Will Quitting Smoking Help with Your Recovery?

Many people seeking recovery from alcohol and drug addiction smoke tobacco. The habit may have started partly from social demands to fit in with other smokers in your environment, or partly because, at the start, it looks like an instant gratification that you can control and reward yourself with. However, when smoking becomes nicotine addiction, the tables are turned and your smoking habit begins to control you, especially when you are in a controlled environment like a rehab center.

Smoking Makes the Pain Go Away--for a Little While

When you are in recovery, smoking seems like one of the few ways you can treat yourself and feel normal. Yet, addiction to nicotine can have its hooks in your metabolism and produce cravings and mood disorder (crankiness).  

Sounds like an addiction, doesn't it? Actually, if you can begin to control your craving for cigarettes, you can begin a pattern that will demonstrate to yourself that you have the strength, courage, and tenacity to beat your other addictions which have an even deeper hold on your body and mind.

It Hurts Because You're Breaking the Hold

Going cold turkey in a rehab center shakes you to the bone physically, mentally, and emotionally, but once you make it to the other side, your addictions have less power over you and your body. Some patients have found that kicking their addiction to smoking while they were in rehab made it easier for them to quit smoking, and also to heal from their addictions, because they forcefully rooted out the signs of their addictive behavior when they could do it safely and courageously.