Nicotine is a very powerful and addictive drug. Addiction to nicotine has the same effect on the brain as a heroin addiction. This addiction changes the way your brain behaves and functions.
But before we get into talking about the brain, let’s talk
about the pleasure principle. The brain registers pleasure the same way
regardless of how the pleasure is triggered. Pleasure can originate from sex,
drugs, a monetary reward or even a meal.
When you engage in one of these activities it causes the brain to
release a powerful surge of dopamine. It is dopamine that gives you the
sensation of pleasure.
For every time you experience the activity, it causes the
brain to release dopamine. The more you carry out the activity the more likely
you are to become addicted. In the case of an average smoker you are giving
your brain 200-400 hits of dopamine per day. That’s more hits than an average
drug user and a very large window to become addicted.
But dopamine is not only responsible for the pleasure
sensation; scientists have recently found that it also plays an important part
in learning and memory. These two elements are vital in the process of becoming
addicted.
Repeated exposure to the activity causes dopamine to
interact with another neurotransmitter called glutamate. This turns the
pleasure into reward-related learning. This means the brain will not only ask
for the pleasure, it will now motivate you to repeat it. What happens next is
the scary part.
The brain receptors become overwhelmed with all this
dopamine. It is then that the brain makes an executive decision. It decides to produce
less dopamine with each trigger.
So here you are, accustomed to all this dopamine and the
pleasure that it provides. At this point you are addicted to this pleasure and
the brain just decides “it’s too much,” and turns it down. This means that even
if you keep up the same number of cigarettes per day, you will never experience
the same kind of pleasure again! This is defined as “tolerance”.
As if that weren’t enough, the brain now focuses on it more
and it makes you aware of it. It tells you “we need more.” This is when
compulsion takes over. The pleasure of the activity is no longer being
experienced but the brain still remembers it and has a need to recreate it and
it will drive you to do everything in your power to make it happen. This is how
the “craving” is born.
Now that the brain has got you craving the sensation you
will never experience again it begins to torment you by using the learning
process and the stored information about the cues associated with the desired
activity. It will make you crave a cigarette when you see someone smoking,
after you have finished a meal, when you are stressed or after sex. It will
make you crave it during any situation that you have become accustomed to
smoking in.
The saddest part about this entire process is that we are
tricked by the brain into believing that the activity still provides us with
pleasure. But the reality is that once we are addicted the pleasure can never
be experienced the same way. It is a dangerous mind game originated by brain.
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This blog could not have been possible without the help of:
University of Minnesota http://www1.umn.edu/perio/tobacco/nicaddct.html
HelpGuide.Org http://www.helpguide.org/harvard/addiction_hijacks_brain.htm
_________________________________________________________________
This blog could not have been possible without the help of:
University of Minnesota http://www1.umn.edu/perio/tobacco/nicaddct.html
HelpGuide.Org http://www.helpguide.org/harvard/addiction_hijacks_brain.htm
