How The Increasingly Popular ‘Stop Smoking Pills’ Work
Pills meant to help people overcome their smoking addictions, also popularly referred to as ‘stop smoking pills’ have been getting a lot of media coverage in the recent past, as many previous smokers ‘confess’ how the pills helped them overcome smoking habits they had all but given up on the hope of ever overcoming.
Most of the modern ‘stop smoking pills’ are in actual fact anti-depressants, typically formulations of the depression medication pharmaceutically known as Bupropion Hydrochloride (but marketed as Wellbutrin). And as any psychiatrist will tell you, Wellbutrin had been in use for psychiatric treatment for depression alongside a variety of other conditions for quite a number of decades, before it found its newest use – as an anti-smoking pill.
The wisdom of using an anti-depressant as an anti-smoking pill will, of course, not amaze anyone who has tried to quit their smoking habit unaided; as most of the withdrawal symptoms that one experiences whenever they try to quit smoking unaided clearly fall into the range of what are clinically described as ‘depressive’ tendencies. And as many unsuccessful smoking ‘quitters’ have always noted, if a way to overcome the depression which engulfs any smoker who attempts to quit smoking unaided could be found, then the chances of success in quitting smoking would indeed be very high.
On the other hand, as anyone who has ever used Wellbutrin for any other reason will aver, it is a drug that does considerably enhance the user’s sense of wellbeing, offering relief even from some of the darkest incidences of depression – which combined with its relatively fast action makes it just the ideal drug for use in fighting depression induced by an attempt to quit smoking.
To understand how the ‘stop smoking pills’ based on Wellbutrin work at a fundamental level, it would help to have a basic appreciation of what it is that makes people smoke in the first place. And as it turns out, people smoke out of search for short term release from tension – or what psychiatrists and psychologists call ‘reward-seeking’ behavior. This reward seeking behavior is in turn controlled by brain chemicals called dopamine and norepinephrine. And it is the craving for the effect that smoking has on these chemicals that is behind the depressive withdrawal symptoms experienced by smokers attempting to quit the habit. So it is that same effect on those brain chemicals (dopamine and norepinephrine) that smoking has that Wellbutrin simulates to a certain extent, thus at least curing the quitting smokers of the depression that is bound to arise out of any attempt to quit smoking unaided.
It is noteworthy, though, that while the pills meant to help smokers go a long way towards addressing the depression that an attempt to quit smoking unaided would cause, the pills do not take away the urge to ‘light up’ and it is up to the smokers to make the positive decision to stop smoking, with the pills only giving them a ‘helping hand.’
Filed Under General | Leave a Comment
Tagged With brain chemicals, quitting smoking, smoking addictions, stop smoking, stop smoking pills
Comments
Leave a Reply