Do You Smoke?

Do you smoke? I used to smoke many years ago when it was the thing to do among my peer group. I stopped smoking because I really didn't like it very much and because I saw a TV commercial for cigarettes that make smoking look like a silly thing to do. I saw these people running down a beach toward each other and ending up "enjoying" a cigarette almost as soon as they met. What, no "hello, how are you?" No, just a simple cigarette to the mouth and an obliging flip of a lighter.

I was one of the lucky ones and I only began to really realize that when I worked in a psychiatric hospital where they decided to impose a "no smoking" rule. Patients, who we know from the research evidence, are heavy, habitual smokers, were told they could have cigarettes outside the building, rain or snow, at something like one to three-hour intervals. It resulted in threats, punches and a near fatality at another hospital. Cigarettes in the hospital were the currency with which you could obtain many of the things you wanted and matches were sold for $1 each. After all, how good is a cigarette if you can't light it? Some patients took to lighting their cigarettes on electric hand dryers in the restrooms.

What made psychiatric patients such heavy smokers, I wondered and it wasn't long before the professional literature was beginning to give us answers. Nicotine, a substance that has natural receptors (think of little landing pads) in the nervous system, is a wonderful drug. It can be used medically for a variety of new uses now in clinical trials and it is a mild anti-anxiety drug. This is probably why people in psychiatric hospitals are such heavy smokers; it's very stressful and they are under a great deal of internal stress from their illnesses.

So, smoking is more than just "something to do with my hands" as someone once told me when I asked why she didn't stop smoking. She was actually annoyed that I had stopped because it made her feel uncomfortable to be in someone's company who didn't smoke. I held my ground and never went back to smoking.

Whenever you consider smoking cessation, as it is called, remember that it's a two-pronged approach because part of the problem is biological and part of it is stress induced. Ever notice where most of the smoking is done? It's usually at parties, in bars, or dinner parties, all social situations. Or at least it used to be. The recent increased awareness of the health risks of smoking to both the smoker and the second-hand receiver of that smoke (including children) is making it very difficult for smokers.

Smoking is an indication of stress and it has to be treated as such. Manage the stress, get some medication to help with the nicotine withdrawal and it can be done.

Related Topics: Quit Smoking: Strategies and Skills, Panic Attacks More Common in Smokers

Tags: quitsmoking,addiction,stress,webmd