Quit Smoking With a Little Tech Support

2012-07-23T16:56:00.002+01:00

How to quit smoking... when you really do not want to?

Know your enemy - Nicotine

Nicotine Replacement Therapy ©mamulcahy

Smoking cigarettes that contain nicotine make us feel good. Nicotine withdrawal on the other hand makes us feel very bad. Have you ever wondered why?

These good feelings, are generated by our own bodies; in response to the nicotine in cigarettes.

It is our bodies reaction to this noxious smoke, and not the smoke itself that makes us feel good.

Smoking in public places is now totally unacceptable in many so called advanced countries.

Thought leaders have created an environment where smoking is less and less tolerated by the masses.
The looks of disdain, pity and disgust that the smoker gets from the non smoker is quite common. The non smokers look at smokers, as if they have no self control; they may be right.

The worst condemnation of smokers, comes from former smokers who morph into zealots who harangue everyone within earshot of the horrors of smoking.

Many people quit smoking by adopting an alternative stimulus. Some go for jelly beans, mints or ice cream. None of these will do any good for your waistline.

Controlling Nicotine Withdrawal Symptoms

If we could somehow stimulate the release of these feel good compounds (serotonin and dopamine) by another method then we would not 'feel' the need to smoke.

This is what nicotine actually does in our bodies. It activates our bodies feel good senses. We get the same 'good feelings' from sex, exercise or eating chocolate. So it is pretty potent stuff.

If we simply replace the nicotine delivery system, then we can control the nicotine withdrawal symptoms.

Electronic cigarettes, nicotine gum and nicotine patches have all been successful in helping people to quit smoking. Having tried all three. I have to say that they all work but have differing flaws.

The nicotine patches produced an itchy rash, wherever they were placed on the skin and caused some very lucid dreams.

I hadn't read the label correctly and left a patch on overnight. It was a very weird dream.

Nicotine gum worked just fine, but just tasted foul

Vaping is the new Smoking

E-cigarettes actually work and have the added bonus of making you wonder, 'what on earth am I doing with this plastic or metal thing hanging out of my mouth?'.

E-cigs feel very odd indeed. What people in the food industry call 'mouth feel'. E-cigs are not as soft and comforting as the filter on a real cigarette.

Vaping does however relieve the desire to smoke tobacco because you are getting a dose of Nicotine. As this knowledge starts to sink in, it can have an important psychological effect on the user as they come to realise that it is the nicotine that they want, and not a cigarette at all. The cigarette is just a delivery system.

This can be very liberating and lead to totally quitting all forms of nicotine use.

Smoking and your health.

Imagine if someone came along tomorrow and said. 'I have this product called a cigarette'. One of its main ingredients is a poison, that can be lethal in quite small doses.

The other chemicals in this cigarette, will cause a wide range of cancers, and a multitude of painful diseases, and types of deaths.

What about this evidence that smoking is bad. Where is this evidence coming from.
There are millions of pages of advice on how to naturally give up smoking or quit smoking ideas.

Sometimes from the very same doctors, who just a few years ago were telling us smoking was good for us.
Ironically one of the biggest cancer charities in the world, was set up by a tobacco company.
Some doctors are advocating e-cigarettes as a method of quitting cigarettes.

What if you really enjoy smoking, and you feel that the health benefits of smoking outweigh the apparent advantages quitting can bring.
Many smokers say that smoking helps them to relax. We all need to do that sometimes.

Nicotine Addiction

Nicotine comes from the nightshade group of plants, which include the tobacco plant group.
These plants use nicotine as a deterrent to foraging animals (mammals) It is odd that these animals, far from becoming addicted to these plants, are actually repulsed by the nicotine.

Humans are mammals and yet nicotine has the opposite effect on us. We become addicted to it. Or more accurately we become addicted to the effects it's ingestion has on our endorphin (feel-good) system.

Nicotine addiction is considered by some to be more difficult to kick than the addictions to cocaine, alcohol or the opiates. This is not downgrading anyone's addictions, as they are all equally destructive.

Nicotine addiction has a range of solutions that anyone can buy in the supermarket. That is the main difference. With Alcoholism, opiate and cocaine addiction. Medical intervention is usually the only answer.

This may be the reason for the huge failure rates amongst smokers, trying to quit cold. There are so many options to still get your hands on tobacco or tobacco substitutes.

Nicotine Facts.

Nicotine has a 2 hour half life. In other words, after 2 hours of smoking a cigarette, half of the nicotine will be gone. 2 hours later half will be gone again.

After 12 hours the amount of nicotine in the system will be negligible. As the level of nicotine falls the craving for more nicotine begins.

As seen above, after 12 hours the nicotine is gone from the system, so the addiction is related to the desire for those feel good chemicals that the body produces when stimulated by nicotine, Serotonin and dopamine

Quit smoking now and you may live longer. I know this may sound odd, but do you really want to live on into old age and become a dribbling, babbling, puking child again, that has to be cared for 24/7.

It would be preferable to live longer, if we knew that we were going to be mentally alert. But how many older people are.

It seems that when you get past a certain age you become almost invisible, and then worse.
You become irrelevant to everyone you thought gave a flying feck about you, including yourself.

Before you go condemning smokers as unhealthy, think on this.

Nicotine is still allowed as a pesticide on 'organic' crops. So although you non smokers may think you are morally superior. Maybe you are just getting your nicotine fix, from your organic food.

There are dozens of other methods that won't work, if you 'do not' want to quit smoking. Hypnotism springs to mind.

So try this substitution idea. Simply replace the tobacco cigarette for another nicotine delivery system.

The nicotine gums, patches and E-cigarettes are ubiquitous now, so there are alternatives.
If you really cannot quit smoking and the nicotine habit, at least now you can do it safely.

This is what the NHS has to say about vaping

Nicotine Addiction Controlling Withdrawal Symptoms