Nicotine and its Effects on Social Anxiety

      Nicotine is my guilty pleasure drug. I've loved it in every single form I've tried it in, though especially when smoked in Tobacco. Which of course, is the worst possible way to consume it. While I've never been a habitual tobacco smoker, if smoking wasn't so bad for you and didn't linger in your mouth/on your clothes for so damn long, I'd spend my days chain smoking cigars and taking fat bong rips of Tobacco. So keep in mind while reading this, that I'm one of the people who respond very well to this particular drug, your brain chemistry may not be as predisposed to the positive effects of this substance as mine is.

     Nicotine gets a bad rap due to the stigma around smoking. The vast majority of people don't realize that nicotine in and of itself is not a very habit forming drug. It's only when it's combined with the cocktail of chemicals in tobacco that it becomes so physically addictive, ie. monoamine oxidase inhibitors. Nicotine on its own however is said to cause physical dependence similar to caffeine, though in my experience it's even less. I'm going to talk about two specific rates of administration in this post, E - Cigarettes and smoked tobacco. In my experience e cigs and nicotine gum have virtually indistinguishable effects, and I haven't tried chewing tobacco since I was very young so I can't really speak on that.

      First up are E Cigarettes. In the age of the internet, people who use e cigs or "vape" get almost as much shit as people who smoke. Which I think is just ridiculous. People who are using them to quit smoking shouldn't be discouraged by the cancerous group of people on the internet who feel the need to ridicule them for trying to better their quality of life, and those who pick it up as a hobby shouldn't listen to them either. I used to be a frequent vaper, partially because I have an oral fixation and love the act of smoking, and partially because nicotine has a wide range of beneficial effects for me personally. Even in this much weaker form, I've found that nicotine eases my social anxiety to a noticeable degree. Nothing spectacular, but it definitely has an effect. If I'm anxious about anything else, it does an even better job of squashing it. The reason I chose to stop vaping everyday is that while the jury is still out on this one, I feel as if nicotine even in this form isn't very good for your heart. While vaping and for a little while after my resting heart rate tends to increase by about 15 - 25 BPM, and I'll get a shortness of breath for a little while after overdoing it. Even after using an e cig nearly all day everyday for about two months straight, once I stopped cold turkey I experienced absolutely no withdrawal symptoms. For this reason I seriously question the addictive nature of nicotine by itself altogether.

      Now for smoked tobacco. I hate tobacco, yet I love it. I hate it because it's so deleterious to your health for such short lived effects. But I love it for those same short lived effects. The only drug I've ever tried which has been as euphoric as tobacco for me was my first time using phenibut (I smoked weed with it). Did I forget to mention it does wonders for anxiety in general? Especially social anxiety (for about 15 - 20 minutes at least). For this reason I smoke tobacco occasionally (usually about once every 3 - 5 months) and I've maintained this frequency for the past 4 or so years. Keep in mind though that I have a very non addictive personality, so this may be more difficult for some of you. I'd imagine that for people physically addicted to smoking, these positive effects are increased tenfold, even if only because their addiction puts them above baseline anxiety levels before smoking. I'll stop altogether eventually, definitely before my 21st birthday. Until then though I plan on thoroughly enjoying this terrible substance. If anyone responds even remotely as well to it as I do, it can seriously help you out in a pinch.