[Grimm1]

"stress and anxiety release" is strictly bs. Smoking raises your baseline anxiety and stress. Those only continue to increase as the time it takes for you to start withdrawal shrinks as you become more tolerant. A quick google will confirm this or I can do it and provide sources.

I also know this empirically because I was a half a pack a day smoker for a few years and I have never been more anxious, it was what drove me to quit.

You feel relief shortly because you're satisfying the addiction but at the general level you have more stress.

[erichahn]

Withdraw shrinks in only when you use tabacco regularly.

It is not the drug that is the problem but how you used / abused it.

[Grimm1]

Then you get no relief when smoking, it's literally a stimulant.

[erichahn]

It is both. A stimulant and a sedative (dumb categories).

[Grimm1]

TIL and it's actually the fact that causes the seeking behavior which eventually forms the addiction. Epinephrine causes the kick and beta-endorphin the drop. Neat. I went and searched it up because I was curious and you surely are correct. Not sure why they're dumb categories though

[gary_0]

> Not sure why they're dumb categories though

How can something stimulate and sedate at the same time? It's legacy nomenclature that has become counterintuitive. Like how electrons are negative and holes are positive.

[Grimm1]

I mean it effects two separate systems that produce chemicals that cause different effects, one stimulates, and one sedates/depresses. It's not like the nicotine itself is doing both.

[bserge]

Same thing goes for caffeine, alcohol, and many other drugs.