Does the use of the various products made from tobacco, i.e.; cigarettes, cigars, smokeless/chewing tobacco items, constitute the user actually has a pre existing disease that in effect caused the user to try any of there products to begin within a pre addiction phase? The reason I ask is; I was reading several of the responses in the Alcohol/AA related thread that stated alcoholism is, in fact, a disease. After considering what I’d read, and taking into the fact I smoked for for over 20 years before I quit around ten years ago, I began thinking the addictive properties of nicotine, combined with the effects that both nicotine and smoke does have/cause to the human body, that in some very real ways, tobacco use/addiction is pretty similar to alcohol use/addiction… I’m just curious what the consensus might be concerning nicotine addiction and the what “disease” factor might be. Anyone care to comment? I’d guess it might be said that if the mother of the nicotine or alcohol addict smoked and or drank while she carried the child, that in all probability the child was born with a certain amount of dependence on these substances, and this would certainly be a huge influence later in life, within some underlying addiction issues that might have a better chance of surfacing in these individuals, as opposed to children of mothers who did not use alcohol or tobacco. Is this the disease factor or is there an inherited gene that is passed down from a parent or grand parent that causes some people to be more predisposed to smoke those first cigarettes and then continue smoking into the addiction thus becoming a disease?
Well, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - Fourth Edition, the Bible of psychiatry, recognizes nicotine dependence as a mental disorder. So tobacco use is not a disease, but tobacco addiction is a disease.
Now whether there is a genetic component of the disease is a different question, and one I do not know the answer do. Given that some 80% of nicotine users become dependent on nicotine (from the FDA, as cited in The Economist magazine), it is probably not a genetic “abnormality” that predisposes one to addiction, but the normal makeup of the human brain.
Sua
Alcoholism is very different from drug addiction, which is what happens with nicotine.
According to popular belief, anyone who uses addicting drugs will (eventually) become addicted. With alcohol, however, most people can drink with impunity, regardless of the amount, without ever becoming addicted.
So it’s apples and oranges, I guess.
A friend of mine is an alcoholic ,., and he describes the ‘addiction’ as not chemical but psychological. He was addicted to the ‘feeling’ he got when he drank.
I am a smoker…trying to quit…and am addicted to the nicotine as well as the feeling I get when I smoke.
Heh! You would not want to be around me when I haven’t had a jolt of nicotine for a few hours.
Well, the popular belief is dead wrong. First of all, the majority of people using “addicting” drugs do not become addicted. The percentage of heroin users who become dependent is 30-35% - considerably more than the 8-10% who become dependent on alcohol, but certainly not everyone or even the majority of users. The percentage of users of cocaine, hallucinogens, cannabis, etc., who become dependent is rather less. So, most users of these drugs can do so with impunity (ignoring the health risks that accompany some drug use, particularly heroin and dirty needles).
Second, according the study reported by ABC news,
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/DailyNews/heroin000914.html , there appears to be a genetic component to heroin dependence, same as alcoholism. According to NIDA studies on twins cocaine and cannabis dependence also has a genetic component.
IMO, the disease model works or doesn’t work with all drug dependences. Alcohol and alcoholism are certainly the most researched, but nothing I’ve read seems to indicate that alcohol is a special case.
Sua