HI guys,
Just some info on some research I did a few years back. (yep,during one of my previous quits) It was research done at a hospital.
Here it goes:
We all know the type. Friends who claim they tried cigarettes and they just didn't like it. We look at amazement at them!! How could they not like cigarettes. We feel we get so much from them. Infact, many of us smokers feel bad for them!! They are missing out!!
Because of this, the medical field studied people to find out how/why 10 people could try cigarettes and 8 become addicted and two just don't like it.
It is called.....the "missing chemical". The two that didn't take to smoking already made the chemical that cigarettes produce. The other 8 don't have it and the brain is introduced to it for the first time.
This isn't just about smokers. It is the same thing with alcoholics. They are pre-disposed (which we call hereditary) to becoming addicted to alcohol. The casual drinker can take it or leave it.......but the the one with the "missing" chemical that alcohol produces gets hooked fairly quickly.
Oddly enough... the dare devil is missing a chemical too. You nor I would ever think of walking a tight rope accross Niagra Falls. But dare devils are hooked on a chemical their own brain produces in death defying feats. They continue to perform their feats to get the fix.
So, are we doomed? Not so. IF the alcoholic..cigarette smoker...dare-devil never participated, the brain NEVER would have known it was missing that particular chemical. But when the person tried it.... the brain said......ooooh I like this.
To prove it further....... when they came out with the drug called wellbruton, they did a clinical trial in mental hospitals. Now the trial was not about cigarettes!!
As the patience sat in the mental hospital chain smoking, the care givers began to see them slowly STOP SMOKING!!
The pharacudical companies said....WOW..BINGO!! Actually they saw $$$$$$$$$$$$$!!!! They found, by accident, that Wellbruton produced the "missing" chemical smokers don't have. They quickly marketed the very same drug as Zyban....and jacked the price way up.
So what does that mean for us. Not a whole lot other than understanding that we showed our brain a chemical it didn't have and never wou