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On Smoking

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Re: On Smoking

#391

Post by emrah »

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…

As always with anything, it seems like there is a wide range of reactions to quitting. I know of people who quit and never went back to smoking, and I also know people who find it incredibly hard to stay off of it forever and go back to smoking sooner or later. For some people's brains, it does seem impossible to quit forever for some reason regardless of how much they want to quit etc

Re: On Smoking

#392

Post by michaelmrose »

nicolas_t wrote: post #290
jorvi wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you stated 'virtually everyone', I assumed >90%. So no, 60% is not that. It is still a terrifyingly high percentage nonetheless.

61% seems strange to me. It's anecdotal but almost (more than 95%) all my friends in university tried at least once, and yet only roughly 15% became smokers. Trying a cigarette once is something that is very very common, at least in France.

In 2014 34% of the french smoked I think it is down to around 27% but e-cigarette use is up so part of the decline might be down to that.

Going to the other end percentage who have tried smoking. This is harder to pin down because tobacco use by youth is illegal and its hard to ask kids to be honest about breaking the law even when its supposed to be anonymous. It looks like between 20%-30% self report trying tobacco in school here and in France although I wouldn't be terribly surprised if this was substantially wrong. Not as wrong as 95% is though.

I suspect you like most people don't really closely associate with enough people from your school days to be called a useful sample, you don't actually know how many of them tried nicotine products, and you don't know how many of them ultimately spent some of their life smoking. What you have tried to do is make a rough estimate of how many people you know and tried to bring to mind the ones you had seen smoking.

It's not shocking that a large portion of people that try a very addictive and at one time socially acceptable drug have gone on to become addicted.

Re: On Smoking

#393

Post by girvo »

ejolto wrote: post #352
blueflow wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another data point: I'm some kind of introvert, if i hang out with people, my social "battery" drains and i get tired. I smoke because it gives me much more time before my social "battery" is empty. I don't smoke otherwise. Right now i'm at two packs a year.

That sounds like a lot to me, almost once a week. Then again it's normal to drink that often without being considered an alcoholic.

A person would usually smoke more than one cigarette at an outing, so its more acute than chronic, I'd assume. Not sure what impact that would have in terms of health differences, but in terms of addiction potential it definitely would.

Re: On Smoking

#394

Post by mavhc »

mlang23 wrote: post #267
mavhc wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes, they do. But people are not programs. Wondering why people behave irrational is a bit like wondering why rain is wet.

You never wondered why rain is wet? But it's so interesting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetting

Re: On Smoking

#395

Post by [deleted] »

mavhc wrote: post #394
mlang23 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they do. But people are not programs. Wondering why people behave irrational is a bit like wondering why rain is wet.

You never wondered why rain is wet? But it's so interesting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetting

[deleted]

Re: On Smoking

#396

Post by lbschenkel »

Stevvo wrote: post #363
DeRock wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peking == Beijing. It’s the more phonetic translation of the mandarin name for the city.

No, Peking is not more phonetic than Beijing, and it isn't even Wade-Giles. Beijing is the currently accepted western name. You could make a linguistic argument for Wade-Giles, but not for the postal romanization.

In English you mean.

In Portuguese the name is still customarily "Pequim". To illustrate, go to the Beijing page in English Wikipedia and change it to Portuguese. Check what's the title of the page.

That's also the canonical name used in French, Finnish, Italian, German, Spanish, Swedish, and many more. Last time I checked they're all western languages.

Names are chosen by the users. It's not because the English-speaking word was quicker to adopt the new name that it suddenly became "universal". Universal in English? Sure.

I'm sure that eventually most languages will switch to their local spelling of "Beijing", but that is many decades away. You can't change a word that has been used for centuries by decree. Languages don't work that way. Or maybe for English it does, not so much for many others.

Re: On Smoking

#397

Post by tinus_hn »

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

It’s also cool, something to waste your time on, a way to socialize, an (apparent) way to control your mood.

It’s not worth it and the advantages are mostly fake, insignificant or easily replaceable but you only see that if you quit smoking. Just like you have to quit smoking to notice how bad it smells.

Re: On Smoking

#398

Post by utxaa »

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…

same here. i would say it was a full 2 years before i was free.

i do not want to go through that again though.

Re: On Smoking

#399

Post by michaelmrose »

rkk3 wrote: post #217
michaelmrose wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 in 12 adults had met the criteria for abuse or dependence at some point. 1 in 12 aren't present drinking themselves to death and it is highly likely that this figure that has gone up substantially has more to do with our screwed up society and less with the properties of alcohol. Notably 90% of Americans have drank alcohol at some point without becoming addicts which one can't be said of nicotine.

> 1 in 12 adults had met the criteria for abuse or dependence at some point. That year, not some point in their lives. Nicotine is very addictive, but it's not an order of magnitude (10x) more addictive than alcohol.

I was looking at the wrong article there was a clickbaity article in Washington Post that 12% of Americans were alcoholics which is based on a based on National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions-III (NESARC-III) which is about your entire life and I got my wires crossed.

1 in 12 being 6% seems fairly accurate and supportable

Re: On Smoking

#400

Post by michaelmrose »

InitialLastName wrote: post #384
rkk3 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cited the article. The initial refutation was not even the date (covid) but a baseless claim that the statistic was at some point in there lives.

I understood and was pointing that out (given that GP appeared to be insinuating things about 2020, but to be clear the list of one-sided talking points you posted puts no effort into citing sources for its "facts", so the technicalities of the 12% number (what qualifies as abuse, for how long, etc) are left for the reader to interpret.

I got 12% and 1 in 12 and the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions-III survey which IS your entire life mixed up in my head and was arguing that point not about 2020 specifically.
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