Nicotine Addiction

Every time you smoke a cigarette or chew spit tobacco, a drug called NICOTINE is introduced into your body. Nicotine is the substance responsible for fooling your brain into releasing a "pleasure" chemical called DOPAMINE. Nicotine receptors on your nerve endings receive the Dopamine and create "happy" nerve cells.

It's Dopamine that gives you a false sense of well-being, and soon the body wants more and more Dopamine on a regular basis. This is the beginning of nicotine addiction.

What else does nicotine do to the body? When a person smokes a cigarette, the body responds immediately to the chemical nicotine in the smoke. Nicotine causes a short-term increase in blood pressure, heart rate and the flow of blood from the heart. It also causes the arteries to narrow. The smoke includes carbon monoxide, which reduces the amount of oxygen the blood can carry. This, combined with the nicotine effects, creates an imbalance between the demand for oxygen by the cells and the amount of oxygen the blood can supply.