Summary
Tobacco addiction can cause significant harm to the human body and health. It is necessary to treat the symptoms of smoking to combat it and the psychological force of the habit. Scientists have identified a gene in the standard DNA strand that increases the likelihood of developing nicotine addiction and, as a result, lung cancer. However, it has also been proven that, in general, smoking has causal roots in human genetics, with different percentages of the message affecting, respectively, the start of smoking, the duration of the experience, and the possibility of stopping.
Tobacco smoking in nature is harmful since a person becomes a carrier of smoke, which creates unfavorable conditions for nearby people and the atmosphere. The reasons lie in the chemical element nicotine, which causes addiction since, after the act of smoking, the production of dopamine increases, and adrenaline is released.
Current legislation cuts down on the possible smoking areas for people, creating a supportive environment in public places. Therefore, a person who smokes in families negatively affects their future offspring and their health, but the constant smell of smoke at home can be the result of passive smoking of the whole family. It can cause family quarrels and disunity, so human services workers will need more profound work, including talking with all family members.
When physical addiction is allowed, it is needed to apply the strength of doctors and medicine. At the stage of psychological dependence, smoking can be stopped on its own if the person has willpower. Smoking initiation is usually socially related and begins in adolescence or college and is often associated with community adaptations and a fear of appearing weak after giving up cigarettes.
The Human Services profession presupposes a set of ethical standards that are common to many healthcare institutions. These standards and norms call for a respectful attitude toward the addicted person, protecting his personal space, taking into account cultural characteristics, not imposing his views and visions, and, finally, being respectful regardless of his social status or other possible differences.
Sources
The discovery of a specific gene that affects the predisposition to the smoking process may help scientists get closer to answering how to prevent it. In addition, the paper provides information on which nationalities are more prone to smoking due to the specific properties of this gene, which allows health improvement activities to be carried out more precisely (RTI International, 2017).
Previous research has given impetus to the search for the genetic background of nicotine addiction. The rich information about DNA structure can find such correspondences that affect this aspect, which has not yet been applied in practice or even voiced in theory (Lee et al., 2018).
Passive smoking is one of the crucial issues that need to be dealt with in this article. The influence of a smoker on the family, and on others, is barely noticeable, but it can lead to negative consequences (Kondo et al., 2019).
Nicotine addiction manifests itself individually for each person. However, there are different kinds of trends in different countries, nations, and ages. The impact of the current pandemic situation has also played a role in changing the behavior of nicotine addicts (Yang & Ma, 2021).
Possible treatments are still being sought, and various methods are being used. In this work, cognitive bias modification was analyzed, which showed relatively low results in the general sample. However, this technique can also help a person fight against smoking (Boffo et al., 2019).
Programs, like human or community services, contain a particular set of standards and norms that must be used in the profession regardless of addiction and those attitudes that are characteristic only of tobacco addiction. Experience with these standards is just as important as the medical factors behind this nicotine addiction (Weiss de Souza et al., 2020).
References
Boffo, M., Zerhouni, O., Gronau, Q. F., van Beek, R. J., Nikolaou, K., Marsman, M., & Wiers, R. W. (2019). Cognitive bias modification for behavior change in alcohol and smoking addiction: Bayesian meta-analysis of individual participant data. Neuropsychology Review, 29(1), 52-78.
Kondo, K., Ohfuji, S., Watanabe, K., Yamagami, H., Fukushima, W., Ito, K., & Japanese Case-Control Study Group for Crohn’s disease. (2019). The association between environmental factors and the development of Crohn’s disease with focusing on passive smoking: a multicenter case-control study in Japan. PloS one, 14(6), e0216429.
Lee, S. H., Ahn, W. Y., Seweryn, M., & Sadee, W. (2018). Combined genetic influence of the nicotinic receptor gene cluster CHRNA5/A3/B4 on nicotine dependence. BMC genomics, 19(1), 1-11.
RTI International. (2017). Gene that influences nicotine dependence identified: Discovery creates the possibility for new research in addiction treatment. ScienceDaily. Web.
Weiss de Souza, I. C., Kozasa, E. H., Bowen, S., Richter, K. P., Sartes, L. M. A., Colugnati, F. A. B., & Noto, A. R. (2020). Effectiveness of mindfulness-based relapse prevention program as an adjunct to the standard treatment for smoking: a pragmatic design pilot study. Nicotine and Tobacco Research, 22(9), 1605-1613.
Yang, H., & Ma, J. (2021). How the COVID-19 pandemic impacts tobacco addiction: Changes in smoking behavior and associations with well-being. Addictive Behaviors, 119, 106917.