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On Smoking

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Re: On Smoking

#151

Post by kethinov »

muststopmyths wrote: post #145

The main things that keeps me from relapsing are that California makes it really hard to smoke in public and that none of my friends smoke. I occasionally relapse when with some specific friends from a point in my past. Luckily we live far away from each other so the meetings are rare. The one other reason I don't just pick smoking back up by myself is how nasty my clothes (no hair left any more !) smell after a ciga…

Weirdly, the thing I remember most about my time in California was how hard it was to avoid being constantly exposed to second-hand smoke anywhere I walked in the city. It really hit me when a friend visited from out of town and said something to me along the lines of, "You know, for how green-obsessed everyone here seems to be, it's truly remarkable how much smoke there is everywhere on the streets."

Doubtless, this is more a city problem than it is a California problem. I spent most of my life in the suburbs far from any city downtowns growing up and I am truly grateful to have been able to relocate back to the quiet, leafy suburbs once again to start my family.

There are some things I miss about downtown, but the constant presence of second-hand smoke on the sidewalks everywhere is definitely not one of them.

Re: On Smoking

#152

Post by gavanwilhite »

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,…

This is not correct.

Your edit is also not correct. This is not a "some people" thing. It is a "how you got yourself to stop" thing.

This is only true if you stop by using willpower. You need to reogranize your belief systems in order to dispel the illusions that it actually brings pleasure by understanding that it's just soothing a craving that doesn't exist when you aren't smoking.

If you feel this way, I highly, highly recommend you listen to one of the EasyWay books: https://www.allencarr.com/

Re: On Smoking

#153

Post by RobertKerans »

TchoBeer wrote: post #82
mavhc wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Alcohol is also addictive expensive and bad for you, and yet no one asks why anyone would drink alcohol

That may be because it's self-evident to most people.

Re: On Smoking

#155

Post by michaelmrose »

TchoBeer wrote: post #137
michaelmrose wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virtually everyone who smokes for any reasonable duration will become addicted and almost all do so enough to substantially effect their health and longevity whether they know it or not. Most of the people who consume alcohol do so casually and not to excess. Essentially the chance of dying in a given year due to alcohol if this were anything like a random chance is around 1 in 2000 whereas the chance of dying from s…

>Virtually everyone who smokes for any reasonable duration will become addicted and almost all do so enough to substantially effect their health and longevity whether they know it or not. This sounds right enough, but can you cite your sources for it?

I don't think that really needs a cite in 2021 but let me give it a go

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180109214939.h...

> At least 61 per cent of people who try their first cigarette become, at least temporarily, daily smokers, suggests an analysis of survey data by Queen Mary University of London.

This is actually stronger than the original statement. A substantial minority who even try smoking become smokers.I think it ought to be considered a given that people who smoke are physiologically addicted to nicotine. Having many relatives who smoke currently or have in the past. Smoking in America has been so pervasive that most of us likely have direct knowledge of smoking by either smoking having family members who smoke.

Re: On Smoking

#156

Post by chki »

slim wrote: post #128
deesep wrote: post #86

I started smoking when i went to study in China. Someone gifted me an expensive brand of cigarette, and I kept it hidden in a drawer for two weeks as I didn't smoke. One very cold day with no where to go and nothing to do, I took the pack out and lit one stick. My did it have a lovely scent. The heat it created inside me was also soothing. It took me about a week and half to finish the pack of 21 cigs. I couldn't aff…

I quit smoking in 2014. Before that, when traveling, I had a habit of smoking local brands. So when I traveled to Beijing, I picked a brand named Baysan because I saw locals smoking it. It had a beautiful package, it was high quality. When traveled back home, I had a commute in Stuttgart. So I got to a smoking area, took a cigarette from that Baysan box and it was like smoking burning wood. I coughed a lot and threw…

Fun fact: Stuttgart is considered to be one of the worst cities in Germany with regards to air pollution, because of the geography ("Stuttgarter Kessel"). But the difference between any other German city and Stuttgart is obviously negligible when compared to Peking.

Re: On Smoking

#157

Post by checkerscaptian »

i have never smoked but i have been around people who smoke in public spaces and have never found why it would be atractive in the first place. i think that this should be particularly stressed in COVID hit areas as it is bad for your lungs. could someone also tell me what quitting vapes is like, i do not know and i think it would be similar

Re: On Smoking

#158

Post by ac42 »

I think one reason that quitting is so hard is that it is assumed to be a 100 to zero transition. I believe that just as getting addicted, weaning off is a process. Without having established a mindset of truly wanting to quit and without clearly understanding your very own reasons for it, it's way too easy to consider that occasional misstep a total failure of the project.

Re: On Smoking

#159

Post by abecedarius »

winrid wrote: post #126
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,…

I tried a cigarette like 8 years ago and I still feel the lure sometimes, very odd.

Tried it just once?

I had a few puffs once in a dumb college do-stupid-things game -- I guess I didn't manage to inhale properly because it did nothing for me.

Re: On Smoking

#160

Post by boltzmann_brain »

unixhero wrote: post #24
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,…

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…

Thing is, nicotine is quite beneficial for the brain, there are numerous studies on it. The problem, of course, is that smoking as means of getting nicotine is unhealthy, due to tar and other cancerous residues.

I never smoked cigarettes regularly, but smoked quite a bit of pipe and cigars. I love tobacco taste and nicotine hit. While these are less unhealthy than cigarettes, because you don't inhale and the product is 100 % natural tobacco, I have since switched to Swedish snus to get my nicotine hit without any smoking.

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