I was wondering if smoking predisposed adolescents to mental disorder, or are people with mental disorders more inclined to smoke. There is the that some mental disorders can be a result of overactive neural pathways, but very often when a smoker is asked why they smoke, the answer is because they can relax. Maybe disfunctional thinking is not so much an effect of smoking, but the withdrawal symptoms. Now they are starting to trace neural pathways so that there can be a more clinical evaluation of mental disorders. While many diagnoses so far have been through observation, experience, and opinion, we are getting to the stage where we will have learned enough about the physical pathways and c...

I was wondering if smoking predisposed adolescents to mental disorder, or are people with mental disorders more inclined to smoke. There is the that some mental disorders can be a result of overactive neural pathways, but very often when a smoker is asked why they smoke, the answer is because they can relax. Maybe disfunctional thinking is not so much an effect of smoking, but the withdrawal symptoms. Now they are starting to trace neural pathways so that there can be a more clinical evaluation of mental disorders. While many diagnoses so far have been through observation, experience, and opinion, we are getting to the stage where we will have learned enough about the physical pathways and chemistry, to go beyond speculative diagnoses. I have also heard that predisposition towards addiction, can be inherited.
One of the biggest reasons people can't give up an addiction, is because they choose not to.