The Brain Thing

[Ladybug--7-3-12]

This post from an awesome lady at the ‘ole Quitnet site helped me understand my personal experience in my early non-smoking recovery months.  I’m reposting it here in the hope that it will also help those struggling in their early days & months thereafter.  If we understand the whys (you are not crazy and you are not alone!) then we can hang on & continue onward smoke free.   It passes ... eventually.  Best Wishes in your healing & recovery.  

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From loretta4living on 10/21/2007   

I got a qmail asking me to explain what I learned about nicotine recovery during the Post Acute Withdrawal stage to you.   

First let me say this, as with ANYTHING anyone deals with in life, attitude and being able to keep one’s perspective makes a huge difference. The mind can be a powerful tool. That being said, nothing could be further from the truth than the premise that once the nicotine is out of your system in 72 hrs what you are experiencing is purely psychological. That is not true.   

How you choose to look at it and mentally handle it may make a world of difference but it doesn't make what is happening not be happening. A person can psyche themselves up to walk across a bed of hot coals, that doesn't mean the coals aren't hot. They are using the power of their mind to accomplish something. Stay with me here, I'll do my best to make this sound not too jumbled as I have been indulging a bit during tonight’s ALCS ball game.   

When we smoked. our body's bio and neuro chemistry had to compensate for the presence of nicotine. When I say bio chemistry I am referring to our endocrine system. That is our glandular system responsible for putting out hormones that regulate every organ and function in our bodies. These glands include, pituitary, hypothalamus, pineal, thyroid, parathyroid, adrenal, pancreas, ovaries for women, testes for men...I'm sure I'm leaving out some here.  Anyway, ALL those glands send out hormones. Besides regulating our body's organs functions they impact, mood, concentration, sleep, body temperature, cognitive thought, memory, anxiety, depression, appetite, body weight etc.    

What I was saying about neuro chemistry I was referring to the many brain neurotransmitters. Which, once again, are chemicals responsible for a host of things. Dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine, epinephrine, norepinephrine, are some of these neurotransmitters. If you need specific info about what each of these do I'd have to get it to you at another time … like I said, been celebrating a bit here.   

But understand that now that the nicotine is out and these glands and neurotransmitters aren't having to compensate for the presence of nicotine and the thousands of other chemicals they are going through a re-balancing. A neuro adaptation. That takes time. Our bodies constantly strive to be in a state of homeostasis. That is a state of balance. The nicotine is out and it is scrambling to find its new balance.   

I am under the care of an endocrinologist. My blood work showed continual glandular hormone changes for the first 6 months of my quit. Okay … now some may say well once that is all over with, it's the triggers. That the triggers also are mental. No they're not all mental. Whenever we repeatedly use a substance that causes a release of the feel good, reward, brain chemical dopamine, our brains map what ALL was going on at the time of that release. What we were doing, what was going on around us, sights, sounds, smells. ALL of that was mapped onto what’s called neuro pathways. Those are like little roads in our brains. That is how triggers are created.   

The good news is when we engage in the same behaviors repeatedly and DON'T light up … those old neuro pathways physically shrivel up and new ones with new behaviors are formed. New memories replace them. I'm going to be completely honest here, IF I hadn't of researched some of this, gone in to talk with the endocrinologist and an addiction specialist, I would have been smoking because I did EVERYTHING humanly possible to mentally get over this addiction and I still went through things. Things that some people here said were mental.   

I didn't know what the hell I was doing wrong in my recovery that I was where I was at and feeling what I did. It was AFTER I learned this that I breathed a sigh of relief. I was actually normal and what I was feeling and experiencing was par for the course. My hope was restored.   

I often wondered how many people IF they too knew would have been able to hang on and let the recovery process happen. It is a process, a physical, physiological and psychological healing process. Give it the time it needs, which is individual for all, and you will recover.   

Loretta