Why its so Hard to Quit Smoking

This very question became a subject of great interest to Dr Ron Aspinall. Dr Aspinall was born in Canada, he is an Australian trained physician who practised medicine in Canada for many years before recently returning to Australia. The extensive research Dr Aspinall undertook into the subject of addiction uncovered some unsettling results.

'When people take a drug such as nicotine, it stimulates the release of dopamine in the brain, activating dopamine receptors,' explained Dr Aspinall.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that affects the brain process that controls the ability to experience, among other things, pleasure.

'What a person becomes addicted to is not the drug but the increased levels of dopamine it produces,' he said. 'Nicotine, which works in a very similar way to cocaine, overstimulates the dopamine system and weakens it. Once the dopamine system is damaged, the person becomes needy all the time. One reason it is so hard to break the addiction is because the region of the brain that controls dopamine release is in what is referred to as "the old brain" which operates fairly primitively; it cannot be controlled by intelligence.'

You see once you are addicted to nicotine your dopamine system is damaged by the rapid release of dopamine and overstimulation of the dopamine receptors. This results in changes in brain chemistry. This has lead to Dr Aspinall describing addiction as 'a chemical infection of the brain'.

'While anybody can become addicted to any drug if they use it frequently enough, some people are more susceptible to addiction because they have a genetic lack of dopamine in the brain,' said Dr Aspinall. 'Characteristically, a person with naturally low levels of dopamine would have had an incredibly sweet tooth as a child, developed addictions early, had multiple addictions and a family history of addictions.'

Do tobacco companies know that their products cause addiction? Yes, ofcourse. They actively pursue ways of making cigarettes even more addictive to increase sales. Did you know that in the 1960s, The Phillip Morris cigarette company started experimenting with freebasing some of their products. Their Freebasing techniques were modelled on the freebasing of cocaine to produce the highly addictive crack cocaine. They found that Adding bleach to their cigarettes released dopamine far quicker and induced a more powerful high. In response sales of the brand began to increase. Now all cigarettes are manufactured using a freebasing technique.

Tobacco companies aim to attract teens and pre teens to their product, because they will grow into addicted adults - or life-time customers if you will. Why are cigaretter companies so ruthless with their marketing tactics? Money. Simply consider that the cost of smoking one pack of cigarettes a day over a lifetime is over half a million dollars. Armed with the facts and the odds stacked against him, Dr Aspinall went about creating a program to assist people break their nicotine addiction. Using a multi faceted approach he has designed with an extremely successful program appropriately named KickButt! Dr Aspinall attributes the 6 month program's success rate to his understanding of the complexities of addiction.

'There are so many factors that contribute to addiction and they differ from person to person,' said Dr Aspinall. 'My program identifies all those factors and then treats them all at once, giving the person a far greater chance of success.'

The 6 month program starts with a 2 to 4 week preparation phase. The prepartion phase comprises three processes: insight - the explanation of what their addiction is; willpower - the strength to overcome the addiction; and separation psychology - the removal of the addiction from the patient's comfort zone.

The process often results in a reduction of the number of cigarettes the patient is smoking, so by the time 'quit date' comes, they have already lessened their addiction.

Dr Aspinall had some advice for female smokers regarding setting their quitting date. I bet a lot of women may not have been aware of this issue that could potentially cause them to fail when attempting to quit smoking.
'It is vitally important to choose the right quit date,' said Dr Aspinall. 'For example, women experiencing pre menstrual stress (PMS) are far more likely to fail in their attempt to quit, so I would never recommend they quit mid cycle. In some women, particularly those who are in peri menopause - typically women in their late thirties and early forties who often have low progesterone - it is beneficial to give a natural progesterone supplement to overcome the PMS symptoms.

'Once quit date has been reached, I start using dopamine booster medication such as nicotine patches, gum or drugs such as Zyban. Because these drugs boost the release of dopamine gently, they do not damage the dopamine receptors and are not addictive. The extent of the addiction will dictate the level of medication I use.'

Dr Aspinall found that omega 3, commonly found in fish oil and fish oil supplements, as well as vitamin B6 supplements can help with breaking the addiction. And although they may not be necessary in call cases, exercise, hypnosis and acupuncture, are also recommended as part of the kickbutt program. Vitaly important to success in quitting smoking and breaking nicotine addiction is frequent visits with a therapist. 'You really need a multi functional approach to succeed,' said Dr Aspinall. 'KickButt! has a 53% success rate after one year as compared with 7% in self quitters, 13% in those who quit with Zyban and GP advice only, 10% in those who use hypnosis and/ or acupuncture, and 15-20% in those following formal programs. Those statistics were taken before I learned about the effects of hormones and nutrients; I estimate the success rate is now more like 60%.'

Quitting smoking can be one of the most difficult, yet rewarding things a person can do. Most smokers' say they would like to quit, and may have tried at
least once. Some are successful the first time, but many other people try a number of times before they finally give up for good.