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India has 75,000 to 80,000 new cases of
oral cancer a year - the world's highest
incidence. And an estimated 2,200 deaths
a day are tobacco related - mostly out of
smoking and chewing tobacco.
Research suggests that a large section of
India's educated, working population has
taken to some of these oral addictive habits
- smoking, tobacco chewing, or consuming
tobacco in various forms, due to a variety
of reasons. It usually starts off as a casual
trial and, with one's job and life stress
increasing, one can easily turn to one of
these addictive habits as a way of dealing
with stress, tension, boredom, loneliness,
etc.
Nicotine
is the drug in the tobacco product (cigarettes,
cigars, gutkas, pan masalas, etc.,) that
gets you addicted to the tobacco product.
It causes changes in the brain that make
people want to use it more and more and
become addicted to these products. Any tobacco
product has the same ingredients as rat
poison (cyanide), dead frog preserver (formaldehyde),
and toilet bowel cleaner (ammonia).
How do I know if my habit
has become an addiction?
Nicotine
addiction in the form of smoking, or chewing
tobacco, etc, is characterized by the following
symptoms or characteristics:
1. Craving:
A strong need or compulsion to smoke or
chew tobacco.
2. Loss of control: The frequent inability
to stop smoking or chewing tobacco once
a person has begun.
3. Physical dependence: The occurrence of
withdrawal symptoms, such as restlessness,
nausea, sweating, shakiness, and anxiety,
when tobacco use is stopped after a period
of heavy tobacco use. These symptoms are
usually relieved by drinking alcohol or
by taking another sedative drug or a tobacco
substitute.
4. Tolerance: The need for increasing amounts
of nicotine in order to get "high".
Why is it so hard to
quit smoking or chewing tobacco?
Since nicotine based tobacco
products are so addictive, repeated use
and the body getting conditioned to having
nicotine in the bloodstream, can cause unpleasant
withdrawal symptoms (link to symptoms of
nicotine withdrawal below) when attempting
to quit. Thus good feelings that result
when an addictive drug is present - and
the bad feelings that result when it's absent,
make breaking any addiction very difficult.
In fact, research into smoking/tobacco chewing/other
such oral addictive substances, has found
that pharmacologic and behavioral characteristics
that determine tobacco addiction are similar
to those that determine addiction to drugs
such as heroin and cocaine.
What does nicotine do
to the body?
By now, everybody knows
that smoking or chewing tobacco is harmful
and can even lead to death. The effects
it has on one's heart, blood pressure and
the risk of different types of cancers is
well known. These effects are cumulative
and long term and are perhaps what makes
it easy for us continue with the habit,
because we can see no drastic, life-threatening
effects immediately.
But, something that one often forgets is
that all parts of the body are affected
when you smoke or chew tobacco.
Addicted individuals,
tend to
Experience colds, flus,
and ordinary illnesses as worse than usual.
That happens because their immune system
is worse than before they started smoking
or chewing tobacco.
Smoking can also make you have wrinkles
and cause abnormal tightening of skin.
Smoking/chewing tobacco causes permanent
discoloration of teeth, gums and nails.
It brings down stamina, causes breathlessness
even with moderate physical activity.
It can drastically affect one's sex-drive
and satisfaction with sex-life for both
men and women. In men it can raise the risk
of impotence, reduced volume of semen, can
lower sperm count, can cause abnormal sperm
shape and impaired sperm motility.
In women, it can adversely affect the
menstrual cycle, the function of the fallopian
tubes it can have an increased risks for
conception delay and infertility. Also women
who currently smoke have an increased risk
for hip fracture compared with nonsmoking
women.
What are the symptoms
of nicotine withdrawal?
Lightheadedness
Sleep disturbances
Constipation
Mouth ulcers
Dry mouth
Sore throat, gums or tongue
Pain in limbs
Sweating
Depression
Fatigue, fearfulness, sense of loss
Appetite getting affected
Coughing (body getting rid of the mucus
clogging the lungs).
Symptoms may
last from a few weeks to several months.
After withdrawal subsides, urges for nicotine
(for the effects of the drug) occur in response
to all kinds of cues to smoke or chew.
So how can I hope to
quit then?
Because addiction is a
matter of psychological as well as physiological
dependence, quitting too involves physical
and mental work, mainly to deal with withdrawal
symptoms after the actual act of quitting.
Thus trying to successfully quit smoking
involves a step-by-step process and is best
done with the sustained help of a counselor,
a medical practitioner and support of family
/ friends. It involves a systematic mental
preparation, systematic lifestyle changes
and even medication.
Smoking or chewing tobacco
is a habit that is "learned" and
hence can be "unlearned" - it
requires sustained effort and willingness
to seek help. Quitting IS hard - it involves
physical, psychological and medical effort
on one's part, depending on how addicted
you are. Usually, people take 2 or 3 tries,
or more, before finally being able to quit.
Each time you try to quit, you can learn
about what helps and what doesn't. However,
even with this reality, the good news for
you is that, most motivated people are able
to quit smoking and even after quitting,
continue to take the effort to keep away
from smoking/chewing tobacco, for the rest
of their lives.
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