Smoking and Anxiety: What’s The True Relationship?

What is the true relationship between smoking and anxiety? During the past several years, research has shown a strong correlation between lower risk for relapse and longer periods of abstinence, being directly related to smoking cessation during the detox phase of drug and alcohol recovery. I have found that clients often assume that smoking helps relieve their anxiety symptoms. When the truth is, the anxiety is usually a major symptom of nicotine withdrawal. So the anxiety they think they are relieving by smoking is actually being caused by the smoking in the first place.