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Addiction - RCJ
Growing up in a small town in eastern
South Dakota was quite an experience. My father was the
county coroner and owned a funeral home. It was a family
business and each one of my five brothers and sister helped
out whenever we could.
Our family business afforded me
experiences in life that forever changed me. At an early
age, I witnessed things most young people only read or hear
about. In 1973, I vividly remember one such event. I was
only 12 years old, helping my father clean up after an
autopsy. The body we were preparing was the body of a man
who died suddenly in his early 50’s. As is required with all
unexplained deaths, an autopsy was performed. The cause of
his death was determined as a blood clot to his brain
causing a stroke. The autopsy also disclosed a tumor in the
lungs and heart disease. I had witnessed firsthand the
dangers of smoking and its effects inside the human body.
This unfortunate gentleman was a prominent man in our little
community and was rarely seen without a cigarette in his
hand.
After the autopsy, my father picked up
the lungs off the stainless steel embalming table and placed
them back into the open chest cavity. While holding the
lungs in his hands, he squeezes them and proceeds to tell
me, “Kevin, this is the reason why you should not smoke”. As
he is squeezing the lung, a black, tarry substance oozed
between his fingers. My father then picks up his own
cigarette from the ashtray next to the embalming table and
takes a drag.
At that moment, I not only realized the
physical consequences of cigarette smoking; I also realized
that smoking was more than just a “bad habit”. The old
slogan “kick the habit” no longer had meaning to me. Despite
everything my father knew or saw in his profession, he still
smoked. I could no longer believe that smoking was merely a
bad habit; rather, it was truly an addiction. It was this
addiction to nicotine that also took my fathers life at an
early age.
The biology of addiction is real. It
makes the gambler pull the slot machine over and over again;
in order to experience that feeling of well being when it
pays off. It forces the cocaine addict into seeking out his
or her drug at the sacrifice of family, self, and
friends. It is why we see lung cancer patients or others
patients with lung disease continue to smoke despite knowing
what it is doing to them.
The latest reseach in the biology of
nicotine addiction suggests that the drug-addicted brain is
different from the nonaddicted brain.
Nicotine is considered the chief
addictive component of tobacco. Like other addictive drugs,
nicotine is thought to affect the reward and withdrawal
pathways of the brain. The addictive properties of nicotine
are similar to other drugs that are known to be addictive,
including heroin and cocaine.
Smokers can use nicotine patch, gum or
nasal spray to replace the nicotine otherwise found in
tobacco products. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
recently approved a drug to help people quit smoking. Zyban
(bupropion HCl) is an antidepressant which affects both the
reward and withdrawal pathways in the brain. When a smoker
quits, certain levels of neurotransmitters in these two
areas of the brain decline, helping to produce withdrawal
symptoms. Zyban diminishes some of these symptoms. This new
therapy remains one of many tactics smokers can use to help
them “kick the habit.”
The Great American Smoke Out has come
and gone. Congratulations to all of you who have chosen to
give up smoking permanently. Even if you were able to quit
for just one day, you might be able to do it forever. The
New Year and making resolutions is just around the corner,
giving you another chance to quit. Understanding this
addiction will hopefully help those who smoke overcome its
powerful control over them. If you are having difficulty
quitting, ask your primary care physician for help or call
the South Dakota Quit line at 1-866-SD-QUITS
(1-866-737-8487)
One last comment. I would like to thank my wife, Laurie
Weisensee, for all that she has done for our family these
past several months. I would also like to publicly thank Dr.
Rochelle Christensen, our dear friends and the staff of the
Obstetrics Department of the Rapid City Regional Hospital
for working so hard in order to make sure our unborn
children have a fighting chance. “GO TWINS”Content
of articles can only be used with writer attribution to Dr.
Kevin Weiland.
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