People who are addicted to alcohol are also likely to smoke cigarettes. According to the June 2008 issue of the Harvard Mental Health Letter many experts feel that it’s important to counsel alcohol-dependent individuals to quit smoking as well as drinking not just to improve their health, but also to increase their chances of staying sober.
It is a universal fear that attempting to quit smoking and drinking at one fell swoop will undermine treatment for alcohol dependence.
However, most studies have reported that efforts to quit smoking either have no impact on maintaining sobriety or actually increase success of alcohol treatment.
Currently there is no smoking cessation strategy exclusively for alcohol-dependent adults. For now, the wisest choice is to follow the federal guidelines for treating tobacco addiction, which advocates a combination of counseling and medication.
An important, and still unresolved, issue is whether it’s better to give up smoking and drinking at the same time, or whether it’s better to work on one addiction at a time.
Researchers have learned that when smoking cessation support was deferred by six months, study participants were increasingly likely to stay sober when compared with those who received concurrent treatment for both addictions. Please note however that a follow-up analysis found that this may have been true only for white people in the study.
Dr. Michael Miller, editor in chief of the Harvard Mental Health Letter, observes that no single approach is best for every person struggling with both alcohol and nicotine addiction. Whether an individual quits smoking during alcohol treatment or later, it’s a net health gain.
Tags: self improvement