Nicotine Addiction, Abuse, and Symptoms

How nicotine affects the brain

Nicotine acts as both a sedative and a stimulant and mimics several neurotransmitters, sending signals to the brain that create pleasurable sensations. Over time, your brain begins to compensate for these signals, and you develop nicotine tolerance, which requires continued and increased use to get the same effects. Nicotine also causes changes in the brain that lead to withdrawal symptoms when you attempt to cut back or quit. To alleviate these uncomfortable symptoms, you reach for another cigarette. This makes nicotine addiction difficult to break. Because adolescent brains are still developing, they’re especially susceptible to getting hooked on nicotine.

Besides the addictive effects on your brain, nicotine can affect your brain in numerous adverse ways. The longer you smoke, the higher your risk of losing brain volume as you age. Smokers may experience cognitive decline faster than nonsmokers and have an increased risk of dementia. Smoking also increases the risk of stroke and may also cause personality changes. Although research on e-cigarettes is limited, using these devices can produce similar changes in the brain as smoking cigarettes, potentially having the same negative impacts.

Behavioral signs of nicotine usage and abuse

Because smoking can physically change your brain’s structure, it can also change behavior. One negative effect of behavioral changes in the brain is developing mood disorders, such as depression. Researchers often question the connection between daily smoking and the onset or worsening of psychiatric disorders, with numerous studies indicating that smoking may cause anxiety disorders and schizophrenia. Smoking may also be a gateway to other substance abuse, including alcohol abuse.

The physical and mental addiction to smoking can also cause behavioral changes in social situations. You may specifically look for social activities in which it’s okay to smoke, choosing to hang out with other people who smoke and ignoring invitations from those who don’t or shunning friends or family members with negative opinions about your habit. You may also skip activities you previously enjoyed, such as going to movies, museums, or other places where you know you won’t be able to smoke for long periods of time. If you do go to events where smoking isn’t allowed, you might make excuses to go outside to grab a smoke and miss important parts of the event.

Changes in behavior can also affect you financially. You may miss out on job opportunities because more employers are requiring employees to be smoke-free. You may lose a job because you continually get grumpy with coworkers due to symptoms of withdrawal when you can’t smoke. You may also find yourself being late for appointments because you had to stop to smoke before you were stuck somewhere you couldn’t smoke. Employment issues may lead to money troubles, and some people end up spending money on nicotine products instead of paying bills or buying food.

Smoking can interfere with the personal aspects of your life. You may become irritable or even hostile with friends and family who suggest you cut down or stop smoking. Because smokers use cigarettes to relieve stress, you may lose your ability to cope with stressful situations or people, causing friction with loved ones. You may even make excuses to smoke, intentionally looking for triggers that give you a reason to smoke.

How nicotine affects the body

Smoking causes numerous health issues because it harms nearly all your organs with some harmful effects immediate. Your lungs are most affected, with coughing, frequent colds, asthma, and increased risk for emphysema, COPD, and lung cancer. Smoking also damages your heart and blood circulation, increasing your risk of coronary heart disease, damaged blood vessels and arteries, heart attack, and stroke. You can develop digestive issues like acid reflux and have an increased chance for ulcers or stomach cancer. Smokers are more prone to osteoporosis because smoking causes bones to become brittle. Health problems from smoking may also include fertility issues, pregnancy complications, Type 2 diabetes, poor oral health, issues with vision, and unhealthy skin and hair.

Early physical effects of nicotine

The physical effects of smoking are felt almost immediately because it only takes 6 to 10 seconds for nicotine to reach your brain. Early effects typically include mild euphoria, feeling relaxed, elevated alertness, and increased heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration. You may also feel negative effects like throat irritation, coughing, dizziness, nausea, and headache. In as little as 20 minutes, the nicotine begins to leave your system and physical effects start to wane. Your heart rate and blood pressure return to normal, but you may also start feeling anxious and begin craving another cigarette.

Severe and long-term physical effects of nicotine

Cigarettes contain thousands of chemicals, many of which are poisons, that damage your body’s tissues. Cigarette smoke reaches your lungs quickly and causes lung damage right away. The longer you smoke, the more damage occurs. Serious lung issues caused by smoking include chronic bronchitis, worsening asthma, and emphysema. Smokers are also 12 to 13 times more likely to develop and die from COPD.

Smoking dramatically increases your chance for lung cancer, with men 25 times more likely to develop lung cancer and women 25.7 times more likely. Besides your lungs, smoking can cause cancer almost anywhere in your body, including your stomach, kidneys, pancreas, bladder, blood, colon, esophagus, liver, throat, and larynx. Smoking also causes coronary heart disease and stroke, which are among the leading causes of death.

Besides harming yourself, smoking can also harm those around you via secondhand smoke. Some of the health effects of secondhand smoke include stroke, coronary heart disease, and lung cancer. Children exposed to secondhand smoke may develop more severe/frequent asthma attacks, ear infections, and respiratory infections. Infants may be more susceptible to sudden infant death syndrome. Women who smoke while pregnant also expose their unborn babies to the harmful effects of nicotine, including addiction, premature birth, low birth weight, damaged brain and lungs, and stillbirth.

Further Resources

Both the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) offer in-depth information on the symptoms and treatment of nicotine addiction.

Global tobacco use remains high and increasing among adolescents

There are an estimated 1.1 billion smokers worldwide. According to the 2018 Tobacco Atlas published by the American Cancer Society, this estimate included 941 million men and 175 million women, ages 15 or older. A major concern was the recent increase in smoking among adolescents, particularly females. The World Health Organization reported that approximately 43 million adolescents worldwide between the ages of 13 and 15 used tobacco in 2018. Tobacco products in their report included cigarettes, cigars, smokeless tobacco products, pipes, waterpipes, and heated tobacco products, but e-cigarettes weren’t covered.

Cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco product, with smokers in 75 countries consuming more than 6 trillion cigarettes in 2012. With numerous efforts to curb smoking, these numbers dropped to about 5.7 trillion cigarettes in 2016. However, the tobacco epidemic has become more complex with the popularity of alternative delivery systems, such as waterpipes and electronic cigarettes. Tobacco remains a major threat to the health of the world’s population, killing more than 8 million people every year worldwide, including deaths by secondhand smoke.

Nicotine use remains high in the United States, especially among young adults

Although cigarette smoking declined to some degree, this decline may soon rise with electronic vaping devices being used as a substitute for delivering nicotine. This may be especially true in adolescents and young adults. While the 2018 National Survey on Drug Use and Health didn’t ask separate questions about vaping nicotine, it showed a slightly lower use of cigarettes, but the percentages were still relatively high.

Data showed that approximately 672,000 or 2.7% of adolescents between 12 and 17 used cigarettes. The number of young adults between 18 and 25 who smoked was estimated at 6.5 million or 19.1% of this age group. An estimated 39.8 million or 18.5% of adults age 26 or older smoked cigarettes. Of the 47.6 million cigarette smokers age 12 or older, 27.3 million smoked daily. These numbers included about 99,000 adolescents, 2.4 million young adults, and 24.8 million adults who smoked cigarettes every day.