Coldfire, the “addictive gene” might be a bit hard to come up with, I dunno. Psychologists do, however, identify an “addictive personality.”
As for the addictive qualities of nicotene, the U.S. Surgeon General published a paper on its addictive properties in 1988. It is generally remarked that nicotine is one of the most addictive substances. (I have no idea what a “top ten” list would look like.) Several other health agencies have published similar results. (The American Medical Association has not published on the subject that I know, butr, then, a huge percent of their retirement investments are in tobacco companies.)
Thanks for your response - although it takes the challenge away from Sentinel. What I would like to know at least is why they qualify nicotine as such. If the only reason is “because the least percentage of all users quits the habit”, that proves nothing. Well, it proves that the consequences of smoking are or appear less life threatening to the addicts then those of using, say, herion.
I’m only convinced if there is biological proof that it is really one of the most addictive drugs. To me, that would mean that the majority of people who try to stop smoking would REALLY require medical aid, or a fully assisted rehab. This is just not the case: the band-aids and gum are merely psychological aids, IMHO. Sure, they will have some biological impact. But the vast majority of the problem is mind over matter, i.e. overruling your body’s urges.
I tried to bring up the SG’s 1988 report, but their on-line documents don’t go back 12 years. I wasn’t really interested in ordering the print version. The word that they (Surgeon General and Center for Disease Control) use is addiction. Neither the SG nor the CDC is noted for the sort of hyperbole that various “disease advocacy” groups use, so I generally accept their statement. If I can find the actual definitions used, I’ll post them.
As to fighting with Sentinel, you’re on your own. < eg > (I figure that until he shows where any of the people he rails against below actually don’t smoke, then his rant is rather pointless. He only shows that some people–including many smokers–are not nice. Wheee!)
“Bad” people: (Find the exclusively non-smoking group)
[ul]
people with colds who do not wear masks
people with obnoxious children
women who gasp breastfeed in public
drivers of gas guzzling cars
people who drive drunk
people who don’t recycle
polluters
spitters
people who don’t wash their hands after using the toilet
gun lovers
[/ul]
I’ve met all these people–and every group included smokers.
Ranting about rude, preachy non-smokers makes sense. Setting up smokers against the above list makes no sense.
Isn’t this pretty much a definition of addiction? Mental events are (at least partly) physically caused. If engagement in some activity alters your brain chemistry in such a way that you feel less able to choose not to undertake that activity, then that activity is addictive in some sense.
A problem here is that “addiction” refers to a grab-bag of phenomena: some addictive substances involve tolerence - a speed user will tend to use more and more, until the standard hit which would kill a non-user barely produces a buzz. Other drugs involve what clearly seems to be addiction, but the user does not accelerate use.
Physical dependence is a factor in some, but not all addictive behaviours. Gambling is an example where it is not present, but where other addictive traits are present.
It seems to me that weakness of will is a factor in addiction. Indeed, it is probably the factor where a person has a stated wish to desist but believes or shows him/herself to be incapable of doing so. To dismiss this as merely in the mind seems hasty. After all, addiction is only a problem (for the individual) when you want to give up, but have trouble.
On the “addictive gene” question: evolutionary psychologists tend to bandy these terms about, then get upset when people take them literally. “Genetic predisposition” to addiction due to a whole bunch of characteristics is what is meant.
Check out #3 == where they are trying to locate the alcohol addiction gene.
Current theories in medicine have begun to lean heavily towards the potential of people who become addicted to drugs of various forms to carry a genetic trait for this form of behavior.
Want more? I’ll dig up more?
In essence, smokers and alcoholics very possibly have a genetic trait which locks them into addiction beyond the level of ‘normal’ people. Just like some heavy people are destined to be heavy, seemingly no matter how little they eat.
Uh, sentinal, do you realize you just shot yourself in the foot with that link? I mean, the first thing you see on that page is how many people smoking kills a year. What you should have done was pull a quote from the page and cited it. That way, people MIGHT still have gone there, but they wouldn’t have been forced to read about how horrible tobacco smoking is to get to your point about addiction.
I know a lil something about addiction. My dad has smoked all my life, though he quit for a period, he has started again. He has always been addicted to nicotine, however, when he wasn’t smoking, he exercised his will power to refrain from doing so. He stayed smoke free for almost 10 years. The addiction never goes away, but people learn to control it.
My grandparents are addicted to alcohol. They will never quit, because they live in denial.
I am addicted to Caffeine. I stopped ingesting every type of caffiene I could. Chocolate, soda pop, coffee, certain pain relievers. I went through severe withdrawl symptons, and it was hell. But I did it.
I realize nicotine addiction is nothing like caffeine, but I was trying to make a point. It’s a matter of will power and self control.
Re: your title of this thread; I’ll leave you alone when your secondhand cigarette smoke stops aggravating my asthma, making my eyes tear up and affecting my unborn child.
From your first link: “Nicotine has been classified as the most addictive drug in existence.”
By whom?
On what grounds? What is, in this case, the definition of addictive?
We need biological evidence here, not just blanket statements. It is hardly surprising that the Indiana Prevention Resource Center would say such a thing about nicotine. If the statement is false, they can always claim that the goal justifies the means (which, to some extend, is true).
Sorry Sentinel, but no go. Dig some more. We need hard scientific facts here.
As for the second link:
*"Alcoholism tends to run in families, and genetic factors partially explain this pattern. Currently, researchers are on the way to finding the genes that influence vulnerability to alcoholism. A person’s environment, such as the influence of friends, stress levels, and the ease of obtaining alcohol, also may influence drinking and the development of alcoholism. Still other factors, such as social support, may help to protect even high-risk people from alcohol problems.
Risk, however, is not destiny. A child of an alcoholic parent will not automatically develop alcoholism. A person with no family history of alcoholism can become alcohol dependent."*
What this basically tells us, is that there seems to be a correlation between the drinking behaviours of parents and their children. Note the following facts:
Correlation does not constitute causality;
A partial explanation is suggested. However, it is not indicated to which extend genes are relevant;
Alcohol, regarded as a drug, has very different addictive characteristics than nicotine;
This vague indication of genetic influences in addictive behaviour does by no means call for a term like addiction gene. Which is what I asked you to prove;
Not that the last, bolded part sums up the most important bit: controlling ones urges will prevent an addiction for anyone, no matter what their family history looks like.
So again, dig some more. You might have somewhat of a point in the latter case, but you really need to be more convincing than this. The first point is still complete bull to me unless you come up with something substantial.
Good luck. By the way, are you going to enlighten us on that doctor that instructed his patient to take up smoking again because the lack of nicotine made her ill? I accused you of lying about that. Surely, you would like to refute that.
Coldfire
No. I can’t give you a link or anything else concerning the lady who was told to start smoking again because I came across this information years ago. Unlike yourself, I cannot retain the names, places and dates of the thousands of articles I’ve read over a period of 25 years or so.
The main information I obtained for the genetic tendencies came from AA sources when I was investigating causes and effects of Alcoholism. At the time, there was a dichotomy where in a large percentage agreed with the genetic statements and another, smaller percentage disagreed. My latest discussions with AA members indicates that the genetics opinion has grown even more.
We all know how genetics work. We have all seen how alcoholics tend to run within family groups – and yes, there are children of chronic alcoholics who never become drunks. Genes tend to skip generations. Just as science recently confirmed that mental illness can run within family groups – especially depression, along with instances of certain diseases. Sickle cell anemia is a racial disease, mainly found in Blacks, which is a clear indicator that it is genetic. It has popped up in non-Blacks who have a Black ancestor somewhere in their linage.
Genetics control much of a person’s life so an addictive personality based upon a genetic trait is not unlikely. Why do some people do addictive drugs like crack and never actually become addicted while others hand do one pipe and be addicted forever? Three drops of nicotine in it’s pure form can kill a human. With it’s addiction qualities, one would assume that a person with addictive genetics would be most likely to become addicted to it.
Sweet_Lotus
How about the sulfur dioxide your car dumps into the air? No one has done any research yet disclosed about how that stuff affects unborn children. Asthmatics have a harder time of it in large cities where there are more cars. You bitch about that as you fill up your car? Have you taken the converter off? Of course, if you did, you’d be releasing even more crap into the atmosphere.
Have you bitched about diesel powered vehicles which burn a fuel with a highly cancer causing chemical in it? Plus pollute MORE than gasoline engines do?
Nope. You’re too busy bitching at smokers who actually contribute less than 1% to the total dangerous air pollution.
Funny, this sounds like you know this woman. Yet now, you claim you got the information from a magazine or article. Which is it?
Let’s keep it sweet and simple:
An alcohol addiction is different from a nicotine addiction;
This does by no means explain the existance of that so-called addictive gene. This is what I asked you to prove;
AA members could by chance be scientists researching genetic traits, but it is safer to assume they are not.
Sorry, not good enough.
I’m not too sure about that. For someone who knows how genetics works, you are having a really hard time explaining it to others :rolleyes:
Oh my. Did you honestly believe that THAT was going to be enough to weasel your way out of this?
Sentinel, the fact that you’re so opinianated is bad enough in itself. But the combination with gross ignorance and sheer stupidity makes it impossible to debate this any further with you.
To put it bluntly, you are very dumb.
Obviously, you did not follow the links. Alcoholic dependency is not all that different from most forms of drug addiction – if you stop to read the research. Currently there is some speculation that all forms of drug dependency can be genetically related. Obviously you know about as much about genetics as it takes to fill a pin prick.
Do your own fucking research instead of mouthing off over something you have very little knowledge of.
Addiction is something far beyond just lack of mental or intestinal fortitude because some of the most powerful and successful people around have been addicted to various forms of drugs. AA has been looking into alcohol addiction for ages and has a greater understanding of it than most other places and even they are agreeing that it is genetic. (Go to a meeting and ask, dipshit.)
Get your butt buddy, Wallym7 to join you. Nicotine addiction is in those drugs that respond to this trait.
I know of the lady in question because I read about her in an article some years back and found out, through discussing smoking with some friends, that she lived in town at the time. People often do wind up in medical journals – hell, my own younger brother is in one because he was born with a hyalin membrane in his lungs. The pediatrician, Dr. Robert Vinson, new in town at the time, went home after the delivery, read about a possible treatment for the condition in a medical journal, went back to the hospital and administered it and cured him. The results went into a published journal over 30 years ago.
Besides, with fucking morons like yourselves, nothing I say will convince you unless you talk to the actual researchers and even then you’d accuse them of being my friends and lying to cover my ass.
Fuck you and later on fuck faces! Well, folks, lay down your logic because HE has SPOKEN! With the F-word!
Oddly, in an unconnected thread you FINALLY answer to your sock puppets. Your points are… interesting but not as conclusive as the proof I’ve already entered.
So, wait…
Can’t a moderator come in here and clear this up once and for all by examining your ISP address? Yes, I do believe they can do that. Will they? Tune in tomorrow!
Your arguments about tobacco addiction are interesting as well. You obviously want everyone to support you in your contention that “kicking” the habit is nigh on impossible.
It isn’t.
I quit.
I smoked for almost twenty years. And no, honey, I was a bitch before I quit and I’m still one now! But I STILL love you, Mark. I know, the struggle is hard. Being who you are and all. I STILL love you, Mark. We all do.
How can we help you quit? And which of your personalities smokes?
You’re right Wally. The man is in a world of his own. I bet it’s really cosy up there too, what with all of his friends dropping by to pay this cheeful man a visit.
You win, Sentinel. You are absolutely right. You have not only convinced me (which is hard enough!), but the rest of the Teeming Millions as well. You are a true asset to our collective. We are not worthy of your wisdom. Your irrefutable evidence and waterproof logic have silenced us all.
You are, quite simply, the most intelligent man on these boards. Well, right up there with Cecil - you’re a close second, shall we say.
On behalf of myself and my butt buddy WallyM7, and on behalf of all of us, I would like to thank you for sharing your knowledge. No, really. Thank you.
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Now, go out and buy yourself a pack of cigarettes. And walk in front of a speeding bus while you’re at it.
picmr: Aren’t we saying the same thing? I meant to say that the bolded part basically stated that an adiction is only a problem when people are not able to control an urge.
