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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (26525)	5/29/1999 11:37:00 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

Sorry, I don't think telling someone who want to quit that "addiction is crap" is realistic. I would say, it's hard, but every day, it gets easier, and it only lasts a few days.

To: Neocon who wrote (26525)	5/30/1999 12:21:00 AM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

I have known several people who have terminated addictive relationships with a variety of substances. From what I've been told, nicotine is as addictive as it gets. The one salient feature of a nicotine habit that distinguishes it from any other drug of abuse I can name is that nicotine addicts remain fully functional. There is no equivalent social pressure on the smoker to quit nicotine - because the smoker is not removing himself from society by using nicotine. Alcohol, sedatives, opiates, speed ... the other major classes of addictive substances tend to separate the user, especially the monomaniacal user, from being socially functional. It's easy to get to the point where "all that matters is more drug". Tobacco is for some reason not beset by this same liability. Even so - people know now that smoking tobacco is a poor health choice - most particularly because of the strong causal links bewteen sustained smoking and cancer, emphysema and peripheral circulatory degeneration. And yet quitting is not as simple as making a lifestyle decision. >I think that the mild physiological symptoms commonly associated with nicotine withdrawal< is only half the story. What of the less evident neurochemical symptoms - like the powerful need/reward cycle set up by nicotine use? Since this is not easily measured in "physiological" terms, like pulse or blood sugar or other measurables - is it any less valid? Don't get me wrong. As a libertarian I don't want to see tobacco outlawed. But I also want folks to be up-front, especially with the nation's young, that tobacco is an addictive substance, and shaking the addiction is as hard a thing as any of us might be asked to face. In my considered and educated opinion the addiction stuff is very real.