Can You Smoke While Detoxing in South Florida?

Starting a drug detox program consists of making changes in almost every area of your life. If you’ve decided to check yourself into a rehab center, you probably have some questions regarding the effect it will have on your daily habits. Our goal at Archstone Behavioral Health is to make sure our patients feel as comfortable as possible during the detox process. A big part of this is being able to maintain some daily habits you used to have before rehab. For tobacco users, this often means having access to cigarettes on daily basis. If you’re among them and are wondering whether you’ll be able to smoke while detoxing in South Florida, you’ve come to the right place.

How does smoking affect you?

The most common tobacco-containing products are cigarettes. In addition to them, some people choose to consume cigars, chewing tobacco, pipe tobacco, and more. Either way, the one thing they all have in common is nicotine. Nicotine is a chemical belonging to the family of alkaloids, and it is naturally occurring in the tobacco plant. Due to its properties and effects, nicotine is classified as a substance of very high addiction liability. This is what makes quitting smoking a fairly difficult task.

What are cigarettes made of?

While nicotine is the component of cigarettes and other tobacco products that causes addiction, it doesn’t directly cause the majority of health problems connected to smoking. High doses can cause nicotine poisoning, however, it is not very likely during standard cigarette use. There are approximately 600 different chemicals in a single cigarette, and burning it creates approximately 10 times more. Many of these chemicals are known to cause cancer, especially lung cancer and other serious health conditions:

• Stroke
• Heart attack
• High blood pressure
• Respiratory issues

The effects of nicotine

The first bit of nicotine a smoker gets when they light up a cigarette causes a short-lived high. This occurs due to the release of endorphins and dopamine, so the reward center in your brain lights up. A number of physical and psychological sensations that can be read as positive occur during this period:

• Feeling relaxed
• Satisfying the urge to smoke
• A general feeling of stimulation
• Increased heart rate
• Improved focus

Of course, as it is with most addictive substances, the effects of nicotine are individual and depend on your height, weight, the strength of products used, and many more factors. However, the duration of this reward is not very long, which is why smokers reach for one cigarette after the other. This is very similar to other types of addiction, especially with hard drugs, where services like methadone detox Florida are often needed eventually. The daily intake of nicotine needed to create and sustain an addiction was estimated at 5 milligrams. Considering the fact that an average cigarette contains between 1 and 2 milligrams of nicotine, it is obvious that developing a nicotine addiction is much easier than it may seem.

Smoking and other addictions

People start smoking for different reasons. Sometimes it’s the social pressure or the desire to fit in. Other times it’s just pure curiosity. Whatever the reason is, it is important to note that smoking rarely comes as an isolated addiction. Lighting a cigarette is often an accompanying activity to something else, like having a coffee or going out drinking. That’s why understanding the connection smoking has to an addiction is crucial to deciding whether smoking while detoxing in south Florida is appropriate.

Smoking and alcohol

It is not uncommon at all for drinkers to smoke, especially when they’re out drinking. The reason for this is the fact that alcohol increases the feel-good effect of nicotine, while nicotine delays the consequences of alcohol. Also, the social component is very important here. Drinking in a group where a few people smoke vastly increases the chance that you’re going to light up a cigarette at some point.  If you only smoke when you drink, you may not actually consider yourself a smoker. However, it really depends on how often you drink. Smoking and drinking once a week probably isn’t that big of a deal if you’re mindful of your actions. If you feel like your drinking habit is getting out of hand, consider contacting the best treatment center Lantana Florida has to offer. Getting your drinking in control is likely to also make changes in your nicotine consumption.

Smoking and marijuana use

There is a general opinion that tobacco is a gateway drug to marijuana use, but the proof is still inconclusive. Still, a large number of marijuana users are also tobacco users, directly and indirectly. Many of them reported adding tobacco to their smoking mix. Even though the amount added is significantly smaller than what you’d get by smoking a cigarette, it can quickly add up for avid marijuana users. If that’s the case and marijuana use occurs very often, a marijuana detox Florida treatment may be in order. Also, nicotine consumption after smoking marijuana increases the feeling of relaxation even more, which may also be an incentive to light up a cigarette.

Smoking and benzos

Nicotine consumption has been proven to speed up the absorption of many types of benzos, such as Xanax or Clozapine. This means that their effect lasts for a shorter amount of time. Whether you’re taking benzos prescribed by a doctor or on your own, smoking can make you feel that your dosage isn’t enough and need increasing. As a result, the severity of your addiction can increase. If you’re admitted for benzo abuse, being able to smoke while detoxing in south Florida might not be a good idea. Still, this decision depends on your personal needs, so don’t worry, our team of trained professionals will make the best possible decision for you.

Coping mechanisms

A coping mechanism is a conscious or unconscious action we use to help ourselves overcome a difficult or stressful situation. Some of them can be called ‘healthy’ as they have an overall positive influence on your life. Good examples would be exercise, meditation, and journaling. Building healthy coping mechanisms is extremely important, as it helps you deal with life in a non-destructive way.

On the other hand, many of us have found ourselves reaching for something that may be negative, but it provides temporary comfort. We can label these coping mechanisms as unhealthy, because they aren’t really helpful in finding a long-term solution for the stressful situation in question. For example, our inpatient alcohol detox center Florida residents report often using alcohol as a coping mechanism for depression and anxiety. Apart from alcohol, using drugs and cigarettes to make everyday life more bearable is very common. That is often how addiction develops, and these behaviors keep feeding into it, deepening the problem.

Smoking as a coping mechanism

For many people, consuming cigarettes isn’t just a matter of enjoying the smoke or the taste. The short-term effects of smoking such as relaxation and release from the need to smoke can feel overwhelmingly positive. This is why smokers often reach for a cigarette when they’re under stress or anxious: they’re looking for that good, comforting feeling. Temporary stress may decrease due to the consumption of nicotine, but it makes space for addiction to set in.

Coping mechanisms are incredibly important during drug detox. It is a very vulnerable and challenging time and having something to lean on to can mean the world. When it comes to smoking, we need to look at the bigger picture. Sure, nicotine addiction is generally not a good thing and we’ve established that by now. However, if you’re going through something physically difficult, like an opioid withdrawal treatment, being able to continue to smoke while detoxing in south Florida can be very comforting. It’s about being in control of your actions, something many of our patients feel like they’re lacking during the detox. By allowing them to smoke, we aim to improve the possibility of their full recovery.

Smoking while detoxing explained 

Addiction to nicotine shouldn’t be taken lightly. Its’ long-term effects can seriously harm your health in many ways. Even though quitting cigarettes is generally beneficial, it might not always be the right time to do so. If you’re battling hard-drug addiction and are considering getting into a medical detox Florida based facility, being able to smoke can often make the process easier for you.

Nicotine withdrawal

If you’ve ever tried to quit smoking cold turkey, you know that it’s much more complex than it seems. From the moment you smoked your last cigarette, it only takes a few hours for the first withdrawal symptoms to kick in. Nicotine cravings are the most common, and they can be so strong that they distract you from your daily activities. Anxiety, restlessness, and irritability often go hand-in-hand with them. These feelings are unpleasant for both you and the people around you, so it’s natural you’d want to avoid them.

Many people resort to different destructive activities in order to keep themselves busy, such as eating more than needed or biting their nails. In addition to these, more serious physical symptoms may occur for some. Headaches, muscle pains, and overall weakness are fairly common as well, and they can easily get you to relapse and start smoking again.

Depending on how long you smoked and how many cigarettes you consumed on a daily basis, your withdrawal symptoms can be more or less severe. To make the withdrawal more bearable, people often use nicotine sources that are not cigarettes. Nicotine patches, chewing gum, and lozenges are mostly available at pharmacies or hospitals. By adjusting the dosage, smokers can gradually decrease the amount of nicotine they need.

Why do we allow our patients to smoke while detoxing in South Florida

Even with every sort of medical and non-medical help available, nicotine withdrawal is a generally unpleasant process. Being forced to give up smoking while detoxing in addition to dealing with numerous withdrawal symptoms from other drugs can cause great physical and mental distress. Especially when it comes to the hardest cases where heroin detox Florida treatment is necessary, removing every possible negative influence is crucial. All the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal fall into this category, which is why we prefer avoiding them during the drug detox process altogether.

Every drug detox program includes managing withdrawal symptoms. For example, our patients in cocaine withdrawal treatment reported feeling depressed, agitated, and generally uncomfortable. These are exactly the same sensations they would experience from the lack of cigarettes. In order to avoid the two effects adding up, we allow our patients to smoke while detoxing in south Florida. With this, the rehab process you came for is put as the first priority. Also, the feeling of comfort cigarettes provide as a coping mechanism can massively help the daily struggle with other symptoms.

Rules for smoking during drug detox at Archstone

In order to allow both you and other residents to consume nicotine safely, we put up a few rules regarding their use. If you want to bring cigarettes to Archstone they have to be sealed in their original packaging. We insist on this to make sure that there are no forbidden substances on our grounds. The same applies to vape fluids and other electronic cigarettes. Apart from that, you’re completely free to smoke if that’s something you feel would help your drug detox.

Giving up any habit isn’t easy at all. Even if it’s something simple, it’s still a process that needs attention. Smoking is not an easy habit to break anyhow, especially if you’ve been a smoker for a long time. If you do decide to give up smoking, you should be able to devote yourself to it completely. Also, you are much more likely to succeed if the decision is yours and not forced onto you. Because of all these reasons, we’ve decided to allow our patients to smoke while detoxing in south Florida. We are aware that it may not be the healthiest in the long run. However, it has helped many of them successfully complete both their detox and the entire rehab process, and that’s what’s most important to us.