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On Smoking

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Re: On Smoking

#251

Post by raducu »

reissbaker wrote: post #234
unixhero wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I quit smoking, and it was very very hard. I don't agree with you that the addiction, need and nicotine + other triggers will remain with me until the end of time. Deprogramming is part of the process of quitting to smoke. I do now never want to smoke. It is not attractive to me as a way to relax or focus. I can stand in a tobacco section of an airport taxfree shop holding a 5 cartons in my hands with absolutely no d…

+1. I quit smoking a little over a decade ago, gradually, by winnowing myself down cigarette-by-cigarette. If I smoked six cigarettes a day, for the next two weeks I'd smoke five; by the end of two weeks I'd stop feeling the urge for a sixth. Then I'd move down to four, etc etc, until finally I was down to two and just stopped entirely. For the first year after stopping regularly smoking, I still felt the urge when d…

You must have enormous will power to taper nicotine.

I'm addicted to nicotine, though not cigarettes (though I do smoke on social ocasions, but the nicotine in just one cigarette available in the EU does nothing for me), and I've "quit" numerous times for months, but my (undiagnosed) ADHD brings me back to it.

It is such a perverse stimulant.

I've taken hardcore stimulants and never got addicted, but nicotine has such a small half-life that it's impossible to not get addicted.

While I'm on more powerful stimulants I don't need nicotine to do my work(in fact I can go without if I don't have to work).

Re: On Smoking

#252

Post by whatshisface »

throwaway1777 wrote: post #219
inamiyar wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good story but for some reason has a distinctive...LinkedIn story vibe. I can't put my finger on it.

It could very well be true, but it seems fake because the ending is too perfect. Nothing is that easy in real life.

There's a very serious cost to living with the cynical perspective your comment expresses. If you think that people will only change when you have authority or leverage over them, and that they will always ignore reason, you'll pass by hundreds of chances to reach equitable mediums over your life, and get nothing in return except a little saved inconvenience of never opening discussions with a less than 100% chance of success.

Re: On Smoking

#253

Post by leemailll »

mavhc wrote: post #52
dimmke wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I quit smoking back in 2016 and I don’t think of myself as a smoker at all anymore. I sometimes have to remind myself I used to smoke.

Why do people start smoking? Surely they know it's addictive, expensive, and bad for you

https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z/s/smoking-and-mental-...

Re: On Smoking

#254

Post by Baeocystin »

wirrbel wrote: post #239
Baeocystin wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't smoke, but my roommate does. After living in the same house for a couple of years, now, I think I understand the social aspect of why people start. A cigarette break is the perfect amount of time to sit down and have a little chat, and provides a reason to stop once it's done, too. Meet on the deck, catch up on each other's day, see you later, back to work. That kind of thing.

I can totally understand that. I would just suggest to reconsider coffee/tea drinking in that regard (or whatever drink might serve as a substitute). Already when studying/researching at Uni having a cup of coffee together did serve as such a communal break, catching up, etc. When I did an abroad term in Canada what hit me by surprise is that people would get take-away coffee and would ONLY drink it at their desks br…

Coffee/tea breaks are great, but they are in a different category. People drink at different rates, and you need to be somewhere to sit to drink, and usually indoors near a kitchen area.

Smoke breaks are fast, usually outdoors, and limited by the short burn time of a cigarette the moment someone lights up. It's (IMO) a different social function, which is something I didn't appreciate until I lived with a smoker.

Don't get me wrong- I'm not saying smoking is a good habit to have. Only that I have a new appreciation for what 'smoke breaks' are as their own unique sort of socialization. Having a drink together, it's just not the same.

Re: On Smoking

#255

Post by emre »

"The Buddhists think you don’t quit addictions, you become a new person who isn’t an addict." This is such an amazing quote

Re: On Smoking

#256

Post by possibleworlds »

billykid24601 wrote: post #165
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #161

When I think about smoking and addiction, I think about how genetics and early childhood experiences actually allow us much less "free will" than we'd like to admit, especially in the US. I picked up smoking in my late teens and early twenties. I tended to smoke socially, but still sometimes smoked by myself. Probably about 2 years into I thought "this is dumb", and just stopped. I never felt addicted. Quitting wasn'…

What evidence do you have that this isn't true? It's not really a falsifiable position (since nature vs nurture is hard to show) and free will hard to measure. To me, it simply seems more convenient for the audience to believe free will doesn't exist and addition is genetic.

There is plenty out there [0]. Certain substances are at a baseline and without question addictive for humans, do enough of it and anyone can become an addict regardless of free will. Genetics play a role in susceptibility and level of dependence, as do other factors like underlying mental illness. If you ever see a full blown alcoholic going through withdrawals [1] it becomes clear that physical substance addiction is very much a real thing.

[0] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171010124112.h...

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delirium_tremens

Re: On Smoking

#257

Post by hansbo »

xzel wrote: post #62
jessriedel wrote: post #2

> too embarrassed of chewing-gums In case others don't know, there are nicotine lozenges that are smaller than the gum and require no chewing. And if you happen to swallow them nothing happens, the nicotine is destroyed by your stomachs without being absorbed. They are really very discreet to use. (Even the gum isn't actually chewed like regular gum; you just chew it for a few seconds and let it sit on your gum.)

Tobacco free snus like pouches have exploded in the US the past two years. I quit smoking about a year and a half ago by switching to them. I'm not sure if they're cooler or less cool than gum but it's pretty great not smoking. I'd recommend anyone trying to quit to look into them as a possibility.

I'm on them now, though I used snus before, not cigarettes.

Re: On Smoking

#258

Post by block_dagger »

murat131 wrote: post #3

The thing about smoking is that when you quit smoking you quit it every day. Imagine a light switch on the wall. You turn it off by quitting smoking and you can always go back at a desperate time for instance and turn it on. And some time later off again. Smoking your first cigarette implants that light switch on your mind and you can't make it go away. Since you know how it makes you feel good when the switch is on,…

After a few years I really don’t miss it anymore. It does not go till death for everyone.

Re: On Smoking

#260

Post by morelisp »

koyote wrote: post #244
eyelidlessness wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not responding as an argument, just to share my perspective (as I’m holding a lit cigarette in my hand). I’ve definitely described the flavor of my cigarettes. I switched to my current brand because I liked the flavor more than my previous brand, which I described as having no flavor (and of course it did, just not flavor I found offputting), which was preferable to previous brands I’d smoked. I’m leaving out brand n…

A lot of my smoking friends preferred one brand over an other and even refused to smoke some brands. But I wouldn't classify that as being 'gourmet' in the same way as alcohol is. A similar example is mineral water: I have preferences around which mineral water I drink. I even dislike waters very high in minerals and will only have them if there is no choice. But in the end water is just something I drink to satisfy…

Cigarettes, no, but smoking generally - yes. Previously cigars and pipes, today vapes.
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