Nicotine addiction
In a message dated 02/02/02 23:08:21 GMT Standard Time,
katie2905uk@… writes:
me too Katie - done a long post about it just gonna send it out and see what
respons it brings (if any)
Indi
6 Responses to “Nicotine addiction”
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January 14th, 2004 at 2:21 am
Gail, Katie and I were chatting about missing the buzz - which I can’t
understand so decided to do a post about my quit which some of you might
relate to . It is very long so if you get bore or aren’t interested there is
always the delete button.
Haven’t read it over and it is really late here so apologies in advance if
its a load of twaddle.
Quitting the cog quit way
Cog quit helped me deal with the urge to smoke in a way, which gave me
conscious control over my smoking without any side effects, and without the
danger of starting again unintentionally. Now if I ever smoke again it will
be because I choose to do so.
Many times as a smoker I would not be aware that I had lit up. In many past
attempts at quitting I have found myself lighting up and not even remembered
that I had quit! For me this was smoking on automatic pilot, something I
frequently did as a smoker. Something needed a response and my automatic
response was to light up.
Stopping the cog-quit way has trained my conscious mind to acknowledge and
accept that I have the urge to smoke but that these urges can be addressed in
other more acceptable ways.
When it comes to quitting I think that resisting quitting is all part of the
process both before the actual quit and during the quit itself. Before I
stopped I thought of every excuse under the sun why I should remain a smoker
a little bit longer - there would always be a ‘better time’ to quit. When I
did stop and began to work on staying stopped my mind still continued (and
still does continue) to resist making any real lasting changes.
I would totally forget to do my ABC’s. The addicted part of my mind would
resist acknowledging the truth by blanking it out. This I believe is one
reason why Steve is constantly telling us to do the ABC’s in advance and not
on the run.
The urge to smoke comes and goes and with ABC’s at hand you will always know
how to cope with it.
How to recognise the urge to smoke or yearning for the buzz
The desire to smoke is first of all a thought, which then becomes a physical
sensation. At first you might find this hard to believe because it is so
persistent and because there are other sensations caused during withdrawal
(both in mind and body) which get confused with the desire to smoke.
But after a couple of days it soon becomes obvious that the desire is
triggered in your mind by events and circumstances and not by a physical need.
Even though it is created in your mind the desire is experienced as a
physical sensation that leaves you feeling uncomfortable. You may well
notice the physical sensation before the thought, but a thought always
precedes it.
When I first stopped smoking it felt like a wave of discomfort all over my
body. Later on it changed to the feeling that you get when you realise you
lock yourself out of the house or car.
We all experience the desire to smoke in different parts of our body. Could
be in your chest area or throat remembering the feeling of the smoke going
into your lungs. Could be the stomach and can be confused with hunger or it
may be more like wanting something to put in your mouth.
Maybe you salivate more than usual. The form of desire can change from day
to day. For me I felt as if I had a big hole inside me and no matter what I
tried nothing could fill this hole. I also had the excessive salivation.
As time has gone by the physical discomfort has lessened and they have become
more thoughts than actual feelings. I just have to remember to do my ABC’s,
remember my foundation statements and these things go away.
At the end of the day I am choosing to feel these feelings and choosing to
deal with them in a different way than smoking because, as far as I am
concerned, it is better to remember to cognitively think about my desire to
smoke and deal with my feelings which are triggered by my thoughts than the
alternative which is a lifetime of smoking.
Because it’s the thought which creates the feelings I need to deal with my
false beliefs about the ‘buzz’ that smoking used to give me and cog thinking
helps me do this and it is still as important for me to do this now as it was
in my early days of withdrawal. Otherwise I will not be training my
conscious mind to find automatic responses to events which for most of my
life were dealt with my smoking;
I used to get home from work sit down have a drink of tea and a cigarette cos
I needed to unwind and smoking helped me unwind. But did it??
I had inhaled the lethal gas carbon monoxide in a concentration 600 times the
safe level in industry. Along with that I had inhaled 4,000 chemicals many
of them poisonous, including hydrogen cyanide, carbolic acid and arsenic
trioxide.
Nicotine itself is a deadly poison and can be used as an insecticide’ If you
took the nicotine from one packet of cigarettes and injected it into your
blood stream it would kill you.
That’s why with every cigarette you smoke your heart pounds away an extra 20
beats a minute. Part of the buzz affect we all like so much is our body
trying to copewith a poison which is constricting our blood vessels.
Smoking is a cause of stress to the body not a release of stress. The
delusion that it helps relax comes through associations. Wanting to relax or
take a break triggers a desire to smoke. Smoking releives the desire to
smoke but gives us the impression that it helps us relax.
This delusion often gets reinforced during attempts to quit. By fighting the
desire you will feel deprived and you may try to repress your desire, either
way you end up more tense than you were when you were smoking and of course
the problem is alleviated as soon as you light up which reinforces the belief
that smoking relaxes you.
I was also terribly worried about what I would have to do - there were many
gaps in my day when I would have smoked a cig or two. My worries about these
gaps were actually my worries about having the desire to smoke. The desire
could be in wanting to pick up a cig and hold it or wanting to fill a boring
or awkward moment. In fact there is nothing fascinating about holding a
cigarette or even smoking a cigarette and my hands didn’t need to be occupied
all the time. Just look at all the times I wasn’t smoking I didn’t have to
have my hands occupied then.
The truth is that all the help the smoking appears to give you springs almost
completely by the placebo affect. A placebo is something that creates an
effect but the effect doesn’t come from the placebo it comes from the mind
An interesting but probably unanswerable question is where does the chemical
effect stop and the placebo effect begins.
Certainly smoking immediately produces a faster heart rate, higher blood
pressure and more adrenaline. A variety of other effects, ability to
concentrate for example have been frequently examined but so far no clear
scientific evidence has appeared to support the belief that nicotine is a
genuine aid to human life in any way.
Whatever it is that nicotine really contributes other than satisfying an
addiction to nicotine is obviously fairly insignificant. On the other hand
smoking is a nuisance and can hinder just as often as it seems to help and
inevitably something you continually need to cater for and think about. You
need to keep smoking at regular intervals to prevent yourself from going into
withdrawals. Far from it being a crutch to help you it’s really more like a
ball and chain.
Now when I feel the urge to smoke and I do although they are getting less and
less I Do my ABC’s on automatic pilot. I am acutely aware that all smoking
has ever done is satisfy the desire to smoke it doesn’t actually make me feel
better or deal with the crisis.
The feelings of achievement, control and choice and empowerment are a
continual source of pleasure to me. Many people have little sense of their
own power, their ability to make choices and to act on them. An awareness of
the fact of choosing to smoke or not can begin to release people from their
own self imposed prisons and to encourage them to take a more assertive,
proactive and postive approace to life.
A fundamental goal all of us as living things have in common is the goal of
staying alive and in good health. Most of the primary functions of our minds
and bodies are in fact orientated to help us survive and live full lives.
I’m not sure how many years of this life I have ahead of me now but I am sure
of one thing I want to walk my journey throught the third phase of my life
free I don’t want to be addicted to anything that is going to be harmful to
my own physical, spiritual, emotional journey throught the remainder of my
life.
Namaste
Indi
Namaste
Indi
January 14th, 2004 at 5:41 pm
Indi - you said
hardly a load of twaddle. Thanks for sharing those thoughts, and
well done. You clearly gave it all a lot of thought.
Pam
January 15th, 2004 at 12:55 am
Hi Indi - I think you might have misunderstood the `buzz’ that Gail
and I referred to in chat yesterday.
There are 2 types of buzz as I see it:-
a) the actual physical sensations caused by exposure to nicotine
(the `kick’ caused in part by the drug’s stimulation of the adrenal
glands and resulting discharge of epinephrine (adrenaline), and
b) The perceived `relief’ (or whatever word you’d choose) we
anticipate from a cigarette
which we are addressing in a cognitive quit.
You’ve described the way you deal with (b) very clearly, and it’s a
path I’m on with support from Steve, Pam and others here. As to the
(a) - its marvellous you’ve already forgotten how good that was. I
hope I’m the same at 3 months quit.
Katie
January 15th, 2004 at 7:21 am
In a message dated 03/02/02 15:26:14 GMT Standard Time,
katie2905uk@… writes:
Hi Katie
I still maintain that if we could really remember this buzz then we should be
able to recreate it with other forms of nicotine:) To be perfectly honest I
can never ever remember a ‘buzz’ like it. I can remember the ‘buzz’ from
alcohol and from the other drugs we spoke of last night but never a ‘buzz’
from nicotine.
I’m not saying I wasn’t addicted cos I was along with ever other smoker in
the world - nicotine is a very addictive substance but I believe that once we
have got over the physical craving for nicotine then it isn’t the nicotine
that we are craving to get that ‘buzz’ - I think its a false belief.
Yes smoking a cig is a way of administering the drug nicotine. Some of which
gets absorbed slowly through the inside of the mouth but most of it is
inhaled into the lungs where it is very rapidly taken into the blood stream.
It is then carried around the body - all of it but especially the brain.
Physically nicotine enters the body producing a brief exciting dizzy
sensation, as well as making your heart beat faster for a few seconds. Then
mentally you think - that was nice or that was helpful!!!
This is the ‘feeling’ of the buzz as I recall it and I really don’t miss it
one little bit, now I know eating carrots or celery sticks will not replace
this ‘feeling/buzz’ but I also know that if I want to recreate it there are
other things I can do to make my heart beat faster and make me a little
dizzy:)
When I smoked I was always desiring the buzz and persuing it cos it just
happens regardless of how much nicotine I had in my body - sometimes I would
light up as soon as I had put one out. I like many smokers thought the
increased heart rate gave me energy but its not real energy its a false
stimulation and like all artificial highs its immediately followed by a
depressed state. Due to the amount of poisons contained in cigs although the
heart is beating faster there is less energy producing oxygen in the blood.
This is why I think most smokers find they have more energy when they stop:)
So I still maintain that for those of us who have quit who think we are
looking for the buzz we are actually doing what Warren wants us to do -
thinking ‘wouldn’t it be nice to have a cig’ - so look at the feelings going
on, look at what has been happening and stop trying to chase the buzz - find
a healthier response is what I say.
Now I am sure there are many ways we can all think of to make our hearts beat
faster, make our central nervous system feel slightly giddy - just use your
imagination - maybe thats why Steve flies kites!!!!
In the beginning of my quit I had times when I really really couldn’t
understand why I desperately CRAVED a cigarette and it took Steve a lot of
hard work to talk me through it all. For me at those times I just had to
accept the discomfort (now discomfort can be physical and mental) because I
knew that the benefits of accepting the discomfort really outweighed easing
it by smoking.
When we stop smoking the body becomes much healthier and happier (after some
temporary physical changes) since we are no longer putting poisons into our
system. But our minds aren’t necessarily happy cos unlike the body it
doesn’t make the change automatically it remains the mind of a smoker but a
smoker who isn’t smoking. This inevitably sets up conflict. We have trained
ourselves over and over again to expect a cig (nic buzz) on certain cues -
even though you may not be always aware of it there has to be a thought which
triggers it off.
There has to be a thought for your hand to pick it up and actually light it
and that is where cog quit comes in - we have a thought which triggers a
feeling then we rationally think how to deal with it…
So every time we have a ‘thought’ of wanting a cig, wanting the buzz, this is
a desire to smoke and unless we deal with it rationally we will just satisfy
that desire in the usual way by lighting up.
Thats my sermon for the day - bet you all wished I’d stayed quiet:)
Indi
January 15th, 2004 at 3:25 pm
Indi - thanks, but
Katie
Ah - we do understand each other after all
January 15th, 2004 at 9:50 pm
Katie last night we spoke about recovering from our addiction and as you know
(or at least I think you know) I practise Reiki and the comment I am posting
is something I use in my practise - so maybe it might help you in your
recovery.
‘Living in the past we bring with us the shadows of our past (good and bad).
The longer we hold on to the emotional memories of the past, the longer it
takes us to heal’
Namaste
Indi