Nicotine is a highly addictive drug which is naturally occurring in tobacco. There isn’t tobacco without nicotine which means that there is no cigarette without nicotine. If a cigarette didn’t have nicotine then it wouldn’t be a cigarette at all. This powerful drug creates an addictive habit by producing pleasant feelings to the brain and subsequently, the smoker. In order to maintain this level of “pleasantness” a smoker must continue smoking. Basically, the nicotine presents a new smoker with “pleasant” feelings and this person continues to smoke because they enjoy what they feel as they smoke a cigarette. As the person continues smoking the feelings become normal to them. The feelings associated with nicotine consumption are no longer pleasant but rather mandatory. And this is where the real addiction begins. Since the person has become accustomed to these feelings, they now feel the need to continue smoking. If they don’t smoke then they don’t feel normal and as a result the brain tells them that they absolutely need more nicotine.

The addiction only gets worse as the smoker continues to smoke and fuel there nicotine addiction. In most cases the smoker will develop a tolerance for nicotine. What this means is that in addition to needing nicotine in the first place in order to feel normal, the smoker will need more and more nicotine in order to feel that level of normalcy. The smoker will start to feel cravings even as they smoke if they do not up the amount of cigarettes that they are smoking daily. This is why cigarette addiction is such a vicious cycle. Someone new to smoke is pulled in and then thrown into the daily habit of maintaining nicotine consumption in order to feel normal.