Alcohol enhances the pleasures of nicotine

Main Category: Alcohol / Addiction / Illegal Drugs
Article Date: 30 Mar 2004 - 0:00 PDT


According to researchers, ex-smokers should beware of having a quick cigarette and an alcoholic drink at the same time. Their chances of having a total relapse are much greater.

They say it is all down to our brain chemistry.

On the other hand, drowsiness may be counteracted by the effects of nicotine. So, the drink makes you drowsy and the cigarette perks you up.

Dr. Jed Rose, Nicotine Research Program, Duke University, USA, said 'It may be kind of a balancing act in the brain….that you are taking one substance to balance the effects of another substance.'

Dr. Rose is the lead author of this study. You can read about it in the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research.

Why do 90% of alcoholics smoke? Alcoholism is more prevalent among smokers than non-smokers. There is a strong link between alcohol and cigarettes - the link is strong and complex.

Why is this so? Scientists have been aware of a link for a long time, but they have been unable to explain it scientifically.

According to Dr. Rose's new research, what alcohol does is it simply makes smoking more enjoyable - it enhances to pleasure of taking in nicotine.

The researchers studied smokers who had more than four drinks a week. They split the volunteers up into two groups.

Group one had alcoholic drinks. The other group got soft drinks with a tinge of alcohol to make them think they were drinking alcohol.

The researchers then asked them to rate their cigarettes - how much they enjoyed them.

The group who got the proper alcoholic drinks expressed greater pleasure in their cigarettes than the ones in the other group.

When they were given nicotine free cigarettes they still answered the same - the ones who got the proper alcoholic drinks rated their cigarettes more highly than the other group. They were then given a drug which prevents them from absorbing the nicotine - the answers were still the same between the two groups. They did say that they were not as satisfied as before - but the alcohol group rated whatever cigarette they were given more highly than the other group.

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