VIDEO. In comics, they tell how they quit smoking

Bénédicte and her daughter Marine have eradicated cigarettes from their lives. After having tried to quit several times, they relied on a method that changed everything: they became interested in what goes on in the brain when you smoke. Today they wrote a comic together to share their experience: “Lily Cane quits smoking. “

Bénédicte, who smoked no less than a pack a day, quickly understood how addiction was linked to conditioning. “I discovered this extraordinary thing that I never suspected: we all have nicotine, naturally, in the brain“, she explains. For example, when we stress, our brain secretes acetylcholine, natural nicotine. So, when we smoke, we give our brain an excess of nicotine forcing it to create no more receivers. “Afterwards, the effect goes down and as we have created a number of additional receptors, there is a demand that is made and suddenly, there is a physical need that is created.“, details Bénédicte.

For Bénédicte and Marine, quitting smoking is difficult at the mental level. “We are conditioned, that is to say we are used to taking a cigarette to relieve a problem“, summarizes Marine. It is thus necessary to”unpack“. To stop associating cigarettes with relief, Bénédicte chose to take a step back and very quickly saw that it was a drive rather than a desire.”It can be bad news that you receive, a money problem, a heart problem, it is rather in these moments that it is difficult, but to know that it does not solve anything, it is important“, concludes Bénédicte, who has completely stopped smoking for five years.