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On Smoking

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Re: On Smoking

#221

Post by throwaway1777 »

alethiophile wrote: post #149
TchoBeer wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We wouldn't have to ban it any more than we had to ban cigarettes

The decline in smoking has absolutely been accompanied and/or caused by a massive array of state coercion, from requiring all their advertising to prominently state "THIS WILL KILL YOU" to limiting who's allowed to sell it to banning it in almost all public spaces. (Which isn't even mentioning the "softer" approaches of massive state-funded PR campaigns against it.) It seems quite likely that absent all of these, smo…

Not to mention the incredibly high taxes on cigarettes.

Re: On Smoking

#222

Post by geoffmcc »

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…

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.

First I want to say I don't want you to start smoking again, nor go through something painful. I will admit I have a habit of being negative about things-- so I can't help but to wonder, because you sound so confident.

Would you say that in the time you quit smoking you experienced a time where "The chips were down" so to say? I'm not talking about something small. Im talking things got real real. Cause that's usually when the switch appears.

Re: On Smoking

#223

Post by eknkc »

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,…

My mom smoked for 30 years, quit and haven’t smoked for around 20 years now.

Says she still gets strong cravings from time to time.

Re: On Smoking

#224

Post by DowsingSpoon »

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

I used to smoke. I started smoking while drinking and the reason is that it feels fucking amazing. People don't smoke for no reason. They smoke because it feels good. Really good.

The long-term health consequences don't feel real when you're young. It's easy to dismiss, even if you logically understand the risks.

The expense is not a problem. Utterly unimportant.

The addictive aspect is a subtle beast. It creeps up on you slowly. At first, smoking is a great, fun thing to do every once in a while. It's a great, fun thing to do with friends. Slowly, every once in a while turns into every day. Then, a few times a day. Now you need a cigarette to start the day right. You try to cut back and only then realize you're addicted.

Re: On Smoking

#225

Post by buu700 »

simondotau wrote: post #143
sillysaurusx wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related to this, a lot of the reason smokers around me smoke is to just go outside. It’s an excuse to hang out on the porch. You might think that such a societal excuse isn’t needed, but it’s a powerful force.

I've never smoked, but in my cubicle days I often tag along with a colleague who did smoke. They'd have a puff, I'd get coffee, and we'd hang out and chat for five or ten minutes outside.

I always did the same thing. It'd be nicer if we could build a social convention of drink breaks instead of smoke breaks, which could sort of bootstrap off of smoke breaks in the way you described.

At first a few people in any given circle would be drinking instead of smoking, and then over time, as more people opt for coffee/tea/water over cigarettes, it gradually becomes normalized to take breaks without having anyone smoke.

Re: On Smoking

#226

Post by sidcool »

In a few years, someone will make a post like this for the internet, the YouTube, the reddit or Insta.

Avoid addictions of any kind.

Re: On Smoking

#227

Post by refulgentis »

qq4 wrote: post #214
oxfeed65261 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best description I have read—I don’t recall where—described the desire for a cigarette coupled with the fulfillment of that desire, repeated twenty or forty or whatever times each day. It is hard to explain, but that reflects my experience. That tightly-coupled loop of desire and satisfaction is, in a perverse way, somehow preferable to not having the desire in the first place.

I've always had a hard time with this because I would think we would see people horribly addicted to nicotine patches and lozenges if this were true. What makes a cigarette so different?

There's a ritual, an experience. There's something _to do_: I don't understand how you live your day, you just sit at the same desk in the same small apartment all day? No pause? It's like hearing someone prefers an 8 hour movie

Edit: this isn't...an attack...it's a humorous attempt to gat at genuinely how I feel, as a smoker, about people who don't smoke

Re: On Smoking

#228

Post by raptorraver »

qq4 wrote: post #202

Since there seem to be past smokers in this thread, can any of you chime in for me what smoking did or does for you? I don't mean this as a insult, but I've never understood the addiction, at this point I feel like it's impossible for me to experience, and I don't desire to. I've smoked maybe a dozen or so times in my life, each time a dumb decision often for comedic effect where I asked myself afterwards, "am I addi…

First few times I felt a little high for a minute but I mostly started because I thought it is cool to smoke. Allen Carr - the guy who wrote the book Easy Way which have helped me and millions of others to kick the habit - has described that smokers smoke to feel the same way as non smokers feel all the time. Nicotine is hell of a drug, it doesn't give you a lot but withdrawals make you anxious and restless, smoking takes those away for some time and that makes you feel smoking is relaxing.

Re: On Smoking

#229

Post by mszcz »

OrbitRock wrote: post #71
CraigJPerry wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdata but that’s not how it worked for me. I was “20 a day” (which means 30 a day but that wasn’t socially acceptable to admit) for 4 years, 3.5 of which were spent trying to give up. The only 3 days i didn’t smoke in that time were when i had a horribly bad septic throat due to some infection and physically couldn’t smoke. Patches, lozenges, gums, the little ball tablet things, herbal cigs, e-cig - not the curren…

Same here. I was a heavy smoker who struggled terribly to quit. But once I quit, well, your “pay me to drink petrol” analogy is accurate. Its been this way for about 10 years now. I just don’t smoke, it’s now repulsive to me, and there’s almost no conceivable way for me to go back to it other than putting myself through the punishment of the early smoker again where it’s just disgusting and doesn’t feel good at all f…

Same here. I thought I had a good grasp on how I think and why I do what I do and this was a real eye opener. It was freaky that after 300 or so pages I suddenly didn't have to smoke whereas before I tried literally thousand+ times.

Re: On Smoking

#230

Post by simondotau »

buu700 wrote: post #225
simondotau wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never smoked, but in my cubicle days I often tag along with a colleague who did smoke. They'd have a puff, I'd get coffee, and we'd hang out and chat for five or ten minutes outside.

I always did the same thing. It'd be nicer if we could build a social convention of drink breaks instead of smoke breaks, which could sort of bootstrap off of smoke breaks in the way you described. At first a few people in any given circle would be drinking instead of smoking, and then over time, as more people opt for coffee/tea/water over cigarettes, it gradually becomes normalized to take breaks without having any…

That pretty much did happen in our case, there was only one smoker in our group and we'd have coffee breaks even if he wasn't around that day.
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