Did you know that we all have nicotine receptors in our brain? When activated, the receptors release dopamine. 92% of all men with schizophrenia smoke cigarettes. This is one reason why Dr. E. Fuller Torrey devoted a whole chapter to nicotine and caffeine in his book, Surviving Schizophrenia.

Parents have very different experiences with their son or daughter who has schizophrenia, depending on whether they smoke or not. Those who smoke appear to be living just for the next opportunity to light up. I’ve even seen my own son smoke two cigarettes at a time when he was up to 2+ packs per day. That’s 40-50 cigarettes. Minus 10+ hours spent sleeping, that many cigarettes creates a near chain smoker.

What inspired this article was a phone call from my son, asking me to buy him a pack of Marlboro 100’s and promising to pay me back when I deliver them. In order to afford his tobacco addiction, we usually agree to buy cheaper cigarettes, by the carton, at Smoke Shops where the price can be as low as $2.50 per pack instead of $8-$10 per pack.  For him to get a full-priced, pack of cigarettes is like me splurging on a tray of sushi when I know I can make sushi at home for a fraction of the cost.

One of the funny-sad-absurd rituals we parents participate in is the “Smoking Situation” with our mentally ill son or daughter.  For example, there was a time when I used to pay my son an extra $10 per week if he would attend a Monday through Thursday exercise class at the Board and Care where he lived. He participated in the four exercise classes per week, got the extra money from me and then turned around to use it for more cigarettes!

To this day, I buy cheap cigarettes to help my son save money (which actually means I’m the one saving money). I agreed to this arrangement years ago in the hopes that he would have plenty of smokes, enough to curb his urge to panhandle or sell things he owns. How many times have I entered a smoke shop, thinking how weird it is that I am “supporting” my own son’s addiction?  Never mind the irony that he was raised as a vegetarian by health nuts. The alternative, where he had to fend for himself to support his habit, created even more problems for both of us. But where would I draw the line?  Would I buy him marijuana or some street drug?  Of course not.  And yet, I have found myself supporting his nicotine addiction, so that “worse things” would not happen.

Directly and indirectly, his tobacco addiction in the past instigated other problems, including evictions for panhandling, which put us into a housing crisis on numerous occasions. What the average person does not know is that the schizophrenic brain gets twice as much of the “high” from nicotine as the “normal” brain does. It’s their crack cocaine.  Nicotine gives the schizophrenic brain more clarity and focus, although fleeting. This is significant because the anti-psychotic drugs have seriously sedating side-effects, on top of a brain disease which already undermines cognitive function. A person with schizophrenia who smokes is the very definition of “self-medicating.”

Those with schizophrenia who do NOT smoke, seem to do better in a number of related and unrelated areas (like personal hygiene), make better choices, and have more rational priorities—as would anyone not addicted to a drug that otherwise rules their life. Fortunately, my son has finally reduced his smoking in order to live in a very structured therapeutic environment. He’s now provided with enough activities to distract him between cigarettes and where the majority of residents eventually quit altogether.

 

Kartar Diamond is a Mental Illness Advocate and author of Noah’s Schizophrenia: A Mother’s Search for Truth (to be released 9/22/20)