Smoking and Other Addictions

The primitive brain’s primary function is to preserve it’s proprietor’s life and comfort. We need beneficial chemicals in our nervous system to feel good, great or indeed to feel anything at all (typically psychologists talk about ‘balance’ and  ‘steady serotonin levels’. for good mental health). Serotonin is the most common of 60 or so ‘neurotransmitters’ all beavering away to keep us reasonably sane. When we develop a habit we create a short cut to achieving that end. Unfortunately instead of exercise, genuine achievement, self satisfaction or even just pleasant thoughts or daydreams resulting from our efforts which are the natural ways of changing mood, we condition our primitive mind to accept the chemical signatures of all manner of counterfeit substances instead.

The overwhelming paradox for us addicts is that our primitive minds will then tell us that we need whatever substance is concerned to alter our mood because we have conditioned it to do so. Pretty soon we’ll need a supply to function at all. We’ve conditioned it to respond if we’re likely to run short of whatever chemical ‘fix’ we need to maintain our desired equilibrium and our primitive brain has no way of knowing that its efforts to preserve and enhance our life are in fact killing us. It recognises chemicals in our bloodstream as the naturally occurring neurotransmitters that we all need, but they are the chemicals (together with all their poisonous chums) which will contribute to our untimely demise. In many cases people can complete a couple of hundred press ups, go for a long  run, then do a line of coke or speed and a few fags as a reward. The natural buzz they should have got from exercise is replaced by the counterfeit high whilst the physiology steadily loses the capability of producing the real beneficial neurotransmitters.