By Wambui Demps, coordinator of Smoking Cessation and Breast Health, Allen Neighborhood Center

It all seemed so harmless and fun at the time, purchasing those candy cigarettes and holding them between our fingers, just like the movie stars in our favorite films. Who could have known that candy cigarettes were helping to condition us to accept a lethal drug into our lives — one that could kill us over time?

 

By now, everyone knows that nicotine is deadly. In fact, nicotine is the tobacco plant’s own natural protection to prevent being eaten by insects. It is more lethal than strychnine and three times deadlier than arsenic. It is common knowledge that nicotine is more addictive than cocaine and heroin.

 

So why do people continue to smoke cigarettes? If intellectual enlightenment is critical to successful smoking cessation — and I believe it is — then we need to understand nicotine addiction. Let’s look more closely at this natural insecticide. Nicotine is so much like the neurotransmitter acetylcholine in chemical structure that once inside the brain, it fits a host of chemical locks, permitting it direct and indirect control over the flow of more than 200 neurochemicals! Nicotine arrives at the brain’s reward pathways, where it generates an unearned flood of dopamine, which results in an immediate "aaaah!" sensation. Nicotine also fits the adrenaline locks, releasing a host of "fight or flight" neurochemicals. And finally, it releases the "feel good" neurochemical serotonin, immediately impacting one’s mood. The brain’s natural defenses make various attempts to fight back, but the interesting outcome is this: The power of nicotine is in its winning deception to appear to be what it is not.

 

All the physical changes in the brain engineer a newly tailored neurochemical sense of normality. It is an environment designed by nicotine, a cerebral environment that forges its own diseased physical, social and psychological pathways. A true chemical addiction is born, the "real" you fades and finding your way back now has a real price. Emotional anxiety, alarms throughout the body, mood swings and depression result. Physical illness may have already begun to change one’s life.

 

Medical research has proven that nicotine addiction contributes to chronic bronchitis, coronary artery disease, heart disease, emphysema, gastroesophageal reflux disease and lung cancer. Tobacco is a factor in causing decreased life expectancy, erectile dysfunction, impotency, gray hair, premature wrinkles, baldness, high blood pressure and circulatory problems. Nicotine addiction contributes to infertility in men and women, osteoporosis and a weakened immune system. Tobacco even causes slowed healing after surgery. The list goes on.

 

The road to recovery from nicotine addiction is sober, difficult work. A firm resolve to successfully quit is vital to the process — and it is a process. Education about addiction and understanding the nature of one’s own addiction are also crucial.

 

Behavior modification is an essential part of every successful smoking cessation program. You need to make a decision about a quit date and secure professional and/or chemical support. Difficult? Yes! Impossible? No! If you can take it, you CAN make it.

 

At the Allen Neighborhood Center, under the direction of Joan Nelson, the Health Initiative offers a free Smoking Cessation Program. We don’t turn anyone away, but our focus is serving the 48912 zip code population. We like to say, "Never quit quitting!" We welcome your efforts to become nicotine free. Good health is contagious and you can catch it.

 

(Wambui Demps is the coordinator of Smoking Cessation and Breast Health, Allen Neighborhood Center. Call her at (517) 367-2468 or e-mail anewambui@sbcglobal.net.)