If you are a person who has a severe smoking addiction and you have finally decided to break this addiction, the first question you will have in mind is, “How long does it take to break the addiction?”
The task won’t be easy. As Benjamin Franklin once said, “It’s easier to prevent bad habits than break them.”
Once you seriously start to break the addiction, your body will go in transition. It will slowly begin to repair itself from years of neglect. This blog will give you a short overview of nicotine withdrawal and how long it takes for people to withdraw from the addiction.
What Is Nicotine?
Nicotine is a substance that is found in tobacco products, such as cigarettes and cigars. It is a drug that affects the physical and mental functions of a human brain.
A human brain has two important neuromodulators: Dopamine and Noradrenaline. They control vigilance, reward, learning, action, and memory processes. They are negatively affected when a person intakes nicotine.
With the increase of nicotine intake, these neuromodulators start to alter your mood and concentration levels. This change is quickly implemented when a person starts smoking, which is why it’s easy for smokers to get addicted to nicotine.
Nicotine Addiction Cycle
The nicotine addiction cycle begins when a person starts smoking. Their body absorbs nicotine through cigarettes, which leads to various mental and physical changes. These changes can include mood disruption, increased pleasure, and arousal.
The addiction starts to affect their tolerance and physical dependence as well. Finally, if the person decides to withdraw from it, they face specific symptoms. These symptoms can lead them to crave for nicotine.
What is nicotine withdrawal?
When a person starts to reduce their nicotine intake slowly, they face nicotine withdrawal. It’s a physical and emotional reaction to stopping smoking habits when a person has taken nicotine for many years or several weeks.
Your brain and body start to adapt to nicotine when you take it every day in the form of smoking or chewing tobacco. It increases the addiction to the point that you cannot go a day without it.
Daily intake of nicotine becomes a habit for many people. Some take it to cope up with their physical or mental stress. They think that nicotine will help them manage their emotion and relax them.
When you start to withdraw from nicotine addiction, you face mental and physical symptoms that can be quite unpleasant. According to various studies, smokers reported experiencing at least four nicotine withdrawal symptoms when they decided to quit.
Symptoms of Nicotine Withdrawal
There are various symptoms of withdrawal from nicotine addiction. According to WebMD, there are four categories of nicotine withdrawal symptoms:
- Physical signs of addiction
- Behavioral signs of addiction
- Emotional signs of addiction
- Three C’s of addiction
How long will it take your nicotine addiction to go away?
When you stop smoking, it will take around two days for nicotine to leave your body. It will result in withdrawal symptoms, which will affect you heavily for the next 2 to 3 days.
However, the signs and effects finally leave your body after 2 to 3 months. You might face irritability and different levels of energy for a more extended period, though.
It would help if you did not compare your nicotine withdrawal journey with other people as everyone has a different timeline.
Suppose you joined a nicotine recovering program or a smoking cessation program. In that case, you will find that various doctors will advise you to withdraw from nicotine rather than going cold turkey slowly.
It is because the nicotine receptors take time to go back to normal functioning. Starting all of a sudden can have profound effects.
According to medical news today, some people will feel the effects of withdrawal more on their bodies as compared to the others. Some might face mild symptoms, while others can face intense symptoms.
A person can also be easily triggered when they are at a place where someone is smoking, making it impossible for them to deal with their nicotine addiction.
Along with negative changes, people will slowly start to see positive changes as well. These positive changes include improved senses of smell and taste, easier breathing, clearer skin, etc.
Bottom Line
There is no definite answer to ‘how long does it take to break nicotine addiction?’ It varies from person to person.
Some people can efficiently deal with the symptoms and the effects they face after withdrawal. While on the other hand, some people face a tough time dealing with the symptoms.
People can join nicotine replacement therapies and use chewing gum, skin patches, inhalators, tablets, nasal sprays, or mouth sprays to overcome this addiction
However, there is no guarantee that which method is more effective but combining them can be useful.
