2 Reasons that Cigarette Addiction is so Tough to Beat in Recovery
Smokers suffer from cigarette addiction and have to keep constantly feeding themselves with more nicotine. The cigarette, of course, is just the delivery device. It delivers the nicotine, which is the drug that the smoker is addicted to. No smoker actually gives a rip about the “smooth taste” of a cigarette. If they claim that they do, buy them a pack of those new, nicotine-free cigarettes and see how much they enjoy the “smooth taste.” I can guarantee that they will throw the things away before they are half gone.
Addiction to cigarettes is different than addiction to other drugs. People get confused with this and use this discrepancy to justify all sorts of stuff that keeps them trapped in addiction. I for one was living in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction, and I was still addicted to cigarettes. This is a very common occurrence in recovery. What confused me was that my fellow recovering addicts in the program told me to treat my cigarette addiction just like I did with the drugs and the alcohol. This was not working for me and I had to find my own path. Here is what I found.
Cigarettes are not like drugs and alcohol, even though nicotine is indeed a very, very addictive drug that is also very destructive. The main difference that everybody missed is twofold:
1) Cigarettes do not reactivate our addiction. They do not cause us to return to our drug of choice. For example, an alcoholic who smokes some crack is likely to go buy a drink later. Or an opiate addict who takes a drink is likely to go seek out opiates later. Most drugs and alcohol constitute a relapse and cause us to return to our drug of choice. Nicotine does not do this, even though it is super addictive. It lives outside the realm of other drugs.
2) Cigarettes do not have devastating, short term consequences. Yes they have terrible long term consequences, such as lung cancer and early death. And yes, they have negative short term consequences, such as decreased lung function, stinky clothing, less taste buds, and so on. But these are minor compared to short term consequences from drugs and alcohol. They are not in the same ballpark.
Because of these 2 differences, cigarette addictions must be treated differently than that of other drugs. The unmanageable factor is not as pronounced. Your life is not spinning out of control because you keep smoking cigarettes. As such, you must treat the addiction differently.
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