Giving Up Smoking Might Make It Easier To Overcome Substance Abuse Disorders: Study

SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO – JULY 28, 2018: A man holds a cigarette in his hand in Santa Fe, New Mexico. (Photo by Robert Alexander/Getty Images)

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Quitting smoking cigarettes could enable a person with a substance abuse disorder to recover from their addiction to alcohol or drugs, a recent study stated. The findings highlighted that there was a 42% increase in the odds of an individual staying in recovery from their addiction to alcohol or drugs once they quit cigarettes for good.

This is because the habit of smoking cigarettes regularly is more common among people grappling with other addictions, but the study authors highlighted that interventions to quit smoking are usually missing at substance abuse disorder treatment facilities in the United States.

“Although the health benefits of quitting smoking are well-known, smoking cessation has not been seen as a high priority in drug addiction treatment programs,” said senior author of the study, Wilson Compton, deputy director of the NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse, in a press release. “This finding bolsters support for including smoking cessation as part of addiction treatment.”

Prior research has found that despite declining rates of cigarette smoking among U.S. residents, people with substance abuse disorder are at a greater risk of dying from tobacco-related illnesses than those without addiction problems. Current estimates state that there are 48.5 million people living in the U.S. who have suffered from substance abuse disorders in the last year itself. Out of that, close to 36% of people smoke cigarettes. Compton and team analyzed data of over 2,500 people who had reported a history of substance abuse disorders and struggled to stay clean in the last four years. They found that year-to-year, the study participants who managed to quit smoking had a 42% increase in the odds of being in recovery from their substance abuse disorder.

“These findings reinforce the importance of addressing tobacco use among individuals with a substance abuse disorder, including not only those who are actively receiving treatment, but also the millions of adults with a substance abuse disorder who do not seek treatment. Future research and practice should test ways to implement tobacco treatment for patients within the healthcare system. Population-based approaches to cessation should also continue to be tested to reach individuals with SUDs outside of the healthcare system, including targeted cessation strategies and approaches to increase access to care. Population-based policies geared toward helping individuals decrease or quit smoking, such as consistent and robust tobacco taxes and programs designed to increase tobacco quit line utilization, could potentially help individuals in their recovery process. Future research should also consider other tobacco or nicotine products, such as e-cigarettes, in the substance abuse disorder recovery process, both in terms of their link to smoking cessation and cessation from those products,” Compton and colleagues added in their study.

In a press release, Nora Volkow, director of NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse, which partly funded the JAMA Psychiatry study (known as the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health Study), said: “We now have strong evidence from a national sample that quitting cigarette smoking predicts improved recovery from other substance use disorders. It underscores the importance of addressing different addictions together, rather than in isolation.”

The study was published in JAMA Psychiatry in August 2025.