Tailoring nicotine addiction treatments for chemical dependency patients

The growing scientific evidence for addressing nicotine addiction in chemical dependency (CD) treatment programs is reviewed. This evidence provided the impetus for a survey of smoking patterns and quitting motivation and barriers among CD patients to identify ways to tailor standard nicotine addiction treatment methods and goals to their needs. Smoking history questionnaires were administered to 118 consecutive patients in a residential CD treatment program. The 66% of patients who smoked were predominantly heavy smokers, highly addicted (mean 25 cigarettes per day, 76% smoking within 30 minutes of waking). Although 63% of patients were "precontemplators," most of the sample had a history of one or more serious quit attempts, most reported strong beliefs in smoking harms and quitting benefits, and almost half reported a strong desire to stop smoking. Major quitting barriers included the usual psychological and physical sequelae of tobacco abstinence in addition to being around other smokers. Surprisingly, very few patients expressed concerns that quitting smoking would threaten drug or alcohol sobriety. Treatment implications are discussed. In addition, a pilot 4-session group treatment program is described. This program was geared to motivating smokers in "precontemplation" and "contemplation" stages of change to move ahead into the "action" stage (i.e., taking steps to quit).