Antidepressants and addiction recovery

I would like to tell you about a very mild example. So mild that it cannot be compared to alcohol addiction or drug addiction. I'll talk about caffeine and nicotine addiction.

Several times in my life, I have use different antidepressants. I said different but all of them were ssri's. They were cipram (citalopram), lustral (sertraline, also known as zoloft in U.S.), effexor (venlafaxine) and lustral again.

On all of these, I had the same experience with my caffeine and nicotine addiction in the first couple of weeks. I needed less coffee and less cigarettes. Especially in weeks 2 to 8, I can clearly say that on some days, both cigarettes and coffee was seemingly too much to me. I couldn't drink and smoke at the same amount when I was not on antidepressants.

So, if this holds true for drug addiction treatment? I am not sure about it. I don't have a clue. I can just do reasoning. If your addiction relates to the serotonin levels in the brain, then antidepressants may rehabilitate your addictive behavior if not cure them.

On the other hand, this amateur reasoning of mine would not be valid for many other addictive substance. Maybe it may help if you are at the beginning of substance abuse and the substance abuse is just caused by your serotonin levels.