After quitting smoking, I am no longer addicted to smoking. Can I smoke a cigarette every now and then? Will it make smoking addiction come back?

Introduction: In China, there are more than 300 million smokers, of which the proportion of people over 15 years old who smoke is as high as 26%. From the perspective of gender, the smoking rate of males has also reached 50.5%. According to statistics, more than 1 million people in China lose their lives because of tobacco every year. Lung cancer, cerebrovascular disease, ischemic heart disease, tuberculosis and other lethal diseases are all related to smoking.

Smoking cessation is a long-standing topic among smokers, and it is a joy to be able to successfully quit smoking. But there are also many smokers who have the idea of ​​smoking another cigarette after they have successfully quit smoking. According to statistics, about 80% of smokers feel that it is okay to smoke a cigarette once in a while after they have successfully quit smoking and are no longer addicted to smoking.

After successfully quitting smoking, can I still smoke occasionally?

Cigarettes in the human body will cause damage to organs and tissues through the respiratory tract, digestive tract and other parts. People who smoke for a long time will also cause damage to the brain nerves due to the nicotine in cigarettes , stimulate the brain to form a feeling of "addiction", and eventually form a smoking addiction.

People don't smoke for a long time, eliminating the brain's dependence on cigarettes and nicotine. To successfully quit smoking. At this time, people will not have irritability , anxiety and other emotions because they can't smoke . When irritable, people may also have thoughts of smoking cigarettes.

Occasionally smoking a cigarette, from the point of view of the dose of carcinogens in cigarettes, will not cause great harm to the human body. From this point of view, smoking a cigarette occasionally poses little health risk.

However , from the point of view of quitting smoking , under the influence of feeling uncomfortable and depressed, occasionally smoking a cigarette is easy to form a certain inertia of thinking. You may think it's just an occasional one, but after a few repetitions, the nicotine in it may re-stimulate the nerves in the brain, causing a relapse .

Quitting smoking is easy, quitting addiction is hard!

From a scientific point of view, quitting smoking is about eliminating people's dependence on tobacco. People who smoke for a long time will have emotions such as smoking craving , anxiety , headache , depression , etc., and even have long-term cough , chest tightness , shortness of breath and other problems. In this case, after eliminating tobacco dependence, even if the smoking cessation is successful .

In the vast majority of people, the desire to smoke will no longer appear about 3 to 6 months after smoking cessation, and the physical tobacco dependence basically disappears, replaced by psychological tobacco dependence. The reason why smoking cessation is difficult is also because of the strong recurrence of tobacco dependence.

Many people fail to quit smoking because, after quitting smoking, although part of their physical dependence on tobacco can be eliminated , but indulging themselves by "smoking a cigarette once in a while" again and again, it gradually arouses the human body's heart for tobacco. rely. The final result is relapse , and smokers are once again caught in the "quagmire" of smoking, unable to extricate themselves.

Don't Blindly Quit Smoking If You're Not Ready

Many people have expressed doubts, why are others persuading me to quit smoking, but you say not to quit smoking blindly? As a doctor, I have seen many times that after quitting smoking, because of "occasionally smoked a cigarette", and eventually lead to relapse, and many of these people are forced to quit smoking by their family members, and they are not ready to quit smoking. .

Among these people, thoughts like “It’s okay to smoke a cigarette once in a while” and “Successful quit smoking today, let’s have a cigarette to celebrate”. And in this case. The withdrawal reaction , which gradually improves after quitting smoking , will recur with the stimulation of the human body inhaling cigarettes .

Some studies have also found that the probability of relapse is relatively low in individuals who have a firm will to quit smoking and who can persist in quitting smoking successfully at one time . In those who were forced to quit smoking and relapsed many times, the probability of failure to quit smoking was very high. The more relapses , the less willpower people have to quit smoking, and the more difficult it will be to quit.

After successfully quitting smoking, should you smoke tea cigarettes or electronic cigarettes if you don’t smoke?

Among smokers, there is often such a misunderstanding that smoking is harmful to the body only because the cigarettes you smoke are not good, or the tar in the cigarettes is more. If you switch to products with low tar content or tea cigarettes, electronic cigarettes and other products, you will not hurt your health. After quitting cigarettes, I hope to replace cigarettes with tea cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, etc.

But such an idea is very inadvisable. Because tea cigarettes and electronic cigarettes may contain some harmful substances. For example, tea cigarettes contain a large amount of theophylline , caffeine and other substances. Compared with ordinary cigarettes, they only have less carcinogens such as nicotine and tar, but in essence, they will still cause irritation to the human body. After lighting tea cigarettes, a large amount of carbon monoxide and harmful substances will also be produced in the process of smoking, which will attach to the lungs and increase the risk of disease.

Not to mention, e-cigarettes contain a lot of chemical substances in them, and it just atomizes the e-liquid and inhales it into the human body, which may still cause harm to the human body due to inhalation of tar and harmful substances. For the sake of health, after quitting smoking, you should not smoke a single cigarette. Whether it is cigarettes, tea cigarettes, or electronic cigarettes, they will cause more or less harm to the human body.

In addition to smoking tea cigarettes and electronic cigarettes, there are also misunderstandings in quitting smoking.

①Low tar fumes and Chinese herbal cigarettes are less harmful

In the process of quitting smoking, many smokers choose to help quit smoking by purchasing low-tar cigarettes and Chinese herbal cigarettes. But in fact, in the process of smoking these cigarettes, there will be " smoking compensation behavior ", increasing the number of cigarettes , increasing the amount of tobacco smoke inhaled, etc., so that the harmful substances actually inhaled to the human body have not been reduced, causing harm to the human body. will also be larger.

②Limited method, step-by-step smoking cessation

This method is very similar to people wanting to smoke another cigarette after quitting smoking successfully, but this kind of "limited supply" of cigarettes may cause people to have a withdrawal reaction, and they have been waiting and eager to smoke " limited cigarettes ". , does not help quit smoking addiction.

If you have quit smoking successfully and your body will no longer have the urge to smoke, then it is best not to smoke a cigarette. Substituting other cigarettes, limiting smoking and other methods can not really help you quit smoking, but will stimulate your thoughts of relapse.

Conclusion: After quitting smoking successfully, smoking a cigarette once in a while affects health, the harm to the human body is relatively small. But ask yourself, from your inner level, if you still want to smoke in some situations, does it mean that you still have a smoking addiction? Occasionally, it may not have any effect, but after a long time, will you also be shaken because of such a craving, leading to relapse?