Smoking

[yezhanquan]

You learn something new every day.

1) "Tar" isn't just bitumen
2) Tobacco isn't the plant itself.

[Cinocard]

Well, I'm no expert, but I do know that burnt leaves in cigarettes are still the main cause of Tar (not just tobacco leaves, though). But they are THAT harmful because we dry and alter them in the producing process. As you said, using fresh leaves are better for health.

A huge dose of Nicotine can kill. It is hardly harmful when consumed at the slow rate (smoking) though . Other than heart disease, It mainly just makes people addict, and releases stress. So if they could extract pure Nicotine or something from leaves, I wonder it would be good. Or..., Nah, in that case it's just like cocaine.

Wait, does Nicotine quicken the growth of cancerous cells? Somebody confirms this for me?

Again cinocard my only predicament with smoking is that is takes away choice from others, it oppresses others much like elitests in government.

Yeah, never disagreed with you, but I just find the heroin stuff funny. In a sense the Heroin addicts can be viewed as "less selfish" than smokers, since they don't use it out in the open, lol.

[Nosauz]

If you watch thank you for smoking, they show the deadliness of nicotine od. Mainly due to insane bouts of hypertension which in some cases can cause blood vessel ruptures and if this occurs in the brain then thats pretty much a death sentence.

Nicotine is not carinogenic, its all the other stuff. Im pretty sure it constricts the blood vessels causing blood pressure to sky rocket in high doses. Constricition of the blood vessels also make the heart work harder because the heart needs to pump harder to match the increase in pressure. Also smoking has been linked to aesthersclorosis or build up of plaque in the arteries, basically particles that enter the blood stream cut up the smooth muscle that lines the arteries causing it to scar and build up plaque in the artieries which is one of the leading killers in America, go figure. of course heart disease is not solely caused by cigarretes but they say that it does play a role in the development of plaque.

[Cinocard]

I know that it increase the blood circulation rate, blood pressure, block the vessels, and all that stuff... And that's why I said "heart disease." Should have used a broader term. But oh well, IMO by no means it's comparable to the adipose eating style of us nowadays. Do you remember the exact percents of increased risk?

I don't know whether Nicotine is carcinogenic or not, though. I'm sure there's no evidence of it in causing mutagenic process, but I read it somewhere that It speeds up the growth rate of cancerous cells.

[Nosauz]

I dunno i bet they had done studies by adding nicotine into the growth serum for cancerous cells but in all honesty i can't pull up any studies of that.

As for increased risk, no I don't but then again I don't partake in smoking so I don't really pay attention, and with heart disease for most its caused by the sendentary life style and 2-3 meals a day at the local micky d's.

[Demongod86]

From personal experience:

being around smokers is a terrible experience. Even if you're not around them when they smoke, if you're in proximity...oh god...it's like the scent of your own death. It's just that horrible.

I also don't understand the need for such a stress-reliever. If you're making good money and have a family such that you don't need to worry about everyday price tags and like the work you do, what other stress is there?

[Woodchips]

Originally Posted by Demongod86

I also don't understand the need for such a stress-reliever. If you're making good money and have a family such that you don't need to worry about everyday price tags and like the work you do, what other stress is there?

Eh, that's a little naive.

Life can't really simplified so easily. There are lots of things that cause stress, and they can sometimes snowball.

Jobs carry inherent stressors: Some jobs are defined by deadlines employees have to work toward, projects to be rounded up, appointment times to keep, business trips to make, bad bosses, bad employees, crappy customers etc etc etc.

And this is only looking at work-life, let alone the stresses of making house repayments, car repayments, bills coming in, unexpected health issues, education costs, organising holidays, injuries the list goes on and on.

There are many things that cause stress, and many ways of dealing with that. Cigarettes happen to help people deal psychologically and physiologically with the symptoms of stress. If you ask me it's not a very good way of doing it, but it is effective.

While I don't like cigarettes, I don't really like people simplifying the issue of smoking down quite so quickly. It's a multifaceted addiction and therefore needs to be treated as such.

[Fweakin]

Originally Posted by Woodchips

While I don't like cigarettes, I don't really like people simplifying the issue of smoking down quite so quickly. It's a multifaceted addiction and therefore needs to be treated as such.

That age old question; Is it correct to call smoking an addiction if you don't have an addictive personality?

While I agree with everything that you've said so far, I'm interested to see what you think of the latest fad overtaking healthcare, which is to label everything negative in a persons lifestyle as an addiction.

Now to clarify before I continue: I believe that nicotine (or cigarettes) has an addictive component. However, I have also seen from first hand experience that very few of my patients who quit have physiological symptoms indicative of a true addiction. This is only cigarettes I'm talking about. Alcohol is another story.

My issue is with the labelling of mostly a bad habit as an addiction. It is my belief that doing so takes most of the onus and responsibility of their lifestyle choices away from the patient, and gives the patient an excuse for lapsing. The idea of "treating" it also bugs me. It implies that its something for other people to do, not changes the patient themselves has to take control of.

As you can see, I'm still torn on the issue, and my exact standpoint is still being formulated. Thoughts? What have you seen clinically regarding this particular issue?

[Woodchips]

Originally Posted by Fweakin

That age old question; Is it correct to call smoking an addiction if you don't have an addictive personality?

Which is why I quantified my statement by saying that it was multifaceted. I believe for the most part that people who get truly 'addicted' are those who develop a psychological addiction more so than a physiological one. That's not to say that nicotine is not an addictive substance, but it seems that those who have an addictive personality type are the ones that tend to have trouble quitting, or who smoke heavy amounts. Recent evidence has also suggested that sugar is more addictive than nicotine, yet I have never had a 'need' to go out to satiate that so-called addiction. People tend to focus heavily on the nicotine aspect of addiction, but less on the psychological aspect, which is why I think a lot of smokers have trouble quitting, and if they do, they sometimes replace their addiction with something else: exercise, food, water, icecubes, lollipops, alcohol.

Originally Posted by Fweakin

My issue is with the labelling of mostly a bad habit as an addiction. It is my belief that doing so takes most of the onus and responsibility of their lifestyle choices away from the patient, and gives the patient an excuse for lapsing.

I also agree that society tends to 'soften the blow' by blaming everyone else for mistakes, instead of the individual themselves. Overweight and obese people blame fast-food chains for making the food available, not themselves for going out and buying it. People blame drug traffickers for young people ODing on heroin, ice or ecstasy, not the drug takers themselves. And people blame the makers of high-performance cars when people are killed in drag races, not the racers themselves. Our society facilitates these people and by doing so makes it more socially-acceptable because 'really it isn't your fault'.

Ultimately people have to take responsibility for their own actions, but if you do have an addicitive personality type and don't address that aspect of the addiction, aren't you shooting yourself in the foot a little, when trying to get people to cease use? I'm not saying their habits are purely the result of a personality type, but isn't it a more complex issue than what you're making it out to be?

The idea of "treating" it also bugs me. It implies that its something for other people to do, not changes the patient themselves has to take control of.

Interestingly enough, there have been some trials done that have found that medicating a select group of heavy smokers with anti-depressants was found to help them reduce how many they smoked per day, or helped them quit. So I do think there is some aspect of external help required for some people, but ultimately if they don't want to stop smoking, they're never going to.

Despite all of the above, there does seem to be a select group of patients that don't express any significant symptoms of addiction. A lot of patients I have talked to about quitting said it was much easier than some people had told them. Most of those patients gave it up cold-turkey and didn't report ever having that craving when seeing other smoke. Interestingly enough, when some long-term smokers are given an unfavourable diagnosis regarding carcinomas or chronic airways diseases, they usually give it up on the spot and again, report no significant signs of true addiction.

This can't be said of all patients -- far from it -- but I find it interesting that there exists such a wide range of responses to the quitting process and to smoking itself. Thus, why I said it was a multifaceted addiction.

[Fweakin]

Ultimately people have to take responsibility for their own actions, but if you do have an addicitive personality type and don't address that aspect of the addiction, aren't you shooting yourself in the foot a little, when trying to get people to cease use? I'm not saying their habits are purely the result of a personality type, but isn't it a more complex issue than what you're making it out to be?

And thats exactly why I said that in people without an addictive personality.

This can't be said of all patients -- far from it -- but I find it interesting that there exists such a wide range of responses to the quitting process and to smoking itself. Thus, why I said it was a multifaceted addiction.

And again, my focus was not on the multi-faceted part of your argument, but on the addiction part. I actually have a feeling we are arguing the same points, but misinterpreting one another.

[Woodchips]

Originally Posted by Fweakin

And again, my focus was not on the multi-faceted part of your argument, but on the addiction part. I actually have a feeling we are arguing the same points, but misinterpreting one another.

:: Dies a little inside ::

So that long post was all for naught? It might have made things easier if you had clarified your position on the addictive personality aspect before you asked me to respond. It would have saved my fingers much work.

In summary...

Smoking = Psychological dependence + Physiological dependence + Lifestyle factors.

Whew, that was so much easier.

[yezhanquan]

Aye. It's quite common to miss stuff on the Internet. But, it's nice to see a pro in the field bringing us up to date with the current situation.

[Fweakin]

Originally Posted by Woodchips

:: Dies a little inside ::

So that long post was all for naught? It might have made things easier if you had clarified your position on the addictive personality aspect before you asked me to respond. It would have saved my fingers much work.

In summary...

Smoking = Psychological dependence + Physiological dependence + Lifestyle factors.

Whew, that was so much easier.

Oh, but I did clarify my point. I think the error with miscommunication lies at your own feet

Do a quick re-read. If you still think I was vague then by all means I'll admit the fault.

Anyway, as we have well and truly hijacked the thread, I now bow out of the discussion until my interest is piqued again.

[yezhanquan]

Well, there hasn't been a lot of new research in the field, and I'm not surprised.

[Nosauz]

Woodchips I'd agree with you if there wasn't proof that nicotine is an addictive substance, and that going cold turkey is the same/similar to detoxing from heroin. The body actually becomes dependent on nicotine, and you actually feel down when you don't get that nicotine fix, if that isn't dependency, then I don't know what is.

[Woodchips]

Originally Posted by Nosauz

Woodchips I'd agree with you if there wasn't proof that nicotine is an addictive substance, and that going cold turkey is the same/similar to detoxing from heroin. The body actually becomes dependent on nicotine, and you actually feel down when you don't get that nicotine fix, if that isn't dependency, then I don't know what is.

Depends how you define dependency. Are you talking about physiological dependency or psychological? I never said that it wasn't addictive, which is what my mammoth post was about, just that I think people sometimes mistake the two as a way to shift personal blame.

Nicotine withdrawal is a little different from withdrawing from an opiate. Opiods are one of our most addictive drugs, and therefore will result in nasty withdrawal symptoms. Nicotine withdrawal is like having a cold or flu -- literally. Those are similar symptoms.

Feeling like you just 'need' a fix, and experiencing physical, painful symptoms of withdrawal are very different things. That said, I've had opiod analgesics and never felt like I needed them, which is why I question how much is really the psychological idea that you need something, and how much is a physiologic response.

[Nosauz]

It all depends on the physiology of the person, it depends on how the receptors react to the decrease in opioid/nicotine. For many there comes real pain. I've had oxycoton before and I've never felt bad after stopping them, but for some that pain is real, and judging by the over conceptions on detox, is that for most there is an actual physical dependency on these drugs. We all are different and I guess you and I are lucky.

[Rainisu]

Just don't smoke. It's as simple as that. The psychological destruction after a few attempts to smoke a cigarette will be far more dangerous than the nicotine it's self. I know people that have gotten over the nicotine but cannot stop smoking because it has become a timely habit engraved onto their psychological mind; which is almost impossible to get rid of.

[Ridwan]

My first time smoking was back in 4th grade, the nadhir of my gradeschool life. I only took it as a regular habit in high school though, from which it grew worse up to middle college, when my smoking frequency started to get really alarming and induced me to radically pressed it down. Nowadays I only inhaled a couple of sticks not-so-daily, with occasional up turn every now and then, but I'd like to at least eliminate the daily craving that I still suffer for years since.

Any former smoker around ? How did you make it ?

[Xefi]

i once tried smoking when i was in middle school. i tried it out, but didn't like the taste
or the smell of it, so i just quitted there and then.

i have a couple of co-workers here that smoke. i ask them (the one that quitted) in
what keep them from not smoking anymore? they just told me that they just quit smoking
all of a sudden. there was really no special process they needed to do to quit smoking;
they just suddenly stop. that and they realized that their health was more important.

i notice the ones that quitted smoking, were all marry (except for one). maybe they put
their wife and children in mind and quitted smoking?

one of them SMOKE wayyy too much. i'm not sure if he's addicted to it or just smoking
for fun. he smokes 1 to 2 packs a day! jesus....and then my other two co-workers say
that they want to quit smoking, but all i'm seeing is them smoking even more.
and my boss's wife smoke cause she thinks it helps with her diet. >____>;

what i'm thinking is, if you want to quit, you'll just quit. it's all in your mind.