Can nicotine therapy provide addict help? The latest in Alzheimer’s disease treatments is nicotine therapy. Nicotine is a powerful stimulant to the brain that can increase levels of concentration and focus. It also provides a relaxation response by overriding feelings of stress and irritation.
People self medicate with nicotine by smoking cigars and cigarettes – addiction to nicotine is a very hard habit to break, some say as hard as heroin. It is a comfort drug. Holding cigarettes and smoking tobacco can become a ritual – and become an ingrained habit associated with daily activities such as drinking coffee or alcohol, after meals, when driving, and while working or watching tv.
Therapeutic nicotine is in pure form and does not have the range of toxic chemicals that come with cigarettes. However, it needs to be questioned as to why there is a need to treat cognitive disorders and memory loss with a dose of nicotine. Obviously, you are just setting up a pattern of nicotine dependence if it is used as a therapy.
When substance abusers and addicts add nicotine to their list of drugs, it is generally for the purpose of feeling enlivened and more energetic to overcome lethargy, moderate anxiety and depression.
Nicotine use can be seen as an action that you perform when actual performance of what you want to do is in some way frustrated. The classic image of the expectant father dragging on a fag outside the delivery room, contrasts with the expansive handing around and relaxed smoking of expensive cigars once the baby is safely delivered. Smoking and nicotine use can be either stimulating or soothing according to the context, at times it can be both. It is a response to pressure.
Schizophrenics are notorious for chain smoking cigarettes. If schizophrenia is seen as conflicted emotional pressure, that cannot be resolved within the sufferer’s terms of reference, it is not hard to see why smoking provides a form of substitute relief.
If Alzheimer’s and dementia are seen as the inevitable outcome of a person having been subjected to chronic stress, stimulating the brain with nicotine can have either positive or negative effects depending on what emotions are currently dominant.
The reality of all drug use is that it is a hit and miss affair – the response to a drug will always depend on a person’s emotional state. Adding another chemical to the brain when it is already under pressure, only adds another problem for the body to have to sort out.
Giving an addict help, in a positive, healthy way means creating an environment in which the addict feels secure enough to throw his drugs away. Holistic counseling that is not dependant on drugs can provide an environment that is emotionally secure. No matter what emotional state a person is embroiled in, the key to recovery is in providing a counseling environment in which the person feels secure.
When a person feels secure, it is then that they can relax – when a person is relaxed, they can begin to deal with emotional issues. Using nicotine therapy only revs the system up. A person might become more active – for better or for worse – but in terms of recovery – nothing has really happened. When the effects of nicotine wear off, the person subsides to how they were before.
Holistic counseling doesn’t use drugs or need them – holistic counseling is aimed at taking all pressure off, not adding fuel to the fire. For addict help to beat addiction, don’t use nicotine therapy – use holistic counseling.
Author: National Addiction Resources
America's Best Treatment Directory
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