Five Weeks into Quit, Urge to Smoke on Cue Still Strong

A new study found images of smoking induced stronger cravings among people who hadn't smoked in five weeks than in those hadn't smoked in a week, HealthDay News reported Sept. 17.

Researchers, led by Dr. Gillinder Bedi, postdoctoral scholar at the University of Chicago’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, said the findings illustrate the influence smoking cues have on people trying to quit, even after the initial withdrawal period.

Bedi and her team assigned 86 smokers to one of three groups: those who would quit for one week, those who would quit for two weeks, and those who would quit for five weeks. At the end of the assigned period, participants were shown a combination of neutral photos and photos of smoking situations while their physiologic responses were monitored. A subset of participants in the five-week group was monitored at all three points (one, two, and five weeks).

Although withdrawal symptoms and individual cravings lessened over time for all participants, cravings induced by smoking cues actually became stronger among those who had been abstinent for five-weeks.

“The main point is pretty straightforward,” Bedi said. “When people are exposed to things that they associate with a drug they use, they often feel an increase in craving.”

“Knowing this may help people to prepare better for these kinds of experiences,” she concluded, “so that they don't relapse when they experience a jump in craving after coming into contact with people, places or things that they associate with smoking.”

The finding were published online Sept. 3 in Biological Psychiatry.