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Dealing With Nicotine Withdrawal – You Can Survive It!

  • Posted on July 2, 2009 at 11:42 pm

Quitting smoking has always carried the burden of dealing with nicotine withdrawal, one of the scariest and most difficult parts of quitting. Luckily, it can be easier in a few easy ways.

First, you should know exactly what’s going to happen. The symptoms of nicotine withdrawal will tend to pull you back towards smoking.

You will be irritable. Things will wear your patience thin very, very quickly. People will probably remark that you’re being short tempered.

It won’t make you want to smoke, but you’ll likely feel cold-like symptoms as well. Coughing, sniffling, and the like are all the body’s response to the poisonous chemicals you’ve been putting in it by smoking.

You’re also going to feel a sense of depression or regret. I went through three days of feeling like I was going nowhere as I was quitting. Annoyingly, the conditioned response to being depressed is to smoke a cigarette, which would undermine the entire thing.

The good news? The symptoms go away. It takes a couple of days, but after the first three days are over you’ll notice that they’ll drop to a fraction of their intensity, and they should be gone after a full week.

If you know what you’re getting into, it becomes more manageable to deal with the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal. The first time I tried quitting (cold turkey, I might add) I became extremely depressed and confused on the second day, because I had no idea why I was experiencing those symptoms. I tried several times to quit cold turkey, but never lasted more than two or three days.

Incidentally, the way that I finally quit was with something called the EasyQuit System which is a behavioral therapy book on curing your mind’s need to smoke. After reading through it, I found quitting to be exceptionally easy and quit without looking back at all!

Dealing with Nicotine Withdrawal

Article Source: Dealing With Nicotine Withdrawal – You Can Survive It!

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How to cope with Alcohol Abuse

  • Posted on July 2, 2009 at 3:35 pm

Anyone who has got into the bad habit of abusing alcohol or any other substance has fallen into the category of substance abuse. It is a common event and an expensive pastime and will lead to serious health problems as well has ruining family and other relationships. It is estimated that in the US and Canada alone that 100,000 deaths are caused by the result of alcohol abuse every year.

It is the drug most commonly abused by children ages 12 to 17. Alcohol-related motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death in teenagers. People who drink alcohol are more likely to engage in high-risk sexual behavior, have poor grades or job performance, use tobacco products, and experiment with illegal drugs.

If the truth is to be known alcohol or drugs are just a result of the kids being depressed, which is even more common in our over rated society. The problem of alcohol abuse becomes a reality when it begins to interfere with your daily life and you performance is way down. When we refer to alcoholism it is the eventual step of feeling physically or emotionally dependent on alcohol just to get through another day.

There is no defined mode of alcohol abuse as drinking habits vary from getting drunk on a daily basis to just drinking way to much at the weekend. You quite often find that sufferers will tend to be sick or ill on Mondays and Fridays as their mind focuses on their drinking habits.

He or she may complain of having a virus or the flu. Others may be sober for long periods and then go on a drinking binge that lasts for weeks or months. Someone with alcohol dependence may suffer serious withdrawal symptoms, such as trembling, delusions, hallucinations, and sweating, if he or she stops drinking suddenly (“cold turkey”). Once alcohol dependence develops, it becomes very difficult to stop drinking without outside help. Medical detoxification may be needed.

The decision to confront an alcoholic is never an easy one to make. The most important thing is you should never attempt it when the alcoholic is currently under the influence of alcohol. The confrontation should be planned when he or she is sober.

When making contact for the first time with an alcoholic it is called an intervention and should be confronted with tact and a well though out plan. It is almost impossible to get a positive result on your own so make sure you get in contact with Alcoholics Anonymous first, who have years of experience in dealing with family issues regarding alcohol.

Also, prior to confronting an alcoholic, you should check with the person’s doctor or a specialist in treating alcoholic disorders to determine how to prepare yourself and any others who might be helping you to confront a drinker about whom you are concerned. We have listed nine tips that may be helpful in preparing for an intervention at the stopdrinking.org blog which will be a great place to start.

Discover How to Quit Drinking Alcohol On This Alcoholics Support Blog
http://www.stopdrinkingadvice.org/guide written by Ed Philips and Receive Expert Advice to Help you Quit
Alcohol Today.

Article Source: How to cope with Alcohol Abuse

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Why the Nicotine Patch Just Doesn’t Work to Quit Smoking

  • Posted on July 2, 2009 at 11:47 am

You see it advertised all the time. All of your happy cigarette-free friends want you to buy them, and you see them next to the cigarettes almost anywhere you can buy them. They’re a giant rip-off, though, and don’t actually work to quit smoking.

Why? They treat smoking as a disease, just like the common cold. Everybody wants some kind of “magic pill” that will cure their addiction to smoking, because all of the other ways just seem unbearable. Let’s take a look at the main one for a second here:

Cold Turkey? Most people connect quitting cold turkey with months of misery as your body detoxes itself of nicotine. You’ve heard the horror stories of people quitting smoking cold turkey and being awful company for weeks.

Back to the nicotine patch. It seems like the perfect cure: You slap one on in the morning, and don’t feel any cravings for cigarettes. Repeat for a few weeks, and you’re cured.

The problem comes in when you, like every smoker does, happen upon one of your smoking friends. You’ll rip the nicotine patch off, stuff it in your pocket, and light up a cigarette. Why? Because the nicotine patch doesn’t make you not want to smoke, it just makes you not want nicotine.

Your mental ties with smoking (seeing your friends, getting off of work, etc.) are still there. The tiny little success rate from nicotine patches comes from people who manage to (very much like cold turkey quitters) push through all of those triggers for long enough. That doesn’t sound much better than quitting without the patch, does it?

Before you try to quit smoking, you need to understand exactly how a smoking addiction works. You can learn all about it with this article: How Smoking Addictions Work

Why doesn’t the nicotine patch work?

Article Source: Why the Nicotine Patch Just Doesn’t Work to Quit Smoking

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Why is Quitting Smoking So Hard? (It Isn’t the Cigarettes)

  • Posted on July 2, 2009 at 9:37 am

The hardest part about quitting smoking isn’t actually quitting smoking, it’s the bizarre stigma that everybody (even non-smokers) have created about how hard smoking is supposed to be. The ironic thing is that it doesn’t have to be that hard!

When most people quit smoking, they don’t actually become non-smokers. They become smokers who, depending on their success, are just not smoking at the time. Whichever method they’re using, be it nicotine replacement, pills, or cold turkey, in their minds they are still smokers.

The problem is that people try to treat smoking as a physical addiction, when it’s a mental addiction. You’ll notice that you can easily go for hours without a cigarette, as long as you know that you’ll get to smoke eventually. If it was a purely physical addiction, this wouldn’t be possible.

You’re only as addicted to smoking as your mind wants you to be. You have connections in your mind between certain events (getting off of work, being on the phone, working on a term paper) and smoking that trigger your urge to smoke. In order to truly become a non-smoker, you have to unravel these connections and realize that cigarettes won’t actually help you do anything.

It all breaks down to identifying when you want to smoke and why. If you figure out what causes you to want to smoke (and anticipating the way it affects you) you can easily break free from your supposed need to smoke, since you’ll reduce it to something as simple as, for example, biting your nails or chewing on toothpicks.

Want to quit smoking, but don’t want to waste money and time with nicotine replacements? Take a look at my EasyQuit System Review and learn how you to quit smoking the right way!

I originally posted this article here: Why Is Quitting Smoking So Hard?

Article Source: Why is Quitting Smoking So Hard? (It Isn’t the Cigarettes)

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Methods of Quitting Smoking

  • Posted on July 1, 2009 at 7:56 pm

Methods of Quitting Smoking can be many and varied. It is easier to say this than achieve itNeverthelesss it can be accomplished The one thing that has to be remembered in all of this is what it is exactly that is being given up

Smoking cessation (or quitting smoking) is the action leading towards the discontinuation of the consumption of a smoked substance, mainly tobacco, but it may encompass cannabis and other substances as well.

As has been mentioned there are a number of methods that have been used to help smokers give up but in all cases there has to be a deep desire to actually give up before to be brutally frank there is much likelihood of any success. OK so having got that out of the way, what exactly are the range of methods available to help the smoker give up this habit?

Methods of quitting smoking include straight withdrawal with all the expected and anticipated side effects such as “Cold Turkey” which funnily is the method by which at least 80-90% of all smokers use to give up. A wide variety of other methods are used to help smokers give up and these range from various aspects of spiritualism to antidepressants and rug therapy.

If it is at all possible then let’s try and put together some sort of compiled list of methods and techniques used to help Smokers kick their habit.

We start with the most obvious and that is the one that was discussed earlier and that is just stopping straight.

Alongside this is the usage of “Cold Turkey” but with the additional bonus of some counselling support. After this we have the usage of nicotine support patches for perhaps a periods of up to eight weeks to enable a more gradual withdrawal of side effects to take place. Next we find the usage of limited antidepressants such as bupropion. Alongside this is the usage of the nicotine receptor agonist varenicline (chantix) which is a prescription drug that can be used to alleviate some of the withdrawal symptoms. After this we have noticed an increase in the use of injection therapy whereby the user is given an injection which primes the immune system to produce antibodies which attach themselves to the nicotine and thereby prevent it from reaching the brain. There has also been a rise though not necessarily a successful one of the usage of Hypnotherapy.

Alongside the rise in the more mainstream medical treatments there has also been a considerable uptake in the usage of more fringe therapies such as self help and “spiritual influences”. Do any of them work? Yes and no has to be the honest answer but the real clincher in all of this possibly has to be the will power of the person or persons involved. If they want it to happen then there is an increased chance that the therapy or treatment will be successful.

Please read carefully. As with all things medical, consider your options carefully.

It is essential to remind the reader of this. You should always check advice independently. Your professional advisor should be contacted and his or her advice sought.

The reason for our recommendation to seek independent advice is as follows. With matters like these it is always prudent, in these litigious times, to get independent advice that should confirm your initial belief.

Steve Morgan regularly writes about Health issues and more on the above can be found at Methods of Quitting Smoking or http://methodsofquittingsmoking.com

Article Source: Methods of Quitting Smoking

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Good News About Natural Ways To Treat Depression

  • Posted on July 1, 2009 at 7:36 pm

First, some bad news. About 40 million Americans will suffer from depression at some point in their lives. Only about 50% will try to get help, yet 90% of depression cases can easily be treated with medication. It has been found that depression can last from six months to a year but there are are many patients who remain chronically depressed for years. The good news is that besides medication with anti-depressants there are many natural ways to treat depression.

Let us take exercise for example. What could be more natural than that? Any from of exercise that is going to get the ‘feel good’ endorphins going and improving your mood is one of the most effective and natural ways to treat depression. Even half an hour three to five times a week doing power walking, running, aerobics, dancing or just a good brisk walk will cut depression symptoms in half.

Social networking is a great way to keep in touch with real people and I am not including Facebook in this one, which is a sort of virtual networking in front of a computer! By social networking, I mean the real thing! That means having real, face to face contact with people through family, friends, clubs, sports and church. It has been found that the more social networking you do, the less likely you are to suffer from depression. This is another one of the natural ways to treat depression.

Anti depressant medications such as Prozac, Zoloft and Marplan can have serious side effects and I know that many patients had to stop taking them because they could no longer put up with the ‘zombie’ feeling. Whenever and if you decide that these medications are no longer for you, see your doctor as these drugs have to be tapered off as discontinuation syndrome can be quite severe if it is done in a cold turkey way. Doctors of course do not want to call this withdrawal but that is basically what it is. As the brain chemistry has been radically altered for such a long time, you can imagine that withdrawal is going to play havoc with your life. Certainly, if you opt for one of the natural ways to treat depression, discontinuation or withdrawal symptoms will never be a problem.

Natural treatment for depression is gaining momentum now as people are more and more wary of big pharm, their profits and their hype. Herbal remedies for depression have so few side effects and do not represent any risk to your health in the long term. Some of the herbs used such as St. John’s Wort and the Passion Flower aid the mind in dispelling feelings of the blues and supporting a positive mental attitude. Coupled with cognitive behavior therapy which is also a natural treatment for depression, these herbal remedies can transform your life. By looking at some natural ways to treat depression, many people have successfully come through depression, much to the joy of their loved ones.

Want to learn how to treat depression naturally ? Robert Locke has written extensively on Mental Health for many years.

Article Source: Good News About Natural Ways To Treat Depression

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Rid Your Life of Gambling

  • Posted on July 1, 2009 at 7:36 pm

I want to help you rid your life of gambling. This is a tough problem to live with because it is hard to quit. Many people try to go cold turkey, but that is surprisingly difficult to make work. Gamblers are psychologically driven to want to do this and there is a pay off in your brain for doing it. I think it is more important than ever for gamblers to get a hold of this problem in these tough economic times. When people and families need every single dollar, you can’t be blowing it in a casino or in some sort of internet gambling. I’m going to help you rid your life of gambling.

This is an addiction, but often people use that as an excuse not to deal with it. You don’t do things because it is an addition. You do things because you get some sort of emotional pay off and that is what you’re addicted too. You need to identify what you’re looking for as pay off. That’s the key to getting past this problem. Maybe you’re someone that likes the adrenalin rush of putting a lot on the table and winning. Maybe you do it to avoid other problems in your life.

If you want to rid your life of gambling, you have to able to identify the real reason you do it and find another way to get the pay off. If you do it for the rush, maybe you should find a hobby that gives you a rush. If you do it to avoid dealing with a failing relationship, maybe you should try and fix it. Identifying the root cause of gambling is essential to ridding yourself of it.

Learn Ways to Stop Gambling

Article Source: Rid Your Life of Gambling

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Dealing With the Gambling Urge

  • Posted on July 1, 2009 at 7:36 pm

I want to talk to you about dealing with the gambling urge. Everyone that has a problem with gambling has this urge they feel that seems to take over them. It is really almost an unconscious thing that people seem to be stuck with and that is inherently the problem. I know a lot of people that gave up on gambling cold turkey, which I saw repeatedly fail. The reason it fails is that gambling isn’t really the problem. It is that urge to gamble that is the problem. That is what needs to be dealt with to solve this problem. I’m going to talk to you about dealing with the gambling urge.

I know people like to trivialize their problem as an addiction and that is as simple as that. That’s the wrong way to look at this. We always do things for some sort of psychological pay off. There’s always an incentive to doing something and that is why you need to identify what it is. There are people out there that gamble for the rush of winning. They could drop $500 in a night, but still feel the rush because they won $100. Other people do it to have another problem to worry about.

Dealing with the gambling urge is exactly that, dealing with it. You can’t ignore it any longer. If you’re looking for some sort of high in your life, you have to look somewhere else to it. You might want to join an organized sport or something that will give you that feeling. If you do it because you’re avoiding a failing marriage, than you should try to fix your marriage, instead of wasting your money gambling.

Learn Ways to Stop Gambling

Article Source: Dealing With the Gambling Urge

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