Stop Smoking Tips

If part one wasn’t enough to make you sick enough to want to stop smoking, here are some more facts about nicotine. My hope is that this information will give you the desire to quit putting this into your body.

Nicotine is a drug that is absorbed in a variety of ways. It can reach the blood stream through the mucosal lining of the mouth, through the skin, or absorbed through the lungs. Depending upon how the drug is ingested it reaches the bloodstream and brain very rapidly – a matter of seconds.

Because cigar and pipe smokers typically do not ‘inhale’ the smoke they absorb the nicotine through the mucosal membranes of the mouth while the smoke is in their mouth. This method is also the means of absorption of nicotine from smokeless tobacco products.

Addiction to nicotine is characterized by compulsive drug-seeking behavior and use, even in the face of very negative health consequences. Researchers have documented that tobacco smokers can verbalize that smoking is harmful to their health and nearly 35 million people make a serious attempt to quit each and every year. Unfortunately for each that successfully quits there are more that are learning this hazardous addiction.

The physiological addiction to nicotine is linked to the increase in the flow of dopamine in the user’s body. This increases a feeling of pleasure in the user with a desire to maintain the feeling. When the level of nicotine in the body drops the smoker feels withdrawal symptoms which can include difficulty sleeping, irritability, and increased anxiety.

These symptoms can be unpleasant enough that without support a smoker will resume the habit in an effort to raise the levels of nicotine in the body.

Once absorbed into the body nicotine is removed through several steps. About 80% is broken down by an enzyme in the liver and excreted through the kidneys (urine). This enzyme has a half-life of 24 hours so you can test if someone has smoked in the last 2 days by screening the urine.

The remaining 20% is filtered through the kidneys and excreted in the urine with the nicotine that was broken down by the enzymes in the liver. There are some people who have a genetic mutation in which the enzyme that breaks down nicotine isn’t as effective. While most smokers will inhale throughout the day to keep the level of nicotine in their bodies high, these smokers will use less cigarettes because they don’t need as many.

These facts are all very good reasons to quit smoking, or better yet, to never get started. Why spend money (more and more of it) on these products that will probably end up killing you, possibly hurt your family and friends, make you smell bad, and so on.

Share This