How long does it take to become addicted to tobacco?

Let's see what science reveals about how long it takes to develop smoking.

Smoking is a widespread addiction, and although it has been linked to respiratory, cardiac and even dermatological and dental problems, the truth is that quitting tobacco is difficult for many people.

As in many things related to health, prevention is better than cure. The ideal is not to smoke at all, but on many occasions social pressure gets the better of us and, trusting, we smoke a cigarette or two.

How long does it take for tobacco addiction to appear? This is the question that many of those trusting people ask themselves when they inhale the smoke of that cigarette or cigar that we have just been offered. Below we will give an answer to this question.

How long does it take for Smoking addiction to appear?

It is almost common sense that tobacco is a drug and as such is addictive. Cigarettes are a source of pleasure and also of remorse for millions of people around the world. Every second thousands of people inhale cigarette smoke. A smoke that they know is harmful but, in spite of it, they find it very difficult to get away from this vice, they find it very difficult to get away from this vice and opt for a healthier lifestyle..

Although young people are increasingly aware of the risks of smoking, it is not uncommon to find young people who have fallen into this addiction. They are warned that they will end up regretting it, especially when, after years of daily smoking, they notice that they find it increasingly difficult to breathe, get tired more quickly, have yellow teeth and notice that food no longer tastes as intense as it used to.

Given how dangerous and addictive tobacco is, there has always been interest in knowing exactly how long it takes to become addicted. It seems clear that smoking a cigarette once in a while does not produce addiction, but it is also quite evident that not a few people start smoking a few cigarettes every now and then and after a relatively short time they become addicted. there are quite a few people who start smoking a few cigarettes every now and then and after a relatively short time say that they are finding it hard to quit..

How long it takes for tobacco addiction to appear is a question that has been tried to be answered with scientific data on many occasions. The aim of this is to make young people aware of how unhealthy this habit is and how quickly one can become addicted. Knowing exactly how long it takes to turn occasional smoking into a real addiction can be used to warn novice smokers how quickly they can become addicted.

The consolidation of smoking through smoking: what does the science say?

Although in recent years there have been attempts to investigate this question further, a study carried out in 2000 was quite revealing and provided an answer to the question of how long it takes to become addicted to tobacco. The article in question is by Joseph R. DiFranza and colleagues, who at the time of their research were working at the University of Massachusetts, and is entitled "Initial symptoms of nicotine dependence in adolescents".

This study, which, judging by the number of years it has been published, could be considered a classic, was carried out to test a widely held belief about smoking. Until then it was considered that nicotine, the substance that causes tobacco addiction and which is characterized by tolerance, craving for smoking and being responsible for withdrawal symptoms, dependence was produced very gradually, after a long period of habitual consumption of at least five cigarettes a day.

This same belief was based on the fact that some adults, whose levels of nicotine absorption and metabolism did not differ from other daily smokers, did not develop such dependence despite smoking up to a maximum of five cigarettes a day. However, this belief seemed not to be entirely true, which is why DiFranza's group decided to conduct research on the time of addiction acquisition.

Method

The research was carried out with a group of 681 adolescent students in seventh grade (first year of ESO) aged between 12 and 13 years. The follow-up period was one year and information on tobacco use was obtained through three confidential interviews with each of the participants during the period of the research application.

Tobacco addiction can manifest itself in different types of dependence and, in fact, it could be debated whether not all cases of smoking are tobacco addiction, since, as mentioned above, there are people who smoke but do not have problems not smoking. The study explains that the latency period until the appearance of dependence symptoms was calculated taking into account the time when the participants started smoking at a minimum frequency of once a month.

Results and conclusions of the study

Through their research, DiFranza and colleagues found that 22% of the 95 subjects who had started smoking sporadically reported some symptom of nicotine dependence four weeks after they had started smoking once a month. One or more withdrawal symptoms were reported by 60 of those same individuals (63%), of whom 62% had reported the first symptom before starting to smoke daily.

Based on their findings, the researchers concluded that the first symptoms of nicotine dependence may appear within a few days or weeks after the onset of occasional use.. In fact, these same experts found that these manifestations even appeared before daily consumption, which suggests that addiction to tobacco is much faster than previously thought and that there is always a risk that, even with very occasional consumption, smoking will develop.

But despite this conclusion, the researchers could not ignore the fact that there are people who smoke daily but do not develop addiction. For this same reason, DiFranza's team raised the possibility that there are different types of the possibility that there were different types of smokers, and they spoke of three groups. On the one hand, there would be smokers who become addicted quickly, smoking just a few cigarettes for a few weeks. Then there would be another group in which they would become addicted gradually. And finally we would find the group of smokers who would not fall into addiction, controlling the habit.

But these same researchers comment on one of the limitations of the study, and that is the fact that it was conducted with adolescents. It could be possible that adolescents are more sensitive to nicotine than adults, which would imply that they are at greater risk of developing tobacco addiction.

Added to this, in the case of adult smokers, the possible influence of the consumption of other drugs cannot be ignored either.alcohol being the one most commonly associated with smoking.

From what can be extracted from this work, pioneering at the time, is that it is necessary to warn young people of the risk of smoking, indicating how quickly one can fall into an addiction from which it is very difficult to free oneself.

It is perfectly plausible to smoke just a few cigarettes for a few days and then find it very difficult to stop smoking.It is perfectly plausible to smoke just a few cigarettes for a few days and then find it really difficult to stop smoking, since you have just formed a dangerous habit. It seems that most of the time this habit leads to an addiction that can last for the rest of your life and that is why it is better to stay away from cigarettes and stop playing with fire.