Addiction and The Slow Creation of Chaos
An Account of My Reality These Past 6 Months.
Last year I fell into a nicotine addiction.
I never intended to start (does anyone?), I would just smoke a friend’s vape here and there, until I found that spiking my dopamine levels in work would help me stay attentive and motivated to work harder.
I then stopped vaping and switched to nicotine pouches, which saved my lungs but not my gums.
I’ve always struggled with my attention and motivation, so a little nicotine pouch here and there was actually kind of helpful.
If I didn’t feel like making a call in work, I’d pop one in and if I felt my mind drift while I tried to write, I’d pop one in and keep going — energised by the magic substance.
I had a problem: my mood, my energy, and my ability to motivate myself during work-hours, and nicotine was serving its function in fixing all of that.
That is, until I became reliant on it.
Reliance and Infiltration: The Pattern of Addiction
How Addiction Can Change Our Brain:
Addiction changes the way our brain operates by consistently disrupting the delicate balance between brain chemicals called neurotrasmitters and their receptors.
For example, as one of the neurotrasmitters impacted by nicotine is dopamine (important for motivation, attention & movement), using the drug will lead to a steady reduction in dopamine receptors in our brain over time (desensitization).
This results in our brains becoming less and less reactive not only to the drug of choice,, but everything in our environment that also impacts our dopamine levels which is, well, everything we enjoy.
As an addiction progresses, not only do we require more of the drug to feel the same way we did before but the things that would usually make us feel good (like engaging with our favourite hobbies) don’t feel as exciting anymore.
A life with a brain less responsive to dopamine is a life that is undriven, demotivated, and apathetic.
Why engage in self-care when you can just lie on your bed with a nicotine pouch in your mouth? You might argue it’s because the self-care practice is better in the long-term but as we’ll talk about in the next section, addictions impact our ability to make long-term decisions.
Essentially, when substances alter our brain chemistry there is a risk of desensitisation which creates worse problems than the ones we may have had when we started — consistent feelings of apathy and demotivation, being only some of them.
Initially I had a problem with feeling demotivated in work but my nicotine habit has led me to feel demotivated across all areas of my life.
Existential Unenjoyment
I’ve found it difficult to be present whilst this addiction has taken root.
When you’re addicted to a substance, you’re essentially spiking your limbic system continuously — which is the area of our brain responsible for the generation of emotional impulses like fear — .
Over time, the continuous firing of the limbic system can break down the prefrontal cortex’s ability to regulate emotions (and it’s also mentally taxing to push yourself into an aroused state all the time).
Less able to effectively use our prefrontal cortex we become less patient and more reactive; we give in to negative thoughts, we lack present-moment awareness, and become fixated on momentary pleasures over long-term satisfaction.
Addictions don’t only impact your ability to stop yourself from reaching for your drug of choice, they breakdown your ability to emotionally regulate across all areas of your life.
To me this has been a painful and shameful experience.
I’ve worked hard over the years to tame my emotions, and to strengthen my prefrontal cortex. It’s been part of my healing journey.
Whereas before my emotional brain would take over, my healing came in learning to control this sometimes out of control part of me. Emotional regulation is a key part of emotional intelligence and overall wellbeing.
When I started using nicotine, my self-care practice fell away. I stopped meditating, and the things I enjoyed previously were infiltrated by a nicotine pouch in my mouth. My long term goals started to feel like pipe dreams and frustrating realities I hadn’t reached yet, and being triggered led to emotional spirals of self-criticism.
Healing for me has been replacing the chaos in my life for peace, and this damn nicotine pouch was reversing it all.
Why read a book and being present when I can numb myself on a nicotine pouch and do nothing?
Why listen to some of my favourite music and meditate, visualising my future self, when I can pop a nicotine pouch in to make the music sound better?
Why focus about the long-term, when I need to feel good NOW?
Why care, if I’ve lost control and trying to stop is a futile?
A society grown up around nicotine has led us to think of it as a casual drug. “If others are doing it and seem fine, then surely it won’t hurt me”.
It can, and just because you aren’t inhaling the toxins that come with cigarettes does not mean that nicotine itself is not dangerous.
It is the 3rd most addictive substance in the world, after alcohol and heroin and it is more accessible than ever in the form of vapes and pouches of various flavours that have bypassed the resistance people might have to the taste and smell of cigarettes.
My father died of lung cancer, so I was always averse to smoking cigarettes. This addiction caught me of-guard, but I’m in the process of regaining my sense of agency, control and clarity as I quit.