Stop smoking then kill yourself, or someone else?

Chantix - I have been 'told' about this drug for about the past year, by two of my own docs, and by folks all over the net on various forums and boards who find out I am a smoker (and unlike so many others, I do not lie or hide my smoking).

When I first heard about Chantix, I did my net research. Right off the bat, with my first reading of the drug's literature, I knew it probably was not for me because it mentioned sleep and/or dreaming changes as one of the side effects.

I have bi-polar disorder, narrowed more specifically, Seasonal Affective Disorder (Severe). In fact, I took Lithium for many years, until solid research was done on ‘Light Therapy’. I tried it and found that light/dark therapy worked just as well for me as a means of mood control as medications had. I was then slowly weaned off Lithium.

The correlation: Sleep (how many hours per night), and the types of dreams I have are my earliest ‘clues’ to mood changes, and therefore treatment needs with either light or dark.

It has taken me a LOT of years to be able to self-manage SAD; I do not need a drug that would mess with that, perhaps throwing me into a depression or hypomania (during which, I would probably start smoking again anyway!).

So, I find the newest FDA info on Chantix interesting. “The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has informed healthcare professionals about reports of suicidal thoughts as well as some aggressive and erratic behavior in patients who have taken varenicline (Chantix, Pfizer), a smoking-cessation product.”

I cannot help but wonder if they are looking in the ‘wrong’ direction regarding this new drug and mood and/or behavior changes. I have personally known two males who committed suicide within two years of smoking cessation, years before Chantix was developed. Both were on long term anti-depressants, and seemed ‘stable’.

Perhaps these new Chantix findings is as simple as Nicotine somehow ‘helps’ those with depression (including anger and aggression), and suicidal tendencies? Perhaps these people are ‘self-medicating’ with Nicotine, and the ‘lack’ of it allows ‘mood disorders’ to emerge full force...

Remember, you heard it HERE first!