Smoking & Mental Illness

Hi, my name is -----, and I'm a smoker. I started 2 1/2 years ago under a period of great stress: a separation from my husband, a new boyfriend, financial stress due to both, my father's bout with a tumor in his colon, and the unexpected death of my wet-headed ninja kitty of 9 years. It didn't help that my boyfriend was also a smoker. I didn't originally know this. He'd been hiding it. Once I found out, I preffered he smoke than continue lying about it. And so, it was readily available. If not the best of options for dealing with my stress.

Before any judgments are made, yes, I know the risks. I've had an uncle who died of lung cancer, a great uncle who died of lung cancer, possibly two grandfathers who died of lung cancer, and a grandmother with empysema. Both my parents smoked for years. I know the risks firsthand. Most people don't need studies to understand that smoking often starts under duress of some sort. But the most interesting thing, in my mind, is the link between smoking and mental illness. According to an article on Bipolar World, 70 percent of bipolar patients smoke. Sixty percent of patients with major depression smoke. The numbers go up for those with schizophrenia and down with panic disorder and Post Traumatic Syndrome (PTS).

Even more surprising is the controversial subject of marijuana use among bipolar patients as a mood stabilizer. Try the following Google search: (marijuana or cannabis) "mood stabilizer" (bipolar or mental illness). There's ample anecdotal evidence on the subject, but no real clinical research. Although, the BBC News might disagree with that. According to a news report based on clinical trials in New Zealand, cannabis doubles the risk of developing mental illness. To slog through the actual report that the BBC story was based on, you can view it for free on Blackwell Synergy's website. Whether mentally ill patients are using smoking or marijuana, the underlying issue is the need for those with mental illness to find some control over their moods, sometimes even over the side effects of other, more popular, and more "accepted," pharmaceutical drugs.

So, do I smoke? I do. I'm around 4-6 cigarettes a day. It's gotten higher since the depression and the hospitalization, though the hospital was a "smoke free campus." For days, I was in nicotine and Cymbalta withdrawal, and no one on the staff educated me to the fact that I could ask for either the patch or the gum, as well as Ativan, which is commonly prescribed for withdrawal from alcohol and substance abuse. Again, it was a case of the patients educating the patients in the hospital, which seemed to happen far too often. Because almost all the patients smoked. And this is perhaps the crux of the problem, when you can't find help and what little help you can find feels far too insignificant for the uncontrollable illness wrecking havoc in your mind, where do you turn?