brain it fits a host of chemical locks permitting it direct and indirect control over the flow of more than 200 neurochemicals.

Mood Change

Within eight seconds of that first-ever inhaled puff, through dizzy, coughing and six shades of green, nicotine arrived at the brain’s reward pathways where it generated an unearned flood of dopamine, resulting in an immediate yet possibly unrecognized “aaahhh” reward sensation. Sensing it would cause most first-time inhalers to soon return to steal more. Nicotine also fit the adrenaline locks releasing a host of fight or flight neurochemicals and select serotonin locks impacting mood.

What Causes Nicotine Addiction?

Nicotine is an addictive drug. It causes changes in the brain that make people want to use it more and more. In addition, addictive drugs cause unpleasant withdrawal symptoms. The good feelings that result when an addictive drug is present — and the bad feelings when it’s absent — make breaking any addiction very difficult. Nicotine or smoking addiction has historically been one of the hardest addictions to break.
The 1988 Surgeon General’s Report, “Nicotine Addiction,” concluded that –

• Cigarettes and other forms of tobacco are addicting.
• Nicotine is the drug that causes addiction.
• Pharmacologic and behavioral characteristics that determine tobacco addiction are similar to those that determine addiction to drugs such as heroin and cocaine.

What Else Does Nicotine Do to the Body?

When a person smokes a cigarette, the body responds immediately to the chemical nicotine in the smoke. Nicotine causes a short-term increase in blood pressure, heart rate and the flow of blood from the heart. It also causes the arteries to narrow. The smoke includes carbon monoxide, which reduces the amount of oxygen the blood can carry. This, combined with the nicotine effects, creates an imbalance between the demand for oxygen by the cells and the amount of oxygen the blood can supply.
How does nicotine in cigarettes increase the risk of heart attack?
Cigarette smoking may increase the risk of developing hardening of the arteries and heart attacks in several ways. First, carbon monoxide may damage the inner walls of the arteries, encouraging fatty buildups in them. Over time, this causes the vessels to narrow and harden. Nicotine may also contribute to this process. Smoking also causes several changes in the blood that make clots — and heart attack — more likely.

Common Physical Withdrawal Symptoms

The most common withdrawal symptoms in people who are trying to “kick the habit” of tobacco include:

• anxiety
• depression
• headaches
• fatigue

Here are some additional symptoms of nicotine withdrawal:

• irritability
• impatience
• hostility
• difficulty concentrating
• restlessness
• decreased heart rate
• increased appetite or weight gain

How Long Does Nicotine Stay in the Body?

From 85–90% of nicotine in the blood is metabolized by the liver and excreted from the kidney rapidly. The estimated half-life for nicotine in the blood is two hours. However, smoking represents a multiple dosing situation with considerable accumulation during smoking. Therefore, it can be expected that blood nicotine would persist at significant levels for six to eight hours after smoking stopped.

Stage 1 Preparation: Conscious Smoking

Push Cigarettes as far as Possible Away From You. Create Distance.

1. If you smoke inside your house start smoking outside. Clean your house from all the ash trays, butts and smoking energy. Wash your house thoroughly. Wash the walls with a vinegar solution. Standing vinegar (in flat, shallow bowls) will help to absorb the smoke odor from your home. Burn some cedar or sage to clean the walls and purify your house. Create a smoking temple outside of your house and only smoke there.
2. Or, if you do not smoke inside the house but only outside in a special place clean that place in the same way described above. Smoke further away, taking a walk around the block or in nature if you can.

Pick a Quitting Date

There may be a special date soon when you would like to honor your true self: Christmas, New Year, your birthday, an anniversary or the 1st of the month. Any day will do. You have two or three weeks to get ready. You need to bury this old self and celebrate the coming of a new self. You are birthing yourself. To make the transition easier it would be good to decrease the amount of tobacco you smoke, have a healthy diet, add dietary supplements, meditate and exercise.

OSHO

Smoking and yoga according to Osho:

“Now, what are you really doing when you are smoking? Just taking some smoke inside your lungs and letting it out. It is a kind of pranayama…filthy, dirty, but still a pranayama! You are doing yoga, in a stupid way.”

Freedom Versus Habits

…if it has become a habit and you are a victim of the habit and you cannot put it aside, you are no longer a master of yourself,
Any habit that becomes a force, a dominating force over you, is a sin. One should live more in freedom. One should be able to do things not according to habits but according to the situations.

Life is continuously changing — it is a flux — and habits are stagnant. The more you are surrounded by habits, the more you are closed to life. You are not open, you don’t have windows. You don’t have any communication with life; you go on repeating your habits. They don’t fit; they are not the right response to the situation, to the moment. They are always lagging behind, they are always falling short. That’s the failure of your life.

Habits are all bad because habit means something unconscious has become a dominating factor in your life, something unconscious has become decisive. You are no longer the deciding factor. The response is not coming out of awareness but out of a pattern, structure, that you have learned in the past.

HAWAII NATURAL DRUG REHABILITATION                                       & RAW DETOXIFICATION CENTER