Chain-Smoking: A Medical Condition
The most visible sign that someone has a nicotine habit is chain-smoking. It's well documented that the majority of new smokers become chain smokers. Many chain smokers never quit, despite hard-fought attempts at abstaining from cigarettes. Chain smoking is such a powerful habit because of its litany of biological and emotional causes that often go hand in hand. These causes collectively produce the vicious feedback cycle of chain smoking.
Physical Causes of Chain Smoking
A person goes from a smoker to a chain smoker due primarily to nicotine, a highly addictive drug found in cigarettes. Nicotine literally creates new nicotinic nerve receptors in the brain, which grow with each smoking session. These receptors grow so much that the smoker soon finds his normal quota of cigarettes isn't enough to satisfy his nicotine cravings. Before long, that person becomes a chain smoker to satisfy his immense nicotine cravings. In effect, the greater the nerve receptors, the greater the cravings, and the greater the possibility that the smoker will chain-smoke to feed those cravings.
Emotional Causes of Chain Smoking
The physical cravings for nicotine often create a corresponding emotional craving for cigarettes that contributes to chain smoking. For example, a person may feel the flicker of a physical craving and then be unable to stop thinking about cigarettes. With the combined physical craving and emotional preoccupation, he will finally give in and smoke a chain of cigarettes. Moreover, there are many other common emotional causes for chain smoking including depression, anxiety and stress. Many people, especially women, also chain smoke to control their food cravings in an attempt to lose weight. The emotional reasons for chain smoking are as varied as the people who do it.
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