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In part 1 of this article, we discussed real chemical addiction and how stopping cold-turkey can be life threatening. We also pointed out that although a smoker claims, “I’m dying for a cigarette,” no one has actually died because they didn’t get a smoke.

The reason it is important to understand that cigarette smoking is a psychological addiction rather than a physical one, is to facilitate effective protocols to remove cigarettes from a smoker’s life. In this article, we are going to discuss examples that demonstrate that nicotine is not physically addictive but that cigarette smoking is psychologically addictive.

What is Nicotine

Talk about a substance that has gotten a bad reputation. Nicotine is presented as the ultimate evil and the culprit that makes quitting cigarettes difficult or for some, impossible. However, just what is nicotine?

According to medical researcher Dr. David G. Williams, nicotine is a chemical substance found in cigarette smoke that stimulates the production of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which is needed to facilitate the transmission of nerve impulses.

There’s one thing though, there is another chemical called nicotinic acid that is a close cousin of nicotine that also stimulates the production of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. What is this almost identical substance? It is called Vitamin B3!

Could smokers be getting Vitamin B3 from their cigarettes? If so, it’s not a healthy way to do it but look at the symptoms of Vitamin B3 deficiency:

Impaired recent memory
Depression
Hyper irritability
Apprehension
Emotional instability

These are many of the reasons that people give for smoking! It improves their memory, lifts their spirits, calms them down, etc. Since many people don’t have good nutrition, perhaps one of the things that fuels the Psychological Smoking Mechanism is a B3 deficiency. After all, these are water soluble vitamins or chemicals, if you will. They are not stored in the body and must be replaced constantly.

The bottom line here is that people don’t get addicted to vitamins! This is just another indicator that the thing that keeps people smoking is not an addiction to nicotine. Let’s look at some of the other things associated with smoking that do not follow the physical addiction mechanism.

If Cigarettes were Addictive

In the previous article in this series, we discussed a case of accidental addiction to pain medicine. As you recall, when the patient discovered they weren’t getting the same results from the standard dose of medicine, they increased the dose which did, for a time give them relief. It wasn’t long before they had to increase the dose again, and again.

This is what happens with chemical addiction, the body views the chemical as throwing it out of balance (homeostasis) and it creates a counter force. It matches each increase with an increase in counter force.

If nicotine was a truly addictive chemical, the smoker would have to keep increasing intake to achieve the same effects that are claimed for cigarettes just as in our drug example. The consumption of cigarettes would increase over time. However, this doesn’t happen.

Let me give you a real life example. My grandfather was a cigarette smoker. He smoked his entire life starting in his early childhood years. He smoked less than a pack of cigarettes per day. The amount smoked never varied. He had a set amount that he unconsciously metered and for over 70 years maintained this level. The fact that he smoked less than a pack per day was to his benefit and delayed the health issues associated with cigarette smoke. But you can’t avoid it forever and he did eventually develop health problems that years of cigarette smoking produced.

A clear indicator that cigarettes are psychologically addictive and not physically addictive is that the smoker settles into a pattern and stays there for years. You have your half a pack a day person, your pack a day person, your 1.5 pack a day person, your 2 pack a day person and in extreme cases, the three pack a day person. This volume is established pretty early and stays that way. There may be daily fluctuations but they all average out. There is a mental meter that regulates the amount of cigarettes smoked! That’s the Psychological Smoking Mechanism.

If cigarettes were physically addictive, the smoker would be adding more and more cigarettes to achieve whatever claimed benefit they provided. This doesn’t happen. This is a clear indicator that that cigarette consumption is regulated by the Psychological Smoking Mechanism and not the chemicals in the cigarette.

If Nicotine was a Chemical Addiction

There is a whole category of smoking cessation treatment protocols that operate under the idea that providing nicotine will take the place of smoking. The thinking behind this category is that supplying nicotine through vehicles such as patches or gum will eliminate the desire to smoke because the hypothetical nicotine demand is being met. Then by reducing the nicotine over time, just like drug rehab, the compulsion to smoke will be eliminated. Sounds great doesn’t it? If nicotine were the culprit, nicotine patches, gum and lozenges would be 100% successful. After all, they are giving the body the chemical that it theoretically craves which is the supposed mechanism behind the compulsion to smoke.

Nicotine patches are powerful products that give the body a steady supply of nicotine. Let’s look at their effectiveness. Since the smoker is getting generous amounts of nicotine which they are supposedly craving, the patches should be incredibly effective. However, some research shows, (Davidson, M., Epstein, M., Burt, R., Schaefer, C., Whitworth, G. & McDonald, A. (1998)), that only 19% of people on patches had stopped smoking at six weeks and that it was reduced to 9.2% at six months. Looking at it another way, at 6 weeks, 81% of the people using nicotine patches were still smoking and at 6 months, about 91% were still smoking. Yes, 10% of those that had stopped were back at it again.

The results for the gum is about the same. Even though the gum was providing the smoker with plenty of nicotine, at 6 weeks, 84% of the people were still smoking and at 6 months, 92% were smoking.

These smokers were getting all the nicotine they supposedly needed. In reality, they were probably getting a great deal more nicotine than the cigarettes they smoked provided. Yet, most of them continued to smoke along WITH the patches or gum. If nicotine doesn’t compel the smoker to smoke, what does? It’s the Psychological Smoking Mechanism.

Another Indicator that It Isn’t Nicotine

With a chemical addiction, more is better for the addict. With nicotine patches, the smoker is getting a great deal of nicotine. They should be satisfied right? Well as mentioned in the last section, only 9% actually stop smoking with the patch. However, putting all that nicotine in a smokers system with patches does have an effect on the smoker. According to the American Lung Association, side effects with the nicotine patch are:

Headache
Dizziness
Upset stomach
Weakness
Blurred vision
Vivid dreams
Mild itching and burning on the skin
Diarrhea

Yes, nicotine does have an effect on the smokers body. However, with all the things that smoking does to the smoker, it doesn’t produce these effects. This is another clue that nicotine is not the motivator to smoke.

Smokers Resume Smoking after Extended Periods

Another clue that nicotine is not the motivator to smoke is the tendency for ex-smokers to resume smoking after a long period of time. Obviously, after an extended period of time, all the nicotine would be out of their system. As has been stated, nicotine is the cousin of Vitamin B3, a water soluble vitamin. These substances are either rapidly used or excess flushed from the body daily. No matter how heavy a smoker, it won’t take very long for all nicotine to be out of their system.

Also, from a strictly habit perspective, a few weeks or months without smoking should have put an end to the habit; the habit of reaching for a cigarette is broken. However, an ex-smoker can pick up a cigarette and resume smoking like they never stopped whether it is weeks, months or even years.

This is because the Psychological Smoking Mechanism is still operating. There is no nicotine in the system, the habit has been abandoned for weeks, months or some time years, yet, cigarette smoking can resume.

Conclusion

The effects of nicotine do not follow the chemical addiction mechanism. Nicotine is similar to Vitamin B3, a water soluble vitamin. It must be replenished daily. It is possible that the smoker has a deficiency of Vitamin B3. Each cigarette provides a small amount of nicotine which is similar to Vitamin B3.

A smoker falls into a pattern of cigarette consumption which doesn’t vary over decades. Whether it is the half pack a day, one pack a day, one and a half pack per day or the extreme of three packs per day, this amount doesn’t vary. Although there may be daily fluctuations, it averages out over time to whatever pattern the smoker follows.

Cigarette consumption is regulated by the Psychological Smoking Mechanism. The only way to remove cigarettes from your life is to remove this mechanism. If the Psychological Smoking Mechanism is not removed, the person quitting cigarettes will continue to be a smoker who doesn’t happen to be smoking right now. When the Psychological Smoking Mechanism is gone, so is smoking because the person has become a NONsmoker!

(c) Copyright 2009, R. Michael Stone

R. Michael Stone, M.S. – Counselor
Creator of The Unlearn Smoking Success System tm
The easy 28 day program that helps you become, not an ex-smoker, but a Non-smoker
FREE Reports: ==> Unlearn Smoking
Other Products ==> for self-improvement. Contributed Creativity CD Program to: Thinking Write: The Secret to Freeing Your Creative Mind Thinking Write Book

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If you are a smoker there are many harmful smoking effects that you have to be aware of. Smoking damages nearly every part of your body from your head to your feet. 

But you must know how damaging smoking is to the most critical systems in your body; your Cardiovascular (Heart) and your respiratory (Lungs) systems. It is the effects smoking has on these systems that cause the most risk for disease and early death. 

Most of the serious and life threatening diseases caused by smoking involve the heart and lungs. Let’s take a closer look at how smoking damages these two critical systems of your body. 

Cardiovascular System (Heart) 

Smoking has a very profound effect on the circulatory system. Smoking causes the resting heartbeat of smokers to be much higher than that of a non-smoker. Smokers have a much higher risk for hypertension and heart attack. They are also much more at risk for Atherosclerosis or narrowing and hardening of the arteries. Smoking also increases blood clotting and can lead to strokes. 

Respiratory System (Lungs) 

Smoking has the most harmful effects on the respiratory system. Smokers are 12 times more likely to get lung cancer than non-smokers. Also smokers who continue their habit for a long time can get Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease or COPD. This is one of the leading causes of death for smokers. 

To avoid the harmful effects smoking has on your lungs and heart you absolutely need to quit smoking. The good news is that sooner you quit smoking the odds of getting smoking related diseases rapidly decrease. Even if you have been smoking for a long time your health will improve by quitting smoking. 

You can increase your odds of kicking the habit with the assistance of a stop smoking program. You have many options but you may want to look into NLP. It is an all natural method to quit smoking, so you avoid the costs and side effects associated with medications. It is also very successful compared to a lot of other stop smoking methods at helping smokers to rid themselves of smoking and harmful smoking effects.

So you are ready to save your heart and lungs from harmful smoking effects? Good for you! It is time to let the healing begin and start living a healthy, smoke-free life style. Visit www.stop-smoking-method.info to learn more about how NLP can help you easily kick the smoking habit forever. Good luck-http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Trevor_Green “>Trevor Green.

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With today’s wealth of information and intensive research on the ill effects of cigarette smoking on the human body, you would expect a smoker to keep a safe distance from his regular nicotine fix and not touch it with a ten-foot pole. But a true cigarette smoker knows that it’s not easy to detach oneself from that so-called cancer stick.

Smoking cessation or the effort to quit tobacco smoking takes a great amount of self-discipline and will power because despite the known serious and deadly consequences cigarette smoking inflicts on the health of the smoker himself and the people around him (yes, let’s not even get into the devastating effects of second hand smoke because there are innumerable diseases that can be acquired from it), conquering nicotine addiction is a challenging feat on its own.

Cigarettes contain approximately 4000 chemicals, hundreds of which are known to be toxic. These harmful substances affect the internal functioning of the human organs and mess with the efficiency of the body’s immune system, increasing the risk of respiratory and other infections. The detrimental effects of cigarette smoke on a person’s health are widespread and destructive because the toxic ingredients travel throughout the body and cause damage in so many different ways.

Instantly reaching the brain, often within 10 seconds following inhalation, nicotine acquired from tobacco smoke has been found in every part of a smoker’s body, even in breast milk of women smokers. Cigarette also contains the equally toxic carbon monoxide, which binds to hemoglobin in red blood cells and prevents these affected cells from carrying their full load of oxygen.

Tobacco smoke contains cancer-causing agents or carcinogens which damage important human genes that control the growth of cells, often causing them to grow abnormally or reproduce too rapidly.

However, despite all these alarming facts on the harmful and lethal effects of cigarette smoking on a person’s health, many smokers find it very hard to quit. Many of them want to quit, but they just lack the proper motivation and education on how to achieve their desired long-term or permanent freedom from nicotine addiction.

The best way for smokers to achieve their desired permanent smoking cessation is to learn about the common pitfalls to prepare themselves and eventually become smoke-free. They can also try CigArrest products, which have helped millions of people quit smoking. CigArrest has a remarkable lineup of products that effectively help smokers, such as the all-natural CigArres no-smoking chewable tablets that help overcome the urge to smoke whenever and wherever it strikes, the CigArrest Gum which control cigarette cravings, and the smoker’s vitamins that fight cell damage caused by smoking and strengthen the immune system.

Quitting smoking doesn’t have to be expensive because there are CigArrest coupon codes that offer big discounts on several CigArrest products. These CigArrest promotional codes give users discounted access to CigArrest’s patented no-smoking formula and smoker’s behavior modification program that contains all the help a smoker needs in becoming a full-fledged non-smoker and lead a healthy life.

This Safe, Simple And Highly Relaxing Self-hypnosis Technique Takes Less Than 30 Minutes And Works By Completely Reversing The Way You Think About Cigarettes And Smoking.
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How to quit smoking cigarettes and save your life before its too late.

The process might be a little difficult but is not at all impossible. First thing to realize is that nicotine in tobacco products is the main reason that you develop this addictive habit.

It is a very powerful addictive drug that mixes with your blood and requires periodic replenishment.

That is the main reason why smokers constantly take puff of cigarettes for getting rid of their uneasy feeling and increase nicotine levels in their blood.

However, if you are determined to quit this habit then the urge to smoke can be overcome easily.

The act of getting into this habit might be influenced by some friend or colleague who gives this false interpretation that smoking is like a friend that helps you relax.

However, in the end you realize that the negative effects are more pronounced than short-term relaxation provided through this activity.

Once you start smoking, the chances of you quitting this habit reduce. It is only when you wake up to the call of your body and its weakness that you realize that smoking is extremely harmful for your health.

The nicotine drug in the tobacco products works as both a stimulant as well as a depressant.

Initially it might cause the heart rate to increase rapidly making the smokers extremely alert and responsive. However, as time goes by the levels of nicotine in the blood reduces which leads to the smoker feeling irritable and depressed.

Fatigue starts to come into the body and the urge to smoke another cigarette becomes impossible to control.

Experts have found out that similar to effects of heroin and cocaine there is a possibility that nicotine might lead to an even stronger addiction due to its easy availability in the markets.

However, that does not mean that you should feel disappointed or unhappy because the activity of quitting smoking is possible like millions of people who have done the same worldwide.

Keep a log where you pen down your thoughts regarding the need to quit smoking cigarettes and the approach you are taking for the same.

Once you quit smoking cigarettes, there is a possibility that your body develops that extra stamina that was missing earlier.

This helps particularly for people who take up physical work. Getting support for your activity to quit smoking cigarettes is extremely important.

Whether it is support from family, friends, colleagues, or a quit smoking cigarette club, there is always a need to communicate with others regarding your feeling and intentions when you undergo this activity.

If your mind diverts by any chance then it might be possible that they show you the direction and provide the necessary comfort. Setting up a date to quit smoking cigarettes is important.

This means that you are mentally prepared to kick the habit. The pros and cons of your decision are clearly in front of you. This is the day, which changes your life towards a better living.

Get rid of all tobacco related products from your surrounding environment whether it is office or your house. The less you are exposed to tobacco products the better it for helping your cause.

It’s this simple… if you want to know how to quit smoking fast then you need to sit up straight and read this:

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He stumbled upon a thousand year old technique hidden within the pages of one of the thickest books in history, and, until today this technique has remained a secret from the people.

You can have access to his secret right now to completely crush your cravings for cigarettes once and for all.

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The e-cigarette is rapidly gaining popularity with smokers. Because of their rising popularity, many companies have been started in the last few years to meet the demand for e-cigarettes. At first, most of the e-cigarette companies were located in China. However, there are now several American firms that have started to make and market the e-cigarette. Of the American firms, Blu Cigs, which is located in Charlotte, North Carolina, is becoming very popular with many e-cigarette purchasers.

The Blu Cigs e-cigarette uses technology similar to other e-cigarette brands. Like most other e-cigarettes, the Blue Cigs e-cigarette is not really smoked but instead is “vaped”. That is because e-cigarettes do not burn anything. Instead, e-cigarettes vaporize liquid nicotine into a fine mist that is inhaled, hence the term “vape”. The liquid nicotine, which is contained in a special cartridge, is turned into a mist by mechanism known as an atomizer. The atomizer in the Blu Cigs e-cigarette is powered by a small rechargeable lithium ion battery.

Like many other e-cigarettes, the Blu Cigs e-cigarette uses an Light Emitting Diode (LED) that glows when a user inhales on it, mimicking the effect of a real cigarette. But, unlike most of the LEDs used in other e-cigarettes, which typically emit a reddish or orange light, the LED in the Blu Cigs e-cigarette emits a blue light. The blue light gives the Blu Cigs e-cigarette a distinctive look, setting it apart from other e-cigarettes. It also serves as a cue to others that a real cigarette is not being smoked, which is important in environments where real smoking is prohibited.

The Blug Cigs e-cigarette starter kit cost $59.95. At that price, the Blu Cigs e-cigarette is very competitive with other brands of e-cigarettes. The starter kit includes one e-cigarette, a pack for holding batteries and nicotine cartridges, two atomizers, one wall charger, a USB charger, and 25 Free liquid nicotine cartridges.

Finally, the liquid nicotine cartridges from Blu Cigs come in many different flavors. Flavors include tobacco, coffee, cherry, vanilla, and menthol.

More information on the Blu Cig e-cigarette can be found here.

Ron J. Myers is an avid writer. His favorite topics are fitness and health. More of his work can be found here.

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