Nicotine,
Addiction & Stopping Smoking
Nicotine
is an interesting substance. It is an alkaloid - this is
a bitter tasting poison manufactured by plants and stored
in their leaves and stems to stop them being eaten by animals.
It is a friendly warning from the plant world to the animal
world saying 'don't eat this it will make you ill'.
Humans
are well known for living out of harmony with their natural
environment.
I've
yet to treat a smoker who isn't surprised when I tell them
that nicotine is a highly toxic poison. They don't know
that they are smoking something that is three times as toxic
as arsenic and more lethal than strychnine. They are also
surprised that nicotine is used as a pesticide and is so
toxic that a few drops of the pure substance on the skin
can be fatal. This is quite important. Nicotine does not
have to be ingested to kill you.
A
lethal dose can be quite easily absorbed via the skin.
But
of course it is obvious that nicotine can be absorbed through
the skin because otherwise nicotine patches would be a waste
of time - wouldn't they?
And
of course there is that other favourite - the nicotine gum;
so you can spend hours exercising your jaw muscles and get
your poison absorbed through the lining of your mouth, throat
and stomach.
The
real problem is that smokers are treated like addicts who
are so addicted that it is a complete waste of time even
bothering to even attempt to wean them off the substance
they are 'addicted' to. All that modern medical science
can do for these poor addicts is to separate out the toxin
from all the other nasty stuff in the tobacco leaf and give
it to them in a pure form.
In
its pure form it takes just 60mg of nicotine to turn a 150lb
adult into a corpse.
And
it does it very rapidly. So it seems like a really good
idea to chew this stuff and stick it in close contact with
your skin - doesn't it?
I
get smokers coming to see me for help in quitting. A significant
number have tried patches or gum. Quite often they tell
me they ended up using the gum, or the patches, and smoking
as well. That was when they realised they needed some real
help if they were to succeed in stopping.
About
600 years ago the very best minds on this planet had no
doubts at all that what we know as planet Earth was as flat
as a pancake. They were mistaken. Those minds were just
as intelligent as the minds we use today. We just have greater
knowledge and more recorded history. About 500 years ago
the very best minds on this planet thought the sun revolved
around the Earth. They were mistaken too.
Some
of the very best minds on the planet today believe that
nicotine is addictive in the same way that heroine is addictive.
They
are mistaken.
Most
cigarettes are smoked in response to environmental stimuli
e,g, a glass of beer, a cup of coffee, food (afterwards,
not during), driving, getting off an aeroplane, telephone
calls, sex (afterwards, not during), commercial breaks…
This
is not an addiction it is training.
Hypnosis
interferes with the automatic (i.e. without thought) responses
that trigger lighting up.
Hypnosis
makes giving up easier than it can be otherwise.
