Day 4 Without a cigarette!

@GrandpaBW....Hi Bruce; good to hear from you! I have no intention of starting up again. I'm like my dad in that it takes a lot to piss me off (fortunately) but I've got to learn to do something else when that happens. It's getting pissed off that tripped me both times that I quit in the past but at least this time, it only lasted a day. Strangely, I didn't feel any urges at all anymore but something about getting ticked off makes me crave something aweful. Maybe I should just punch the wall or something LOL! Anyway, I'm sure I'll do o.k. and that I "Lapsed" for a day. Certainly not about to beat myself up over it lol!

 

Brain Scans Reveal Cause Of Smokers' Cravings

Science Daily — Within the mind of every smoker trying to quit rages a battle between the higher-order functions of the brain wanting to break the habit and the lower-order functions screaming for another cigarette, say researchers at Duke University Medical Center. More often than not, that cigarette gets lit.

Brain scans of smokers studied by the researchers revealed three specific regions deep within the brain that appear to control dependence on nicotine and craving for cigarettes. These regions play important roles in some of the key motivations for smoking: to calm down when stressed, to achieve pleasure and to help concentration.

"If you can't calm down, can't derive pleasure and can't control yourself or concentrate, then it will be extremely difficult for you to break the habit," said lead study investigator Jed E. Rose, Ph.D., director of the Duke Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research. "These brain regions may explain why most people try to quit several times before they are successful."

Understanding how the brain responds to cigarette cravings can help doctors change nicotine cessation treatments to address all three of these components of withdrawal, Rose said. Drugs or therapies that target these regions may help smokers stave off the cravings that often spoil their attempts to quit.

The team's findings are now online in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. The research was funded by Phillip Morris USA.

Approximately one in five Americans smokes. Even though 70 percent of smokers report that they would like to quit, only 5 percent do so successfully.

In this study, the researchers manipulated the levels of nicotine dependence and cigarette craving among 15 smokers and then scanned their brains using positron emission tomography, or PET scans, to see which areas of the brain were most active.

Three specific regions of the brain demonstrated changes in activity when the smokers craved cigarettes versus when they did not.

One region that lights up, called the thalamus, is considered to be the key relay point for sensory information flowing into the brain. Some of the symptoms of withdrawal among people trying to quit stem from the inability to focus thoughts and the feeling of being overwhelmed, and could thus be explained by changes in this region, according to the researchers. The researchers found that changes in this region were most dramatic among those who said they smoked to calm down when under stress.

Another region that lights up is a part of the pleasure system of the brain. Changes in this region, called the striatum, were most notable in people who smoked to satisfy craving and for pleasurable relaxation, the researchers said.

A third region that lights up, called the anterior cingulate cortex, is vital to cognitive functions such as conflict, self regulation, decision making and emotion. People whose brain scans showed the most differences in this region also reported that they smoked to manage their weight.

"This knowledge gives us new clues about brain mechanisms underlying addiction to cigarettes and could allow us design better methods to help smokers quit," Rose said.

Rose and his colleagues are now planning to perform brain scans on smokers undergoing nicotine replacement therapy, such as the nicotine patch, to determine how these treatments affect the same regions of the brain.

Other researchers participating in the study were Frederique M. Behm, Alfred N. Salley, James E. Bates, R. Edward Coleman, Thomas C. Hawk and Timothy G. Turkington.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Duke University Medical Center.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070319174528.htm




Brain scans of smokers studied by Duke researchers revealed three specific regions deep within the brain that appear to control dependence on nicotine and craving for cigarettes. Shown in blue in this illustration is the thalamus, an region of the brain critical to one's ability to calm down when stressed. In red is the striatum, a region implicated in the pleasure system of the brain. In green is the anterior cingulate cortex, a region vital to self-control and concentration. (Credit: Image courtesy of Duke University Medical Center)

 

Best of luck with it LOCO! I screwed up for a day, but I'm not going to beat myself up for it. I just had a damned bad day; so far, I haven't smoked again.

 

Good job both of you.

Keep up the good work! I am sure it will pay off in both smaller, non-noticeable short-term stuff and noticeable (i.e. your alive! ) long term benefits due to quiting.

 

@Pop_Smith...I must admit that it wasn't my health that made me quit nine or ten months ago, it was my pocket LOL! I was spending fifteen dollars a day on cigarettes! (I was a three pack a day person).

 

@gerry1, ah, that would add up pretty quick as cigarettes are darn expensive. Guess you can look at the heath benefit of quiting as a bonus as well as the money you save from not buying 'em eh? Again, congrats on the quitting.

 

I am trying to quit to, been taking CHANTIX for a week now, dont really have the urge, I just feel funny since I am not smoking, I guess its a matter of finding something else to replace the cigs with,about 2 pack aday here, doing it for health and to save money, I drank and druged for 30 years and it was easier to quit those things then cigs, oh well I will keep pluging away at it and take the med while I am learning on how to stay stopped, guess I am writing this trying to find something else to do instead of going out side to puff, puff that cig.

 

You know, after ten months, I didn't like the smell anymore and had gotten over any cravings but when I use to do things that required a singular concentration like reading, drawing etc, my hand would still just unconsciously go feeling around the side table for the cigs even though I didn't really crave anymore. Force of habit...I guess. It was only when I read, drew, painted ... things that required more focus as opposed to the tube.

 

Congratulations LOCO! Keep it up! I'm on month 11. I cheated once on a really bad day but what the hell, not going to beat myself up for it. Keep up the good work. If not for your health, do it for your wallet ... you'll notice a big difference depending on how much you smoked. I smoked three packs a day so I started saving a small fortune!

 

Congrats LOCO

It gets easier each week, but my urge never completely went away especially with alcohol. Almost six years now.

 

I am on week 4 of no smoking, this drug CHANTIX really does work well along with other things, somtime urges come but go away pretty fast, its amazing that I can taste certain food, I can smell it when somebody lites up a smoke, pretty happy over all, and I wish all those well who are trying to quit

 

Garmoon wrote:

Lord, that's the truth. I hadn't smoked for ten months and it got to the point where I didn't miss it and didn't even like the smell but all it took was one seriously nasty day and I cheated ... it was like "Oh. F*** it!" and lit up. It was only that one time but with me, the urge to cheat is when I'm seriously stressed over something.

Keep up the good work, Keneth and Loco. I had started Wellbutrin about a month before quitting and i think it really helped.

 

Hey Scott you can do it.

I think the key is really wanting to quit. It's also nice not to have to cough up all the stuff every morning to breathe again. Those little cilia grow back after you quit and help the lung plumbing efficiency. I used Zyban which is the quit smoking brand of Wellbutrin. I used the Zyban version so I wouldn't have the mental stigma of Wellbutrin-J/K gerry. My wife still smokes and I'm around her. The only life saver is she smokes menthol which I detest. Never tempted to sneak one of those polluting smokestacks.

My worst times were just sitting in my chair watching TV and constantly reaching for the pack-almost 3 packs a dayer. You'll also start tasting things again and some not so pleasant. It's just mind over matter in the end. Zyban was only neccessary for about 3 months. Hang in there! Thousands have quit. You can too.

I guess you never really know that you have quit smoking? I felt comfortable after the first year.

 

@garmoon...no offense taken; I know I'm a nut case who needs meds LOL! I thought, though, that nicotanic acid on PARALYZED pulminary celia thus trapping the mucus? I'm sure there in an important difference LOL!

 

Researchers Present New Ideas On How Smokers Get Hooked


The smoker puffing away in the corner might be hooked on more than just nicotine. A 15-year study by University of Pittsburgh researchers suggests that nicotine also enhances the pleasure smokers get from their surroundings when they smoke and creates a psychological link between that amplified satisfaction and cigarettes.
The findings present new ideas about the way nicotine works and the reason people become addicted to cigarettes, said principal investigators Anthony R. Caggiula, professor and chair of the psychology department; Eric Donny, assistant professor of psychology; and Alan F. Sved, professor and chair of the neuroscience department, all in Pitt's School of Arts and Sciences. The ongoing research has yielded more than a dozen academic journal articles. One of the latest appears in the May edition of the journal “Neuropsychopharmacology.”

Current ideas about cigarette addiction and cessation focus largely on a smoker's appetite for nicotine, Caggiula said. Psychologically, nicotine joins other such addictive drugs as heroin and cocaine-and even basic needs like food and water-in the category of primary reinforcers. These reinforcers drive people to engage in and repeat behaviors that result in achieving the desired substance.

Without discounting nicotine as a powerful primary reinforcer, Donny said, the Pitt research proposes that nicotine also amplifies the satisfaction smokers get from their environment, from the smell of cigarette smoke to drinking in a favorite bar. This second action of nicotine is known as a reinforcement enhancing effect. Smokers associate the heightened enjoyment with cigarettes and continue smoking to recapture that sensation.

Nicotine's pleasure-intensifying properties help explain why smoking remains among the hardest habits to overcome despite the well-publicized perils of cigarettes and ample cessation therapies that administer nicotine, Caggiula said.

“If people were just after nicotine,” Caggiula asked, “why don't they get addicted to it in other ways such as drinking it or shooting it into their arm? But people don't do those things-they smoke cigarettes. There has to be something else at work here other than just an easy way to get nicotine. We're not saying that focusing on the physical addiction to nicotine is worthless, but it's incomplete.”

Caggiula, Donny, Sved, and other researchers debuted their current ideas on nicotine addiction in the journal “Psychopharmacology “in 2003. The article stemmed from an experiment wherein rats with constant exposure to nicotine repeatedly pressed a bar that caused a set of lights to blink. The amount of nicotine the rats received did not rely on how often they pressed the bar, yet their interest in pressing the bar and seeing the subsequent lights remained high after ingesting nicotine. Conversely, Sved added, the rats showed only a fleeting interest in the lights when they did not have nicotine in their systems. The researchers concluded that nicotine increased the rats' interest in the lights.

Based on those results, Donny tested the basic conclusion of nicotine as a reinforcement enhancer in clinical trials on people. He gave 30 adult smokers cigarettes with nearly all the nicotine removed. The study's participants smoked the cigarettes for a week or more before their interest in the cigarettes subsided, he said. Considering the absence of nicotine, Donny concluded that the smokers in the study derived pleasure from the act of smoking itself. The results were published in the February edition of the journal “Addiction.” Similar research is under way.

Source: University of Pittsburgh
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