Opinions - Psychological Effects behind nicotine

[Akashik]

Swims little intro:
Swim has been tobacco free for 4 months now. He used to smoke for 4 years, then last February he quit .... stopped. Ever since, swim feels like his life has become more intense , psychologically taxing on his mind. From the small things to the big things, everything just seems to bother him. Thousands of thoughts running through swims head making him feel growing slightly more insane and unstable with every passing week.
Is it possible for nicotine to stay in the system after 4 months? Swim hardly thinks so. It was the lifestyle he assosciated with smoking. The feeling of satisfaction. The smell, the look.

With more things going to hell and more pressure in swims life today was his breaking point. Swim tried hard to postpone this as much as he could. He tried going to the gym, lifting weights, taking up a martial art ... but it was all old news to him. Things that didnt matter , that didnt work. Artificial little lies, trying to turn a blind eye towards swims addiction.

Today was his breaking point, swim broke into his little safe of forbidden pleasures and took out his used pack of nicorette 2mg. At first he didnt notice much, he thought it might make him sick, maybe his body would reject it. It didnt. Slowly after every chew the thousands of troubled random thoughts that would plague his mind slowly fizzled away into a mere numbness. Content and relaxation slowly kicked in and he once again felt that everything can be ok.

Swims Questions:
Is it possible for nicotine to stay in the system for that long (4 months) ?
What is it exactly that makes it addicting? Is it the chemical? The psychological dependence on it? The image assosciated with smoking?

Swim has also been wondering, nicotine / tobacco use increase or decrease ones appetite for food? Swim thinks it decreases his appetite, but why is that?

[Stefanman]

I guess SWIY got addicted to cigarettes so much,4 months is not enough to get used to normal day happenings without cigarettes,cos they relax you.SWIM is relaxed naturally,not to mention with cigarettes xD he is smoking for 2 years now,wanting to stop,but it got him pretty bad,so he just don't bother anymore,he enjoys it not thinking to stop.

SWIY is maybe still under psychological effects of tobacco,thats what SWIM thinks,SWIY got fond of cigarettes maybe?

[onzero]

nah dude, you only quit for 4 months.

it can take years to get "back to normal"

some people never get there. honestly give it a year. I quit smoking 2x.

the first time i quit was from a pack a day... i went about 10 months before smoking again... got addicted again.

after the first quit it took about 6 months to "forget about smoking"

quit again... then after about a month after the 2nd quit i seriously was over nicotine.

swim may have other "tendencies" bigger than nicotine, but seriously it can take quite a while to get all the way back to square one, or 80-90% back.

you don't get to just suddenly "take back" all those years you smoked, it will linger with you forever probably, it will slowly get less and less of an intrusion though...

some people aren't ever the same after they quit, or it takes years.

but if you're young give it a year and you should be fine... you get that far and you'll prolly never want to touch one again.

and yeah smoked nicotine has a 2 hour half life... 24 hours after your last puff you have 0.02% of your normal nicotine level, 48 hours you're down to 0.00001%, it gets out of your system VERY fast.

this is the problem with addiction. it's how your brain acts when the nicotine is GONE. your brain actually makes millions of adjustments of all types from upregulating/downregulating certain pathways, altering receptor density, altering neurotransmitter production/availability, physically rerouting neuronal connections, and actually destroying and creating brain cells.

so your mind has made all of these adjustments and built up all these expectations for nicotine... it learned how to walk/talk/drive a car/ live your life under the influence of nicotine...

unlearning is a much more difficult process... you can't really unlearn it, you just have to learn new fun things to replace it with... this is why addiction is a bitch. you are forever altered, just like a lost love, you're never the same after that first heartbreak...

[Akashik]

Wow, Swim never thought he'd be back in the tobacco section posting. But here he is again.

Swim again gave in today... its been around 3 months since his first post in this thread ( he believes ).

Swim started school again ( university ) and its again stressing him out , and the works. What can he do , he goes to the gym and does the whole jazz thing but everywere he looks on the campus theres peeps smoking. It so tempting. ESPECIALLY with 2 hour breaks inbetween classes ... swims got nothing to do ( or atleast can do for 2 hours )...

This is the part swim finds funny. Its how "onzero" mentioned near the end of his post "just like a lost love, you're never the same after that first heartbreak... " , swim can relate to this .

Because:
Last week at campus swim went to the bar ( yes we have a bar ), and bumped into this girl he really likes. Well she works there. Swim and her have been friends for 2 years and are in the same program. We are art students .. and of course most art students in our uni smoke and drink ( pretty hardcore) .. so thats how it all kinda started , we would always go an have a smoke during the breaks , go to the bar after class... etc.

So, he hasnt seen her in a while cuz things got complicated and shes the party type and he sees her and shes suprised to see swim. Likewise for swim. ... Its just that... swim thinks hes in love with her. and just seeing her again brought back all those memories of them just chilling.

Well thats the basic story. He doesnt always see her and he has lots of long breaks inbetween classes and got nothing to do so he couldnt help himself but to start smoking again... I mean COMMON! Whats a lonely art student gonna do for a couple hours ? , go to the bar and chill and take up smoking again! DAMN IT!

[seeingred]

SWIM doesn't feel addicted but has smoked compulsively before. When SWIM doesn't worry about addiction swim can smoke without fear....it's the whole idea behind the fact that native americans honored the plant while in this culture we destroy it. If you honor your plants, drugs, wtv it all comes from the same source, then Swim thinks it makes a huge difference in their effects. Like it's an unconscious choice to smoke and consider yourself addicted, the flaw is that we get suckered into this system of fear perpetuation consumerism and propoganda with faulty evidence. IT is a carcinogen but swim find nicotine not addictive. Addiction itself is an interesting thing....people need to stop being afraid of what they are capable of. anyways yeah here's swim's two cents.