Originally Posted by Praying

I know a lot of As who also smoke, etc. or use some form of nicotine. The AA meetings around me have a lot of smokers. I read something today that linked nicotine and alcohol and said there's a very high co-morbidity-- that is, someone prone to addiction to one is much more likely to relapse to the other if they've had issues with it before.

My A has been on nicotine gum for several years. and has been "about to quit" forever. I knew this when I met him, and was fine with it. Now that I'm aware of his alcoholism I see it as just another "place" he puts his addiction. He stopped drinking several weeks ago and is going through the gum at twice the pace.

I'm not judging, I get it, he's white-knuckling right now... I was just curious what others have seen. Can you get sober and still have an addiction to nicotine? I've always thought of nicotine as "lesser" than other drugs, but if it was marijuana I'd think otherwise. Is nicotine truly different?

This is more just from curiosity than anything else. My personal view has been that reliance on outside chemicals of any sort to "get by" is a dangerous game for an alcoholic. Maybe that's too strong of a position.