PhotoperiodEffect.com

27. I've tried but I can't quit smoking, even at night (or substitute alcohol, drugs, etc) so is darkness useless to me? Am I toast? Or, if my drug of choice is a way of simulating a proper light/dark cycle, can darkness actually help me to quit?

It would be better to quit, but don't give up quite yet. Not only is darkness still a good thing, even if you're still smoking – just not as effective – but darkness may actually be able to help you quit smoking or drugs if you approach things in the right way. This is possible because what you're seeking in the drug are the same things that more darkness can provide – the calm, energy and good feelings that dopamine, serotonin and norepenephrine provide. Serotonin is only made in the dark (and etc), so if you start getting a lot more darkness, cutting down or doing without the drugs later will be much easier, and you won't be so tempted to start up again. In any case, even if you don't quit, can't quit or don't want to quit, you'll probably find that if you make sure you're getting enough uninterrupted real darkness, your habits have less pull on you, and you use less without having to think about it.

That having been said, the age at which you began your habit makes a lot of difference. If you started before you were thirteen, in particular, your brain hasn't developed in the way it would have without the presence of alcohol, tobacco or drugs; and this may mean that you won't produce as much natural feel-good chemicals as the average person. All the more reason to get into the dark and get as much as you can, however!

A recent study has shown that starting nicotine patches a couple of weeks before a person tries to quit makes doubles the success rate and is safe. [Jed E. Rose, Ph.D., Tony P. George, M.D., Feb. 1, 2006, Nicotine and Tobacco Research http://health.excite.com/article/id/530722.html] This suggests that if you want to quit, it's a good idea to get serious about getting a lot more darkness in your life at least a couple of weeks before trying to quit – perhaps significantly more time than just a couple of weeks, since it's not easy to change your light/dark habits either – and then start to cut down on the drugs/tobacco/alcohol.

When you are ready to quit the substances, you can also take a gradual path: perhaps at first, just by eliminating the behavior at night or in the evening, and then in a couple or three more weeks, restricting it to mornings, and finally, quitting altogether if you're up to it. You may well find in time that you're actually happier with the real chemicals than the approximate substitutes you've been putting in your body – and we now know that only enough darkness can provide the real thing.

One might suppose, given that hard drugs so clearly mimic the effects of light and compensate for inadequate darkness, that many studies would have been done by now to determine whether more darkness would help people quit drugs. One might suppose that, but no such studies seem to have been done, or even dreamt of so far as I know, nor are those quitting drugs advised to be careful of further reducing their period of darkness as a result of withdrawal symptoms – a critical note. Going from addiction to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of further confusing day and night is something you want to strictly avoid.