Nicotine is famous for being one of the most addictive substances known to man

We all know that smoking is harmful for you and that it can cause a list of illnesses such as lung cancer and heart disease, however not many people know that smoking can make it very difficult for a person to wean themselves off alcohol. Recovering alcoholics who smoke have a bigger problem when they try to quit the booze than those alcoholics who do not smoke. 

A new study that was undertaken at the University of California based in San Francisco noted that well over half of all alcoholics who seek treatment for their problem in America are noted to be smokers. Across America the figures showed that between 50 and 90 percent of all people going into hospitals to get help for an alcohol addiction were smokers.

The researchers led by Professor Timothy Durazzo claimed that non-smoking alcoholics had a much bigger level of recovery when compared to alcoholics who smoked. The non smoking alcoholics scored more points in mental efficiency, problem solving and high level reasoning as well as visual spatial processing skills and short term memory retention. It has been previously noted that alcoholics who are smokers have weaker cognitive function when compared to non-smokers especially after a short time of not drinking.

Professor Timothy Durazzo who had his research published in the clinical journal called 'Alcoholism, Clinical & Experimental Research' enlisted the help of a number of recovering alcoholics some of whom were smokers and some of whom were not. He used another 22 people to work as moderate drinking, non-smoking controls. Most of the people who helped in this study were male.

Nicotine is famous for being one of the most addictive substances known to man and thus some people say that giving up alcohol was easier than giving up smoking. (Ozzy Osbourne the famous rock singer is one of these).