Do You Understand Why You Smoke Cigarettes

Do you remember why you ever started smoking cigarettes? Most people probably do remember when they smoked their first one and they might even be able to tell you why. The one thing they probably can not tell you is why they continue to smoke. By now it is an addiction that is a part of them, even though you do not get high smoking cigarettes like other drugs people become addicted to. It can not be because they enjoy the taste because they make your mouth taste terrible. The smell is horrible even to a smoker when they have gone without one for a while and then get a good whiff of what they actually smell like.

If you understood the reasons why you continue to smoke, do you think you could quit? By now everyone that smokes cigarettes realizes how unhealthy it is and if you have smoked for years, you have likely already begun to feel the affects from smoking so long. They might make you cough excessively accompanied by the gooey mucus that seems to never end. Yet you still need a smoke with your coffee in the morning and right after every meal. Why? It is habit, but why can you not stop if you wanted to?

Some people might say that they like to smoke, but they are probably not being truthful to others or themselves. The smoking process is not really enjoyable in itself, but what it does to your brain physically is the part people are addicted to. The nicotine produces a pleasurable affect that the mind has gotten used to feeling, even though it is not really even noticeable at the time. The nicotine triggers the pleasure part of the brain known as the mesolimbic dopamine system. The chain reaction of physical pleasures related to smoking is slightly complicated, but smokers just know they have to have a cigarette. This is a dependency they cannot easily explain.

The second part of the smoking addiction is purely emotional. People that have become addicted to smoking cigarettes have themselves conditioned to think of smoking as a reward, the reward being the physical reaction of the body to smoking. The process of smoking can be rewarding in itself emotionally because like an addict that prepares to use a needle or a marijuana user that rolls a joint, the smoker anticipates the physical response of smoking by stopping to pick up a new pack, or the act of lighting one up and inhaling that first draw.

When people are trying to smoke smoking, they of course can get aids to help them like patches or pills, but the reconditioning of the emotional attachment to cigarettes is one reason it is so hard to stop. Just like those who overeat, it is not because they are hungry, it is filling some other need. To stop smoking successfully, you must deal with the emotional side of the addiction as well as the physical and this might actually be the hardest part of the quitting process.