I havent had a cigarette since September. But I chew three or four nicorettes a day.
I can go on this way just fine.
Someone, please tell me that Nicorette doesn’t cause cancer. I don’t mind being addicted to nicotene but I’d hate to find out my heart will burst, kidneys will lock up, or my genitals will shrivel up.
That would really ruin my day.
Not necessarily but they are a bastard to smoke.
It’s an interim step, isn’t it (although I recall being relieved to be happy with the patches - at least I wasn’t smoking!) ?
Fwiw, I’d maybe try moving away from feeding your addiction orally as the next step - try patches that can deliver the same amount of drug but in a regulated way cos I guess the deal is now, you start a gum whenever you feel like it.
Yeah, I’d try regulating it and not orally as the next step. You can even up the dose to start with if you’re concerned.
Believe patches can do it, cos they can.
4mg or 2mg ?
3-4/day seems like a pretty mild addiction; the Nicorette instructions tell you to chew at least 9 pieces a day (for the 4mg version) when you first quit smoking, then after several weeks start whittling down to 4-6/day, then move to 2mg, then stop after 12 weeks. (I’m working from memory on the steps, I may have it slightly off).
AFAIK, Nicorette is not bad for you, although I wonder what a dentists thinks about them. Cigs are very bad for you, so it’s a good trade-off.
I wouldn’t sweat this much more benign addiction, but do look for ways to start curbing/changing it. I like London_Calling’s suggestion of moving to patches to break the oral nicotine link.
FWIW, I quit smoking 9/11/2003, and I’m a still a pretty serious Nicorette gnosher, about 8 4mg pieces/day. I broke a 20+ year 2+ pack/day habit using Nicorette, so I’m not sweating a gum habit yet, but I agree it’s good to look forward towards getting off the gum.
Had a friend who went through this. It took her almost a year to get off the gum. Just work at it slow, try to cut down where you can. 3-4 isn’t really bad, she was doing quite a bit more at the time frame you’re doing.
Nicotine itself does have some negative health consequences. I believe it constricts your arteries or somesuch. A quick search on the negative health effects of nicotine on, say, WebMD, or erowid ( http://www.erowid.org --> Plants and Drugs --> Tobacco should do it for you), or plain old Google should get you what you need to know. If that doesn’t work, head to the nearest university’s medical library and look for a psychopharmacology book (one I can vouch for in particular is “The American Psychiatric Press Textbook of Psychopharmacology”, published by the American Psychiatric Association–I forgot who the authors were). Or you could talk to your doctor about it (anyone with an MD will do, I should think); they’ll probably know.
My dear spouse has been a gum junkie for 5 years and it costs more than cigarettes but gum doesn’t cause a hacking cough. Her doctor said it’s better to stay on the gum forever rather than start smoking again. My old boss chewed the stuff continuously every waking hour.
I can always tell when she’s mad at me because she chews faster.
I think that an addiction of any kind isn’t healthy - barring, of course, things like exercise and breathing. Perhaps you can try to replace one stick of nicorette with one of a regular gum? Wean yourself down.
Good for you for quitting smoking! Yay! :shoots off streamers and fireworks:
Ginger
Smoke free since 02/07/00 after 17 years
How evil is nicotine??? For the past two weeks I have doing The Patch and gum. Next week I plan on giving up both these crutches for masturbation and Jolly Ranchers.
I think that any doctor would rather you chew nicotine gum all your life than smoke cigarettes for a year. But again, the negative health consequences of cigarette smoke often overshadow those of nicotine itself, and people often assume that the drug is harmless; I’m glad that someone is stepping up and asking the question rather than assuming. You’re striking a blow against ignorance, my friend.
The thing that puts it in perspective for me is this: Nicotine is a cognitive enhancer, meaning it makes you smarter and more aware. It has also recently been proven to be as effective as Ritalin in ADHD treatment. Despite these benefits and all of the possible applications in psychiatry, the American Psychiatric Association warns against its use–because it’s too dangerous. Not cigarettes–the drug itself is deemed too dangerous. This from the field of medicine that gives people meth pills.
(BTW, not to hijack, but for those who are curious about the psychiatric aspect, I read a newspaper article recently that said that the big pharmaceutical companies are in a race to create a nicotine-based drug that doesn’t have the traditional side effects of nicotine. This sort of thinking about ephedra, a natural stimulant, led to the creation of amphetamine, which, for all the trouble it’s caused addicts and dieters, really solves a lot of problems for people with ADHD and other things.)
One last note: I’m probably making nicotine sound pretty evil, but don’t freak out if you’re on the patch/gum. Phase it out, and you should be fine. Again, a life of Nicorette is much better than a life of Marlboro, so if you’re to the point of patches/gum you’ve already done yourself a world of good. Your body gets quite a bit healthier almost immediately after you quit the cigs, and healthier still pretty soon after you quit the nicotine. Good luck, and congratulations on quitting smoking!
Huh, really? Maybe that’s why I smoke more when studying. Hehe.
[hijack]
Do they still diagnose folks with just regular ADD anymore? Or is it all ADHD? cause I was diagnosed with regular ADD, no hyperactivity. But everyone I know who’s been diagnosed in the past few years say they’re ADHD.
I think they’re all just kids with, y’know, energy. School systems don’t like it (“sit still and pay attention!”), so they get labaeled ADHD.
Hmm.
[/hijack]
Another story for another thread, and I don’t mean to hijack, but to answer your ADHD questions:
Yes, it’s all “ADHD” now. I was originally diagnosed as ADD too, but I’ve found that in the field of psychiatry the H is there in all cases. Now they distinguish between “ADHD, hyperactive subtype” – the type that has kids bouncing off the walls and ‘acting out’, which was always called ADHD – and “ADHD, inattentive subtype” – the type that makes it difficult to screen stimuli out and to focus on a particular thing, which used to be called ADD…that’s the type I have.
I personally believe that ADHD is overdiagnosed. Yes, a lot of cases of hyperactive subtype probably at least stem from teachers wanting to keep difficult children under control, and some people make an argument that hyperactive subtype is really only about unruly little children. Make of it what you will, but I know from my personal experience that inattentive subtype is very real (although probably overdiagnosed somewhat). There’s another argument that we shouldn’t drug kids up so young. That argument, though, stems mostly from the fact that stimulants were the only option for ADHD pharmacotherapy for so long; today, more and more antidepressants and antidepressant-like drugs, which are as effective as the stimulants and safer, are available for treatment of ADHD. With new, safe ADHD drugs, there’s not that much of an argument against pharmacotherapy anymore, as long as everyone involved is well-informed and is quite sure that it really is ADHD.
There’s quite a bit higher rate of smoking among teens with ADHD than in the overall teen population, and nicotine’s effectiveness in helping ADHD kids focus probably has a lot to do with that. I think I’ve read that marijuana and amphetamine use are also higher in ADHD populations, for the same reasons.
Stay on the gum, if you think it will help you stay off cigarettes. The bad part of smoking is NOT nicotine, it’s the “tars” that cause the cancer, heart disease, emphysema, etc.
Not to get off the topic, but wasn’t there a movie where there was a sub-plot about a non-smoking woman who started chewing the gum because it was “soothing”, then started smoking to stop her gum addiction (had to be a comedy)?
Nicotine is a vasoconstrictor (which is bad for the cardiovascular system), but personally I’m sure it’s “healthier” for you to chew Nicorette gum than it is to smoke cigarettes, which give you BOTH the vasoconstriction of nicotine PLUS the tar and other chemicals which, as someone else mentioned, increase your risks of lung cancer and emphysema.
Alas, Nicorette didn’t help me. I tried it years ago (late 80s), it was the second time I’d tried to stop smoking (the first attempt, five years prior, was cold turkey: totally unsuccessful!). Thing was when I tried Nicorette, even though I chewed a piece whenever I wanted in lieu of lighting a cig, and chewed it as per instructions, the Nicorette never “took the edge off” for me the way a cigarette did, and I couldn’t stand being on edge constantly. So I went back to smoking. Another few years passed, I tried to quit once more, via cutting down how many cigs I smoked: in about three weeks I got down from my usual pack to pack and a half a day to 5 cigs a day – I thought if I could get down to only one or two per day, I’d be able to stop totally. But that didn’t work either, because I was still on edge most of the time and constantly clock-watching (“when can I smoke again?”). Now I just plain give up. Anyone who suggests to me now that I ought to quit gets a plain old “Mind your own business” reply. I’m gonna die someday anyway, a number of ex-smokers and nonsmokers ALSO die of heart disease, cancer and even emphysema (a coworker’s mother, who NEVER smoked, died of emphysema!), and frankly, now that I’m in my early 40s and tired of life for the most part anyway I don’t even WANT to live to be REALLY old. And I sure as hell don’t want to spend the rest of the time that I DO have to live edgy, bitchy, unable to concentrate and even more misanthropic than usual.
Congrats on your quit though. Just because I couldn’t do it doesn’t mean I don’t respect those who do.