Dealing With Withdrawal |
The first thing it does is stimulates dopamine in the brain, giving people a sense of feeling good. However, it alters the brain because it's not supposed to have that much dopamine, taking over those neurons that usually help one attain pleasure. So, when you take that away, your brain has to learn how to handle those functions on its own again.
The next thing it does is get into your blood stream. This alters your blood stream by adding contaminants, and of course your blood flows throughout your entire body. Now, the brain tells the body that it feels good, but the rest of the body doesn't quite comply. Blood vessels feed capillaries, which feed muscle, which feeds other things such as hair, bones, nails and skin. Suddenly, everything is contaminated and not functioning as it's supposed to. When one decides to stop smoking, all those other things have to be corrected, and without some sort of assistance it can take a long time to recover.
Another thing that happens is that extra carbon dioxide is introduced into the body in a concentrated form. Carbon dioxide is the antithesis of oxygen; people need oxygen to live, but ingesting too much carbon dioxide will kill you. Doing it through cigarettes just kills you slower, but as some statistics say that every puff on a cigarette takes away 11 seconds of your life, with each cigarette taking 10 to 15 puffs for completion, and 20 cigarettes in a standard pack, well, you do the math.
You drag all of this into your lungs, which is supposed to be filtering out other bad things you ingest, but in this quantity the lungs can't handle it all. Most smokers know about smoker's cough, but don't pay attention to the wheezing that comes from it also.
Then there's the damage is does to one's mouth, teeth, throat, and vocal chords. Most people can tell when someone has been a smoker because their voice takes on an unnatural husky quality.
So, it's no wonder that once someone decides to stop smoking that they go through symptoms such as headaches, depression, body aches, anxiety, sweating, fatigue, restlessness, irritability, problems concentrating, dizziness, insomnia, and impatience. It's also no wonder that many people go back to cigarettes, many times in less than a week, without getting some help, because it can feel overwhelming. Luckily, no one goes through the types of withdrawals that occur with drug abusers or alcoholics, but to many smokers, it feels the same.
This is why, when you're ready to quit smoking, you need an action plan, as well as some assistance if you can get it. It's hard to do alone, even though going cold turkey is the method tried most by reforming smokers. But giving up cigarettes and smoking is a no brainer; as smoking kills more people around the world than almost anything else, you could literally be saving your life.
© Smoke Not So Much 2009
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