Why do I become depressed when I try to quit smoking?
There are a significant number of people just like you who say, every time I quit smoking, I just feel miserable. My moods deteriorate, I'm grumpy, I'm irritable. I don't enjoy anything. All I can think about is a cigarette. I would encourage you to talk to your doctor about what else could be the explanation for that. Nicotine itself works in the brain stimulating chemicals to make you feel good. The problem is that it stimulates it in such a way that it depletes those chemicals, and when you don't have nicotine repeatedly, over and over again stimulating them, they drop to a level far below what's normal, and makes you feel miserable. If you're already pre-disposed to a mood disorder such as depression or anxiety, nicotine actually makes that whole pathway, that cycle, much worse. There are some people, we understand, who didn't seem to have any symptoms of depression, started smoking, but when they quit smoking, then they determine, in addition to all the stresses in my life, now I'm feeling really depressed going through withdrawal. So it might be that some people start smoking because they don't feel so great. When they give it up, that problem is still there. It didn't go anywhere. But there are other people for whom going through the process of nicotine addiction and changing the brain chemistry actually may spark the trigger to follow that up and down pattern of brain chemistry changes to leave them in a state of being depressed when they quit smoking. If you are experiencing any of the symptoms of depression, I would encourage you to look information up about that and read about what it means to have a major depressive disorder. Talk to your health care provider and ask about a screening test for that, and determine what medications would be the best for you to use during the time that you quit smoking. Because you should not allow quitting smoking to be a barrier to you getting help for your depression, and you shouldn't allow depression to be a barrier to quitting smoking. There are medications that can treat both of those, and help you feel much better in the long run.
