Addictions

[lily]

After reading the suicide thread and not wanting to change the subject in mid-stream What do you think is more addictive? Sugar, heroin, pot, cocaine, meth or tobacco?

Just asking because I know I can live without a line, although I wouldn't pass one up. Never done heroin or meth, gave up pot years ago, but now my husband has to quit the tobacco and I'm not. Many a doctor and many a study proves that tobacco is the most addictive substance.

Can't do the sugar at all. Keeping in mind the diabetic "rule" if it's white, you can't have it, so then you would have to also limit your bread, pasta, potatoes of any kind, including those fries.

Any opinions?

[cwinton]

Nicotine, by far.
I'm thoroughly addicted. When I quit ... at the 3-5 week mark, I have an emotional meltdown. Downright suicidal. Psychotic break. Whathaveyou. Start up again and within 2-days, everything is fine ... except my self-esteem and pride suffer a black-eye from the experience.

[CheezieDanish]

Smoking wasn't hard to give up when I was pregnant, but about two months after my bebe was born, I was back in the habit again. :/ I never smoke in the house or around the child... so I smoke less than I used to. STILL... it's very hard to give up, especially when your partner won't give it up either. I think I might have kicked the habit for good after I quit cold turkey after 18 years but then that wafting nicotine suckered me in again. Bastard.

Can do without the hard "drugs" myself.. never done heroine or meth ... but I see that they make people pretty crazy. Morphine, I believe is the most addictive drug one can have. *shrug* That's what I heard anyway. I could be wrong.

[sir digalot]

sugar.. i can live without all the others but you take away my sugar i kill you!

seeing that i live in a country that seems to put sugar in EVERYTHING!

[Larkin]

Heroine I would say is the most addictive.

I've never done anything stronger than shrooms, although I've smoked cigs on and off for the past year or so. I've never gotten addicted to them tho.

Personally I probably get addicted to sugar more than anything else. I get crazy sugar cravings sometimes.

[Dave]

Cigarettes easily.

[Jayne B]

Smoking wasn't hard to give up when I was pregnant, but about two months after my bebe was born, I was back in the habit again

That was me, too. The extra endorphins running around during pregnancy seem to minimize nicotine cravings.

I finally did quit and stay that way in 1988, after nearly 20 years of smoking. And there are still moments when I crave a cigarette intensely... so I'm glad nobody around me smokes. The temptation would be brutal even though I've given in a couple of times and only got an asthma attack for my weakness.

As for the great new 'anti-addiction drugs'... there's a long history of treating drug addictions with other drugs. At one time, opium was considered a 'cure' for laudanum addiction (only guess what laudanum was based on?) which was in istself marketed as a cure for alcohol addiction... and then, for a time, heroin was considered a 'cure' for morphine addiction, and then cocaine was developed as a 'treatment' for heroin addiction... yup, a long history of drugs to treat drugs....

[WalterWall]

Gambling's a hard addiction to break. The only time I felt little passion to gamble was when I'd made a load of money buying and selling houses, but I suppose that was property 'speculation' anyway!

My worse addiction is nicotine chewing gum. I gave up smoking in 2001, but I can't get off the gum. I developed a chewing habit with the stuff and, I think, I'm addicted to the sorbitol in the stuff, rather than the nicotine which is a pretty low dose.

The cost works out at less than a pack of cigs a day, but it's still money that I could be saving.

[CheezieDanish]

So is it safe to say that people with addicitve personalities will be addictive to almost anything - one thing not being any worse a habit than the next for someone else? We have alcoholics, gamblers and smokers in our family. My brother (who is really ill at the moment and on pain medication) is addicted to Morphine, Gambling and Smoking.... one of my sisters is an alcoholic addicted to gambling and smoking... and I - well - I'm a social smoker (more or less) and used to be a really happy drunk.... now I'm only a social drinker once again. (It's the child, she cured me of my sinister ways. :lol)

My father won't drink liquor (alone) or gamble... and I won't gamble either. Just won't go there... have done it, mind you, in Vegas... but I forbid myself any kind of lotto or casino nights.

My husband - he's addicted to nicotine and caffeine. Although I don't think caffeine has a too bad of withdrawal hangover, it can be just as addictive.

[WalterWall]

Yes, I think there are such things as 'addictive personalities'. I don't worry too much about my gambling, I only gamble when I consider that I have 'an edge' and I tend to 'trade' on betting exchanges. My losses have gradually reduced over time until I now bounce along between being 'flat' or showing small profits.

The worst gambling addictions seem to be casinos/fruit machines [one armed bandits] [real or cyber] and lotto cards. Luckily, I have no desire to get involved in any of it.

[Larkin]

There are such things as addictive personalities, but when you get into drugs it dosen't really matter once you get chemically addicted. Withdrawal's a bitch. Or so I've heard, I've never actually been chemically addicted to anything.

[goddesscon]

No one mentioned CAFINE!
I had to cut back my sugars so what did I replace that addiction with??? Coffe and soda...
I am a smoker too...but I feel I would curl up and die if I did not have a chance to drink my java!

[CheezieDanish]

goddesscon... I mentioned caffeine. :cheers

[goddesscon]

Sorry Cheesie...I must have read the thread BEFORE my first cuppa coffee ;)


:lol

[Piran]

I don't think anybody has mentioned the most gripping addiction of all . . . . .

The internet.

[suedanim]

Sugar.. definitely.

No one seems to have mentioned alchohol unless I missed it. I am told meth is so addictive that 95% of the people who try it once will become addicted. I live in a very high meth use town, I think we are third on the West Coast, fifth in the nation for meth drug dealing and use statistics.

[CheezieDanish]

Pi - for some. Not so much for me. :lol

I've heard the same suedanim.

[Piran]

Pull the other one. :bleh

[lily]

I had to cut back my sugars so what did I replace that addiction with??? Coffe and soda...

Ah, but have you ever read the content label of a can of pepsi, coke or Mountian Dew?

[Xenchantresse]

I think that nicotine is probably the most addictive.

I don't smoke, or use meth, heroine cocain etc...

BUT... those I know wha have used those drugs, many of them still smoke long after "kicking their habbits" for the other things.

In fact I have a very good friend who left her husband a few years ago, because the relationship at turned into one based on drugs and alcohol...
she left him so that she could quit using cocaine... and has been clean since she saught treatment... BUT her attachment to cigarettes is a strong as it ever was.

There is a difference, though, I think...

If you quit using street drugs all at once, you go through much more severe withdrawls than yuo do with cigarettes.