On Smoking | Hacker News Reader

On Smoking

annagat.substack.com

345 pointsexolymph383 comments

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, you at some level desire to back to it. Whole idea of quitting smoking is then finding ways to stop yourself from turning it on again and this is true until you die. So do yourself a favor and avoid any substance that creates such light switches in your mind.

Edit: Of course this is not the case for 100% of humans. Everyone is different. Some weak some strong in willpower, discipline, etc. But we can all agree that it is an addiction that sucks life out of you slowly. You wouldn't want to test your willpower your whole life against such a sneaky enemy.

It really depends, my old man smoked for like 20~ years and now he doesn't even remembers that he used to smoke like 1 box a day, only when someone else points it out

I don't even smoke. Never have in any capacity. I purchased a single pack once as a teenager, and gave most of it away.

But from the stray cigarettes bummed off friends in a drunken mood, or that time smoking hookah till i puked... I have that light switch now.

You gave a VERY apt description of nicotine.

Tried hookah couple of times with friends. Still don't get it.

This is such a perfect description. I quit years ago but still whenever I see someone smoking I get a craving and when I'm stressed I find myself wishing for a cigarette. I've accepted that it's just something that'll be with me the rest of my life.

Seriously, don't start smoking. It's a mistake that you really can't undo.

I think the "light switch" paradigm works for any drug with very strong addiction potential. Don't even consider doing heroin or nicotine. Cocaine _very_ carefully if you really have to.

Though to be honest nicotine is one of the hardest ones for the simple fact that it's so widespread. You can't really avoid it if your friends smoke or if it's still cool to smoke on TV (i.e. Mad Men). You don't go to a rehab or join a support group and call your sponsor whenever you feel you'd go for one, you'll be on your own. Thankfully it's getting easier and easier these days when it's not socially acceptable to smoke anymore, but still, quitting nicotine is one of the 3 hardest things you'll ever do in your life.

Just curious as to what the urge two 'hardest things' are. Could you elaborate?

I have no idea. I'm just saying that quitting smoking will be one of those three. Probably not the hardest, but it's up there. FWIW it's the hardest thing I've done in my 34 years of age, it's taken me 10+ years to quit, I'm now 1.5 years nicotine free and I will have to be vigilant for the rest of my life.

Agreed. The article mentions becoming a new person - for me, it's different, I'm still a smoker, I just don't smoke anymore. I quit 10 years ago, and I won't start again, but I still want to smoke every day.

I rarely see this discussed when people talk about addiction. You can't un-ring the bell so to speak, and once you know you can do something you enjoy, you don't just forget about it. The cliche of the addict tied to the bed for a few weeks and then back to normal is not my experience at all. Acute withdrawal is easy compared to the hole that is left in your life. And I'm just talking about cigarettes, happily i never got involved with anything even more addictive.

I’m not an expert, but from what I’ve read, tobacco (especially cigarettes) are up there with the most addictive substances. Like, competing with cocaine and heroin. Obviously since the mind-altering effects are much more subtle, and it’s legal, it’s less disruptive (at least until it gets you sick).

Quitting smoking is harder than quitting cocaine IMHO.

Comparing heroin, cocaine and nicotine as if they were similar pretty much shows that your experience only comes from reading about them :-)

I compared one specific aspect, which is addictiveness. Other aspects might be (and obviously are, in this case) more different, but that's comparisons work - the specifics about what you're comparing doesn't become invalid just because other things about them don't match the same way.

I still stand by this particular statement. Given how you phrased what you said, I don't know if you think cigarettes are way less addictive than the others, or if you got hung up on me comparing them at all, or if you actually don't have any beef with the claim per se but just wanted to say that for some reason. For what it's worth you have no idea about my lived experiences.

I think there is a vast difference how individuals deal with addictions. Some are better at it, and some are pretty hopeless. I have been smoking nicotine on-and-off since more then 20 years. But I still have no craving when I stop. Last time I realized how strong the difference is was when I did a overseas flight. After 12 hours flight, first touchdown on some island for refuel. A friend of mine was desperately trying to find a place to smoke. She basically used all the 60 minutes she had seeking an opportuinty to smoke at least one cigarette. I was watching her the whole time, pretty amused, realizing that I have no craving at all. That doesnt mean I didnt smoke a cigarette a few hours later when we finally arrived and left the airport. But watching the difference from person to person was pretty interesting.

I once had a very bad night and chain smoked 3-4 cigarettes. Since then I've never experienced the "light switch" you describe. The experience of smoking was not unpleasant, but not something I crave either. My sister seems to be the same way and smokes a few cigarettes once every few years when things are particularly stressful but never habitually.

I wonder if there are physiological differences that account for this difference of experience.

There does seem to be some kind of difference in people, which isn’t surprising. Things like alcoholism also seem to have a genetic component.

Anecdotally, my wife and I both quit smoking. Many years later she still has the desire every day whereas I go months without thinking about it (and if cigarettes weren’t common in society I’d probably never think about them again, let alone have a desire to smoke one)

Well, it's probably like this for some, and totally different for others. I smoked for ten+ years, a pack a day, and quit cold turkey in three days, and don't miss it any tiny little bit. Light switch was ripped off the wall, and the place it had been hanging (nice easily reachable convenient place) has been levelled off, painted clean , and is now perfectly empty

Smoking your first cigarette implants that light switch on your mind

I don't think that's true in general, at least not for me or many of my friends. We never got hooked. Please don't try though ;)

My experience has been similar. I've smoked cigarettes probably ~12 times in my life, maybe up to 20 if you count cigars, but I've never felt like I need one or am in any way compelled to continue smoking on my own.

Always, always while drinking. Maybe that helps isolate the context?

Sorry, I downvoted you, I hate when people think they're immune. They're one of the reason other people find themselves addicted to it. It's irresponsible and frankly immature.

Smoking one or 100 cigarettes doesn't guarantee addiction, it's a Russian roulette. If you haven't heard BANG yet, doesn't mean there's no ammo in the chamber.

You're not better or smarter than smokers. You just were more lucky.

I guess my only thought here is: how can someone like me talk about my experience if I'm going to get shouted down by someone like you? I was trying to share an anecdote to explain a potentially interesting alternative view, but I feel now that if I don't toe the orthodoxy line, I'm not allowed to participate.

I don't think I'm immune, but I am certain I'm not addicted to nicotine despite having smoked dozens of times, and I think that's a story worth sharing, even if you don't.

Good for you.

Sorry I don't have a better analogy, but it's like coming home from a tour in the military, and telling everybody "hey guys, war is perfectly safe, look at me I'm still alive!" — I'm really happy for you, but others are going to listen to your "story", follow your example, and have drastically worse results.

I think it's more interesting learning from those that went through hell, not the reckless lucky ones that managed to stay unscathed and think they're hot shit. Luck ain't a skill nor wisdom.

I know these are strong words for the matter at hand, but there must be an ex smoker or three that know exactly what I'm talking about.

For what's it's worth, I experienced the same. I felt nothing but the burn of the smoke whenever I tried. Thank you for writing for us.

I’ve smoked maybe... 30 cigarettes a year for half of my life. I will go weeks or months without with zero effort or intent. Sometimes I will get a strong feeling that I want a cigarette and I think “better not” and that’s it.

There is a little bit of “smarter” in there but really, i’m just not an addict. Some people are, some aren’t. I know several people who have rarely smoked and never had problems with addiction.

I think part of it is some people are more susceptible to addiction than others and another part is that the “just one” is BS, you can learn to not let it happen to you without total abstinence.

Of course this is purely anecdotal, but I also smoke rarely when drinking, and only then. Some nights up to half a pack, sometimes just one or two, but only two to three times a year by now. Interestingly, I have no desire to smoke whatsoever when not drinking, not even a hint.

Something in my brain seems to be wired such that I'm repelled by the taste when it's not in the "right" setting. Even if I wanted, when I only had a beer or two I get so sick from it that I have to stop almost immediately.

It might be that I'm just super lucky, but I feel like there is more to it than that.

12 times is too little I would say. It's addictive, but its not heroin either.

In the beginning it was something to do with friends at parties, then it became something to do while hanging out, and last came the addiction- ' I must have it'. All in all maybe a year from beginner to smoker.

I Started when I was 14, quit at 24. Used snus/chewing tobacco for 3 years after that, then I quit. Used to have nightmares of relapsing. The fascinating thing is that the physical addiction is over very quickly(days) its the psychological addiction that breaks people(and me more times than I care to remember).

On the flip side - I've smoked probably more than 12 times but definitely less than 50. Also only while drinking. I definitely have cravings every once in a while (though generally mood dependent) even when I'm not drinking. I haven't been properly out drinking in a year or more (COVID) but it definitely seems like the switch has been flipped for me.

I sort of agree with this, but I do know lots of people – myself to a certain extent – that have had success with mild re-programming, via Allen Carr's Easy Way method[0]. I'm not the type to buy in to this kind of thing, but it did help me quit when nothing else did, and I never felt this sense of longing for something. Nobody else I've known that has had success with that method did either.

I also think it's really unhelpful to talk about quitting smoking in such hopeless terms. If I was still a smoker, being told I was inevitably going to be craving cigarettes for the rest of my life might almost convince me not to quit at all.

It doesn't have to be this way.

[0] https://www.allencarr.com

>... and I never felt this sense of longing for something. Nobody else I've known that has had success with that method did either.

Isn't that tautological?

Maybe? I'm not sure? It's a fairly throw away comment, I didn't send it to my editor to check for logical consistency or style advice.

Sorry, it wasn't intended as a stylistic comment. It just seemed you're making a recommendation about a treatment by saying that it works for all the people it works for. Would you have any estimate of what fraction of all the people who tried this fully succeed?

I gotcha, it was poorly worded.

My sample size here is extremely small – I know of three people who have used the method (2 read the book, 1 took the seminar) and all three were successes. I don't know of anyone who's done it that hasn't succeeded, but I expect there are tons of those. People who believe in it because it's worked for them are much more likely to speak broadly and loudly about it.

I should mention (because I posted a hopeless sounding post below and didn't consider how it could come across), I quit smoking by taking up running. It was not a switch, I started running as exercise while a still smoked, without even considering quitting. Obviously the habits are at odds, but less than you'd think (I was in my early 30s, smoked about 15 years).

At some point, I had an established new hobby i enjoyed (running), i knew that smoking was holding me back, and i had a partial coping mechanism for dealing with craving and depression that comes with stopping.

10 years later, I still run, and I'm still happy with the tradeoff on my level of fitness, which is something that helps remind me of why I stopped when I have a craving.

(I know a lot of people don't like running, but my takeaway I think is that it's better to focus on a new hobby / habit and establish new patterns while still smoking and then try and quit, vs just stopping and then trying to fill the void after). I hope this makes it sound less hopeless.

> I also think it's really unhelpful to talk about quitting smoking in such hopeless terms. If I was still a smoker, being told I was inevitably going to be craving cigarettes for the rest of my life might almost convince me not to quit at all.

I think the post was directed at non-smokers, to scare them into not starting to smoke.

Treating grown ups like children usually does backfire... Or at least not work.

I smoked for ten years. Took Chantix for a week about fifteen years ago, which increased the frequency and intensity of my suicidal ideations. I then quit for good, with help from the Carr book, about a year thereafter.

Quitting was horrible, but it got better. Now, the thought of smoking a cigarette is repulsive. Zero cravings, and the smell is highly offensive now.

There's no light switch.

YMMV.

Telling yourself there is no light switch in you, that you are stronger or better equipped than others, is a dangerous way to eventual relapse. Though for your own sake I really hope I am wrong.

Good sir, I regret to inform you that your assessment of my situation contains incorrect assertions based upon false premises, as I've made no such statement about my relative strength or equipment. I further regret to inform you that I've since been in the presence of smokers and cigarettes, through which no cravings arose.

Sir, I further regret to inform you that I've accidentally inhaled tobacco in recent years when being passed a (REDACTED BASED ON FEDERAL CANNABIS LAWS) that, unknown to me, had tobacco mixed in. I coughed, was disgusted, and had zero cravings for tobacco thereafter.

As such, there is no risk of relapse.

I do believe that my short stint consuming Chantix may have permanently rewired my brain's reaction to cigarettes.

I'm very thankful for Varenecline (aka Chantix/Champix); it's what got me to quit after many years of pack-a-day. I didn't even set a quit date when I started. That drug took away every tiny ounce of satisfaction I ever got from smoking. Every cigarette became a cigarette that did not give me what a cigarette is expected to provide. The best way I can describe what happened to me is that I felt like a non-smoker trying to smoke, and all I got was the scent and flavour of licking an ashtray with none of the brain-altering effects.

It's been over a year now, and I can't imagine going back. The only trigger I have is seeing someone else smoke, and even then it has never been more than a fleeting thought that dissipates within seconds. I know exactly what 2-3 puffs would do to me, and I have no interest in going back. I've never had the urge to buy a pack myself or to bum off someone. Smoking is now well into my past, and for that I am thankful.

I got the well-known "nightmares" from Verenecline, but I actually really enjoyed them. Those dreams were some of the most vivid and intense I've ever had the joy to experience. In fact, I still have the last 50 1mg pills leftover that I didn't need to use, and I've only kept them because I know I'll eventually use them just to revisit that kind of dream state. :)

For those in Europe, a similar medication is sold under the Tabex brand name. The active ingredient seems to be different (cytisine) but the effect is the same: no satisfaction from cigarettes, just the bad smell/taste plus some mild stimulation (at least I felt less sleepy in the first few days quitting with Tabex as opposed to cold turkey). I liked to visualize the effect of this drug as: binding to the same receptors in my brain as nicotine, robbing the dangerous molecule of it's power.

It still takes a tremendous amount of willpower to stay off the various forms of nicotine after the initial quitting. The pretense of having that first nicotine hit, seeking a consolation from life events, an excuse to make yourself feel better and all the other lies you'd be telling yourself are still very tempting (and exactly the reason I have been using the same pack of medication to __quit__ several times already.

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 desire to smoke. Likewise for being around other people who smoke. There is no creeping need, no urge.

The deprogramming comes last. When it came around for me, it was gradual but it did definitely come. There is no way, not a chance in the world that I would somehow "relapse". It just is not interesting to me any more.

EDIT: *On slaying the dragon*

I want to add the timeframes, which could be useful as anecdotal data.

It took me 9 months after my last cigarette to get rid of the "critical urges". Then after that it took another 12 months to get rid of the sweet itch I would get. After that period it was gone completely, and I mean absolutely completely. It was an exorcism. To anyone trying to quit smoking; know this, if you fight through it, it all does go away.

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

There's a pleasant mild buzz you get before your tolerance builds up.

As a teenager one doesn’t really think the things you mentioned. And it was cool.

Source: Me. Smoked for 15 years. Stopped 6 years ago.

For me it was something I did with co-workers, and eventually at home, to de-stress. I was in a terrible place mentally, physically, and from a career perspective at the time, but it helped me feel like I wasn't going to suffocate from stress. I got my life together after that, but it so bad at the time that taking half an hour to smoke a cigar in the evening was a godsend.

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

To get physiologically addicted to alcohol, one has to drink heavily every day for a year or so. Few people, especially people with college education, do that. One can drink a glass of wine or a cocktail every weekend for life, and form no addiction at all. Such a person can go dry for weeks or months, without any adverse effects.

Nicotine forms a physiological addiction much faster, and then the addict has to have a fix daily, several times. So the exposure to nicotine (which is mildly toxic in the quantities needed) and smoke (which is way more dangerous, and hits the lungs directly) is much more intense and sustained.

One of my friends gave up smoking for exactly a year on a whim, celebrated his success with a cigar, I think largely to rub it in the faces of people who struggled to quit - after a few months smoking again he packed it in permanently. So it doesn't have a strong hold on everybody. A few of my friends reduced their smoking to just a cigar once in a while, others moved to vaping, it is disheartening that then going from vaping to nothing seems to be not really a thing, but at least the vaping doesn't smell atrocious and seems less immediately likely to kill them.

I'd say many people can drink more than that without dependency. I have a whiskey most evenings, but if I run out, I don't have any problems. Sometimes I'll go days or weeks without a drink, just depending on what else is going on.

The addiction likelihood of alcohol is much smaller. Nowhere near tobacco's ~100%

Damn, this thread is making me itchy.

Smoking is magnitudes more addictive than alcohol. Regardless, a lot of people do ask why anyone would drink alcohol, given that it offers up an enormous array of detrimental health effects, the possibility of addiction and social troubles (DUI, violence, etc), and as a mental "holiday" altered state is an incredibly poor mechanism.

Alcohol hangs around because it was accessible in earlier eras. There will come a time, I suspect in the very near future, when it will look ridiculous. Where having a `drink' will be an anachronism.

That's already been tried before, and it resulted in the US government deliberately poisoning people, widespread organised crime, and a lot of methanol poisoning.

Turns out it's really hard to ban something you can make in a 20 gallon drum from yeast and sugar.

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, smoking would still be as popular as it ever was.

Not to mention the incredibly high taxes on cigarettes.

> Smoking is magnitudes more addictive than alcohol.

No it is not magnitudes more addictive. Alcohol is extremely addictive, 1 in 12 Adults in the US has an alcohol problem [1] and withdrawal can literally kill you, unlike nicotine.

1. https://www.ncadd.org/about-addiction/alcohol

Your stats in absolutely no way counters my claim about addiction.

Almost everyone who smokes to any degree becomes addicted and a regular user. Tens (100 million+) of millions of Americans drink occasionally with no addiction.

Alcohol is a dangerous drug in every dimension, and I specifically said that. But their addiction profiles are dramatically different.

> Your stats in absolutely no way counters my claim about addiction.

There is no standardized addiction metric. The product, the dosage, age of user, and social habits matter significantly. Alcohol is extremely addictive and habit forming it kills 95,000 people a year in the US. I think it is disingenuous to dismiss it is as orders of magnitude less addictive than nicotine.

Most people can smoke a Cigar without becoming addicted to nicotine and a regular user. In the same way most people who are exposed to alcohol in the US don't get addicted.

This is an absolutely ridiculous claim given the number of people I know who've had a first cigarette and not touched a second. Business Insider claims 76% of the population have smoked and 24% have become addicted, while 92% have consumed alcohol and 14% have become addicted[0]. That's nowhere near "almost everyone", it's 31%, and 15% for alcohol.

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com.au/most-addictive-substances...

Addiction rates are lower than people think; heroin, even, is lower than you'd assume (the rate I remember seeing was about 25%, in-line with nicotine).

Of course, 1/4 is still a HUGE amount of people, and an absolute health crisis.

I think there's an important difference to make, I know a lot of people who have smoked once or a few times and have not become addicted but I don't know anyone who smoked regularly and didn't become addicted.

On the other hand for alcohol, I know a lot of people who will have a glass of wine whenever they go to a nice restaurant yet are not addicted.

So there's a magnitude of difference. Nicotine is significantly more addictive for anyone who uses it semi regularly whereas alcohol is not as addictive in that case.

"given the number of people I know who've had a first cigarette and not touched a second"

Okay, now exclude people who did that as children, an experience after which they had zero access to cigarettes. That same survey if demanding an adult experience would be much, much closer.

Everyone has a "Jimmy lit up a smoke and I took a drag and coughed my guts out when I was 9" story.

Overwhelmingly people either had a problem smoking (one that they had to quit through extreme effort), or they never smoked cigarettes at all as adults.

The one "exception" I can recall is a "social" smoker who would tell everyone that she controlled it by only smoking when she drank/at social events, a consequence of which was that she sought drinking opportunities at every venue. She was a problem smoker that turned it into also being a problem drinker.

I've smoked tobacco on somewhere between 5 and 15 occasions over a decade since becoming an adult, but I didn't become a daily smoker or addicted to smoking. Am I just an extreme outlier?

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.

I used to smoke occasionally. Only when I was drinking, as a matter of fact. I never became a regular smoker. I also don't smoke at all anymore, even when drinking.

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.

>That year, not some point in their lives.

What could be possibly so special about this year that you're so adamant to talk about it?

Also, nice website, definitely not partisan.

> That year

> This year

Your other points aside (I agree, they should probably at least include some citations to their statistics), this article is from 2015, so I don't think anyone is making it about 2020/covid other than you.

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.

From 2015.

If you don't like that source Here is the NIH [1] in 2019 saying 5.3% have AUD, slightly lower stat but it is including 12 year olds.

I consume Alcohol and accept the health risks, but it is a hell of a drug and highly addictive.

1. https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/brochures-and-fact-sh...

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

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 smoking is around 1 in 77.

This is something like the difference in danger in riding a motorcycle 100 miles and base jumping.

Of course its not random at all whereas taking up smoking is extremely likely to result in becoming a life long smoker and suffering the average ill effects its perfectly possible for most people to enjoy a sane amount of alcohol infrequently.

Consumption of intoxicants of some variety seems to have been a feature of humanity for the entirety of human history. The expulsion of smoker from reasonable things to be in human society has only happened after we realized its predictable massive effect on human health. There just will never be the same impetus with alcohol.

>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.

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

To clarify imagine a funnel. In step one 61% who try smoking become daily smokers. In step two some percentage n of those who become daily smokers become addicted to smoking.

Virtually everyone who smokes for any reasonable duration will become addicted is a statement about step two and asserting that n is somewhere near 100% based on knowing a plethora of smokers, hearing about how smoking effected them, and watching their struggles to quit and reading about the physiological effects of smoking. It isn't a very scientific analysis and I'm open to more clear numbers if you have them.

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.

Not OP, but this is one study I have came across, which postulates that cigarette addiction is quick to develop, and doesn't take years of smoking to develop. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18444329/

From the abstract:

  New research has overturned the dogma that cigarette 
  addiction takes years to develop. Studies of adolescent 
  smokers show that symptoms of addiction, such as 
  withdrawal, craving for cigarettes and failed attempts at 
  quitting, can appear within the first weeks of smoking. 
  To account for these findings, scientists have developed 
  a new theory positing that the brain quickly develops 
  adaptations that counter the effects of nicotine. These 
  adaptations lead to withdrawal symptoms when the effects 
  of nicotine wear off. The results highlight the 
  importance of boosting government funding for antismoking 
  campaigns, particularly those aimed at youngsters.

The author of the paper (Joseph R.DiFranza, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, USA.) wrote in May-2008 issue of Scientific American https://www.scientificamerican.com/magazine/sa/2008/05-01/ outlining his research findings. The article Hooked from the first cigarette in this issue isn't available online, but if you are subscriber of SciAm checkout this issue.

The question is... what is a sane amount of alcohol? It’s surprisingly carcinogenic. It’s just the alcohol industry, much like the tobacco industry of yesteryear, has successfully suppressed this info.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_and_cancer

> Alcohol hangs around because it was accessible in earlier eras. There will come a time, I suspect in the very near future, when it will look ridiculous. Where having a `drink' will be an anachronism

Why do you think this? It seems an extremely puritan outlook, I'm a bit sceptical that puritanism is saleable without enforcement of society-wide religious norms. Smoking, sure, but smoking is not at all like alcohol consumption.

Given that I think cannabis, MDMA, pyslocybin and other drugs are far superior to alcohol, I don't think most people would categorize my beliefs as puritanical. If anything it's puritanical "old ways" beliefs that keeps alcohol as the primary drug despite an enormous array of extreme negatives.

I understand where you're coming from, but I feel like this ignores practicality and, coupled to that, social use. You can go on numbers related to health, or raw effectiveness, but those numbers don't measure practicality.

MD, mushrooms (and acid et al) are far too powerful (yes, you can take very small doses, but in general). To look at it coldly, they're just not at all practical, regardless of them having, I would say, far fewer direct negative health effects. Indirectly though, things that immediately change people's mental state to such a degree are I would say more dangerous than alcohol.

With alcohol, I can go and have a small amount with family or friends or colleagues, for a short period of time. I can do it home, with a meal. And the actual drinking of it is core. It's not like taking one the above drugs: I take the drug then I am mentally altered to a large degree, possibly for a long period of time. In the case of a selfish drug, like cocaine or an amphetamine, I can function, and the effects a shorter, but there's no social aspect. The actual sitting down with others to spend time imbibing is central.

Cannabis obviously has this in common, so I think that's a very fair comparison. And just to stay on topic, so does tobacco. It's not just the effect of the drug that's attractive, it's [what I think is fair to say is] the social ritual associated with it. It helps that taking those isn't quick (it's not just slipping a pill), that's a feature.

Alcohol has enormous benefits over smoking and has pretty much been in hand for the entirety of civilization.

If people drink like a normal smoker smokes its considered a problem. If your having a couple morning drinks and taking shot breaks at work people would view that as extreme, yet that was/is a norm for smokers.

The thing is that its not so much explicitly smoking, but cigarettes that are the major problem. Cigarettes have so many additives and distort the natural tobacco to enhance the addiction that they themselves create the bulk of the smoking related issues. Using a natural tobacco product at the same frequency as normal / social drinking wouldn't have nearly the terrible health impacts as what happens to typical cigarette smokers and would likely be seen in a similar vein were it not for the negative attention brought on by cigarettes.

Right but if someone did, there might be some good answers. Do you have any good answers for why someone takes up smoking?

It is quite simple: someone is offered a cigarette, and they accept. And they have some more, and it is pleasant and social and/or stress relieving (both in ritual and physically: warm smoke in the mouth and throat is pleasant, as is the slight buzz, as is the act). This will often happen at a young age (teens, early twenties), within social settings. And then the addiction and ritual are the thing, and that thing is extremely satisfying. If you do not and have never smoked, then this will seem stupid, and it is, that would be a completely fair assessment: it is unlikely that any smoker will recommend that you become a smoker. Note that many people who give up smoking will replace it with an equally pointless (albeit generally much, much healthier) addiction/crutch that gives a mild buzz and requires some ritual habits (running, for example).

Alcohol has gourmet attributes and is a good social lubricant. The question is more around whether those two attributes warrant ingesting what is essentially poison.

I don't think I've ever heard a cigarette smoker comment on the taste of their cigarette (cigars are the exception here) and the high, especially for regular smokers, is near non-existent. So for cigarettes the initial appeal is much less obvious.

I'd assume most people start smoking due to social pressure/trying to fit in.

I quit smoking over 40 years ago (TL;DR: It sucked). Best decision I ever made. I don’t regret it one bit.

To this day, I sometimes smell a nearby cigarette, and it smells good to me.

My dad smoked through my entire childhood. I don't like the smell of stale cigarette smoke, but smoke drifting from a lit cigarette smells good to me, and reminds me of being around my dad as a kid.

>Alcohol has gourmet attributes and is a good social lubricant

smoking was a good social lubricant as well. you can see that in the old Hollywood movies and in real life back when smoking was the social norm.

Alcohol is regarded as lowering inhibitions, which allows people to express themselves honestly and break down boundaries while returning to the normal social order the next day.

While alcohol does lower inhibitions, it is generally only acceptable after work or at the odd outing/party. A smoke break is acceptable during work and might be the only time different departments and levels from management to floor workers interact on a day to day basis.

Cigarettes are also a good social lubricant.

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 names here mostly because this is a way we reinforce our addiction and I don’t want to give anyone inspiration to try something else.

I have only once smoked to address social pressure. I was 12 at the time, I hated it, no one pressured further. When I started smoking of my own volition, I was 15. I did it privately out of curiosity because I was terribly bored. I didn’t like it, then I did it out of habit. It happened like that.

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 a physical craving; it is not something I will consume as part of a gourmet experience (although some 'artisan waters' have tried to market themselves that way...).

You won't hear many smokers say things like: "OMG have you tried the new XYZ cigarettes? The subtle flavours of tar and nicotine are just to die for!" (and the same is true for water) There's also no 'craft cigarettes' market, or cigarette tasting tours and whatnot.

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

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

it's a pleasant social activity when you're young; you have a ritual you perform together and share informal bonding time. smoking also gives a physical sense of relief once you're addicted to it and it gives you something to punctuate your day with, little benchmarks -- i will finish writing these emails so i can have a cigarette, etc.

i smoked for 8 years then switched to vaping. i don't want to vape for the rest of my life, but there was an obvious difference in my fitness as soon as i quit (e.g. being able to run twice as far without stopping). i also smell better and my teeth are whiter. i'm glad that i switched, but it doesn't share the same ritual feeling when you can just pull a drag at any arbitrary time.

I quit smoking ten years ago (smoked for about 15y before that) and the only thing I miss is the enforced ritual to go stand outside for 5-10 minutes.

I’d pay for an addictive product that gave me that back without killing me!

When I was much younger I was the only non-smoker in an office of about 10 people. This included the owner and his wife who also worked there. Several times a day one or more of them would spend ~15 minutes loitering around smoking a cigarette. I'm prone to throwing myself into my work, even back then, and so initially this didn't really bother me. But, eventually the imbalance in workplace expectations, around scheduled breaks up against this informal unscheduled break they all benefited from, started to bug me. Sooooooo... one day I just start going outside randomly and standing around looking at the trees and listening to the birds for 10-15 minutes at a time. A few days of this went by and my boss (the owner) asked me what I was doing (insinuating I should get back to work). I said, "The same thing the rest of you do everyday, just without the part where I'm also lighting money and my wellbeing on fire. Sometimes I eat an apple or a banana though." Thankfully he was the sort to be reasoned with and saw my point. Shortly thereafter he quit smoking.

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.

Oh, it didn't end perfectly. His wife was the office manager, and grew to resent me immensely for being perceived as inspiring her husband's change in behavior. Less smoking, more walking, dietary changes, etc. Unlike him, she had less than zero interest in any of those lifestyle changes and it created strife, which palpably transfered to me all the way up until I eventually quit.

I find people that envy smokers for their breaks pretty pathetic. All it really implies is that these envious people dont know how to manage their own time. If I want a break, I take a break. If I dont need a break, I go on. But that doesnt have anything to do with my coworkers. As long as I am not the boss, its not my bussiness to do time management for others.

Annoyingly there can be slight imbalance. If a smoker takes 10 min break every hour, it's seen as "ok, he's just having a smoke". If a nonsmoker takes the same 10 mins break to check on their phone, or just chill outside, it's "oh, I've noticed you're away from your desk quite often". It's not a rule, but I've seen this happen more often that not.

Actually, where I live, people working with monitors have 10 min break every hour, by law. Most people dont use that. And no, I have never heard a case where a non-smoker was bullied for taking a 15 minute break. Never. I guess I should praise my place of birth and workplace.

Maybe you should, because I've experienced it a few times. Not in recent years though, as smoking has become a minority thing in all the offices I've seen in the last 5 years.

When I was a smoker, my smoke breaks were the thing that was noticed, I used to have one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

Was incredibly awkward (due to the addiction) and in hindsight incredibly shortsighted on behalf of the company due to how productivity works.

Now most of my inspiration comes from taking breaks.

Yes. Actually I've not noticed it in the last 10 years and seemingly everybody has stopped smoking, but before that...

Taking many smoke breaks per day - no problem. Standing in the office kitchen for 5 minutes with a fresh coffee "why aren't you working" in voiced form or just the looks.

In some companies we just made "team smoke breaks" with non-smokers randomly joining, either to chat or continue discussing work and I felt that was the best solution (unless people wanted to be alone for 5 minutes). Either you have stuff to talk about anyway or depending on the ratio of smokers to non-smokers there was some form of interaction.

I did never smoke a cigarette, but I always went to pause with my smoking coworkers.

Maybe I'm making up false assumptions, but coincidentally, those coworkers were the smartest one in my mind. I don't think cigarette had anything to do with this, but I'm somehow convinced that going outside 10-15min multiple times a day is an excellent for productivity and to build strong working (and personal) relationships.

COVID WFH apart, now that I'm working with non smokers, I really miss those times and as much as I appreciate my current coworkers, I don't like them as much as I used to like my fellow smokers.

If you are a non smoker working with smokers you appreciate talking to, try going outside with them. Smoker's pause is where everything is said without filter and where hierarchy really disappears.

Get a job somewhere with poor mobile reception where you have to stand in just the right spot to check Facebook. :P

I started because I thought it made me look really cool. Plus menthols tasted great

I don't think this is expounded enough: smoking does make you look cool. Hollywood inculcated society with this back in the 50s with the James Dean types. You go down to drags with bars and you see all the people outside doing it. There's something alluring about someone not caring that they're shaving off a fraction of a fraction of of their lifespan. To me socially I've found myself drawn to those who smoke vs. those that don't. They're right below the surface to where I can quickly find something in common with them. At one of my previous places, the CTO told me how he took a bunch of the employees from another job to start their own successful company. How did that happen? They got the idea because they were all smokers and all congregated at the same.

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.

That's the only thing I miss about smoking.

Never smoked but always liked to get out of the office with my smoking friends for some (ironically) fresh air and a chat. There was a bit of zen in this. And hey, my lungs didn't have to pay price for it :)

Could do the exact same thing with... a bottle of water instead. I guess it's not cool enough though.

It's about social rituals. If you can create one of those with the people around you without addictive substances, more power to you! But coffee and cigarettes: they come with prexisting societal level rituals out of the box, so to speak.

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 browsing Facebook. As a European it didn't take me long to find a Dutch guy who had the same feeling about joint coffee breaks and we became buddies.

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.

This is not why people start though, see DowsingSpoon’s comment above as to how that happens, it nearly always involves alcohol. This is what people do once they are already addicted, and then use socialisation and relaxation as a post-hoc justification to rationalise or even deny their addiction.

My dad started smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol in his teens. From what I’ve gathered, he had a rough childhood. If you’re not sure you’re going to live very long, putting harmful things in your body for the immediate high isn’t the worst. It might feel worse to deny yourself the pleasure of (temporary, and in his case ultimate) escape.

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.

> I started smoking while drinking and the reason is that it feels fucking amazing

I have smoked about 5 cigarettes in my life, also when drinking as a young adult. It was honestly unpleasant for me; the feeling of hot smoke in my lungs was definitely not a natural taste to me.

I have always thought that people powered through the initial distaste for smoke to fit in, and then they acquired a taste for it (or became addicted and thus associated the smoke in the lungs with the nicotine rush, not sure).

Was I wrong? Did that first cigarette feel amazing to you? Was the first drag a pleasant feeling? Genuinely curios!

For me I thought I would never be able to like the cigarette. I hated smoke(not just of cigarette) for my life and my eyes were sensitive to smoke. I hated the smell of cigarette too. But, oh boy I was so wrong in thinking it would never become part of my life.

Also if you hate smoke smell like I did, you tend to smoke wrongly and fail to fill your lungs with smoke. In that case you wouldn't even get the "buzz" of the cigarette while still feeling bad smell.

You don’t inhale solely through the cigarette until you’re a seasoned smoker. You suck a bit of smoke in as you breathe in, gradually more as you get used to it.

Smoking never made sense to me until I spent some time in an English winter. It warms the air up when it’s so cold it hurts to breathe. The nicotine feels nice as well.

I only ever smoked a few times though. It started to feel normal and I took this warning sign to heart and stopped forever.

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

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

First, it's the social aspect. You smoke because it is/was cool.

Second, it's the anti-stress effect. When you take a hit, you concentrate on your breath. It's like a mini mindfulness moment. Under stressful situations at work I used to do it by myself (even walked out of the office to not be seen). Then I did not care and started smoking outside with the rest of coworkers. This combined the anti-stress with the social effects.

In the meantime, addiction kicks in. You don't get any pleasure any more, but you cannot leave it.

I am currently on an average of 6 cigarettes/day, but it's only because I do not smoke at home or weekends. Only on workdays, so really around 9-10 cigarettes/workday.

Depression in my case. I started smoking before high school as something to fill the void, only realizing much later that I've been severely depressed for a long time. (SSRIs are an amazing tool in my case FWIW)

Once you get used to it, it's an amazing social tool -- making new friends/acquaintances becomes a piece of cake. I travelled a lot for work and, as a smoker, I would instantly integrate with the other smokers. It's just something fun that leads to pursuing other social activities together. I've seen ADHD mentioned in this thread and that makes sense, the habit as "something to do" is a powerful grip on top of the chemical addiction.

It is a drug. It makes you feel good when you use it. Being able to feel good on-demand is very hard thing to resist.

Feels good man

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.

This is my experience as well, and I can still occasionally have a cigar or hookah on special occasions a couple times a year without any problems. Then again I only smoked about 1/3rd of a pack a day for about 3 years, so maybe the addiction levels also depend on the quantity and the length of time

After getting fully non-addicted (~3 years) I was able to do this. But after having cigars a bit more frequently (once every ~6 weeks, ~7 times total) I found the cravings started to come back. It surprised me a little, so I've stayed away. Back to actual special occasions if that. For comparison I smoked ~5-10 a day for ~15 years, with a few quitting segments in between.

A big part of my process for quitting was associating smoking with feeling disgusting and sick instead of feeling relaxed (which was never true anyway). For me it was more like reprogramming than deprogramming. But in broad strokes my experience was similar to yours.

Same here. I started in my teens and eventually quit in my thirties. It was so difficult I'm still surprised I was actually able to finally quit. Each time I walked into the office in the morning and at lunch I had to walk through the gauntlet of smokers and the mantra I repeated to myself to resist was, "That is what death smells like" It didn't take that long (months) before I found that familiar sweet smell very distasteful.

I stopped smoking over 10 years ago and still want to smoke regularly. Often in situations where there are no cigarettes available

Have you had any major stress events in your life since quitting?

I quit something myself and have felt much the same way, but I eventually had a string of very stressful events in my life that resulted in me seeking comfort in my old addiction.

oddly enough i only quit after a major stress event in my life, but that was such an experience where i managed to quit multiple things at once because i almost died haha good times

I quit for nine years. After a stressful event four years ago I started again. I think that, for me, the habit of going outside once an hour is the part that's hard to change.

To those that have tried this, I found something a bit different, and I'm not even sure if I should say anything.

Again--to those that tried to stop completely, and failed, maybe cut way back?

I have never been successful at quitting anything.

Diets have failed. Drinking abstinance has failed.

What worked though is drastically cutting back.

Ok, I was never a two pack a day smoker. I couldn't even imagine it.

I did smoke though.

That said, I cut way back.

Cut back to a few cigarettes a week.

I use rolling papers, and only buy one pack of cigarettes every few weeks. (probally 6 week interval, but I don't like to think about it). I roll tiny bits of tobacco into a paper, and smoke it, when I get that urge. Only when I get the urge.

I can't recommend it because the research on smoking a little bit of tobacco is fuzzy.

What I feel is wrong with most methods of stopping any substance, including food, and booze, is telling the brain you will never have this again.

As my grandfather told me so many times, moderation my son.

(I am not very successful in any part of my life, but smoke no more than three packs a year.)

Did the "deprogramming" came naturally over time, or did you do anything intentional to reach it?

If it's the latter, would you care to expand?

I hope it's true for you long term. But please watch out. My aunt said pretty much the same thing. She was back to chain smoking after 3 years of completely no cigarettes. It may be safe to doubt yourself just a tiny bit...

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.

+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 drinking, and sometimes would have a cigarette with drinks on the weekend. After two years, I mostly stopped even wanting that.

For many years after, cigarette smoke still smelled good to me, although I had no daily urge for one. But eventually even the positive association with the smell faded, and now I'm back to the original state of thinking cigarettes smell bad.

Nicotine's hooks run deep, but they're not permanent. Stay away long enough and you'll eventually make it back to wondering why anyone smokes in the first place.

I think it's important for people who are addicted to know that quitting is possible — you aren't permanently rewired. And it doesn't have to consume your life.

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).

For me, tapering nicotine was about as hard as getting daily exercise. Instead of a bit of muscle soreness or tension, I'd get a mild headache towards the end of the day for the first few days of a two-week cycle. About halfway through the two weeks it would usually stop, and while I'd still want the extra cigarette, I wouldn't get a headache from skipping it.

I suspect if you're using enough nicotine that you can't feel the effect of a cigarette, you're probably using a lot more than I was getting from smoking. I'm not sure if my advice is equally useful for you, but I hope you manage to kick the addiction cycle at some point.

Thanks for this. It's important that smokers yet to quit hear this message. Quitting is not impossible and it won't consume the rest of your life.

I gave up after 20 years of pretty much constant smoking. I will cave and have one with a friend who still smokes while drinking once in a while. Not perfect but better than smoking a pack a day.

Equally. I haven't wanted a cigarette for a few years now, the first 2 or 3 months were very challenging-what worked for me in the end was cold turkey and a strong will to quit and someone who believed in me to help me through it. If you don't want to quit, you won't. Try next time until it works. The first 2 or 3 years, I kept finding myself reminding my brain that I don't smoke, I missed my smoking-buddy (myself-it's a different kind of lonely when you are with a cigarette, it's a kind of comfort). Some years later I forgot I even used to smoke. Deprogramming, exactly as you say. The addict just stops visiting and you forget about her.

I would like to ask if you ever had smoking dreams in the first year. Where you caught yourself inadvertently smoking in the dream?

I certainly did. I still remember the feeling of "oh no, I've fucked it all up" in the dream, and then the feeling of relief when you wake up and realize that you didn't actually smoke.

IMO its not just about time, its also about repeating common activities with or without smoking a couple of times

Some things happen once a year, so it takes quite a bit to get around to repeating them, feeling the urge, recognizing that you're learning how to do the activity without smoking, resisting for a bit and treating it as an important new learning experience, and then proceeding to the next one.

After learning how well it worked for me for coffee (something I thought I could never ever do without smoking), I was confident it will work for everything else that causes a trigger.

Well, except for alcohol, since it removes inhibition barriers. I was very careful with alcohol for the first year.

How did you deprogram? This seems like it would actually be broadly relevant to habit change, so as a non smoker I’d be interested to know more.

This was my experience quitting drinking. Once I realized what it meant for my stability, both mental and financial, the upsides stopped outweighing the downsides and I lost all interest.

Still working on cigarettes.

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

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.

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 current vape kind, the early 2000s fake cig kind, will power exercises, social support group, pay into my piggy bank to smoke each cig … you get the idea but nothing worked for me and i tried everything on the market.

The problem wasn’t just that i enjoyed smoking, i was actually born to be a smoker. I say that because other people, even most smokers, hate passive cig smoke to varying degrees but i always loved it from a young age, like really loved being near someone smoking, the smell of a cig being smoked just smelled great. Stale smoke didn’t, i hated that like everyone else.

And then i gave up, in one day, and my feeling has never changed since. You couldn’t pay me to smoke, it’d be like paying someone to drink petrol, there’s just no one would do that, it’s an absurd idea.

I don’t mind being near smokers, i don’t enjoy the smell anymore but I’m not repulsed either. I never consider them, it’s just not a part of my identity. I’m not a smoker.

The difference is subtle, is that i don’t have to smoke anymore. When i was a smoker i had to smoke but today I don’t.

Allen Carr’s Easyway book. I don’t mind admitting i actually cried reading it. 3.5 years of misery solved painlessly with zero effort. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to quit, after all the crap i had been through.

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 for several weeks.

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.

40 Marlborough reds a day, playing PS3, fag in hand constantly.

Read "The Book" and six months later, quit cold turkey.

I've been out with smokers since who have felt guilty about having one and I've proven a point by lighting their fags for them.

No way do I want or need to smoke.

I'm a non-smoker and have been for over a decade.

If you smoke, read "The Book". Twice. Stop when you're ready.

Exactly the same for me. I had the book for years and occasionally read a bit in it. At one point I finished it, tried to quit, failed, re-read it in one go and quit again. First day I failed and smoked a cigarette in the afternoon. The day after I quit again and it stuck. It's like a switch flipped in my head. I knew I'd never smoke again.

I tell people that quitting is simultaniously the easiest and the hardest thing I have ever done. I haven't had any urge to start smoking again. I've been drunk since, had very stressful times, etc. But I've never felt in danger of slipping back into the habit. 5 years now :-)

I smoked for many years, then one day just quit smoking, without any reason.

Did not smoke for more than 10 years, until a major disaster hit my life and I started to heavily smoke again.

So yes, it seems that there is a switch.

Oof. I’m in the same boat as your younger self, but two years in. I simply slept bad one night, thinking to myself that I love life way too much to actively work on a sooner death than necessary. Next day I quit, never looking back. I can drink without even thinking about it.

I just hope disaster won’t strike me, or hit me as heavy, as it did you.

I hope things have turned to the better for you!

>So yes, it seems that there is a switch.

There wasn't any "switch" based on prior smoking the first time you took up smoking.

So, I'd say, smoking again just means it's not impossible to start again. But why would somebody think it is?

The concept of the "switch" doesn't add much.

I smoked for 10 years and quitting was difficult (but not THAT difficult - don't even get me started on the "it's harder than quitting heroin" nonsense). But now, 9 years since quitting, I don't even think about it anymore. It doesn't follow me around, I don't constantly fight the urge to smoke. I'm not "always" an addict. It's gone. It's in my past.

> don't even get me started on the "it's harder than quitting heroin" nonsense)

Out of curiosity: did you try both to know that for fact?

No, but if that was all there was to heroin I don't think we'd be seeing people destroying their families and literally throwing their lives away for it. Quitting smoking was a few weeks of feeling a bit shitty followed by a few months of constant cravings followed by almost forgetting you ever smoked.

Ah, I see. I was thinking more about the neurological side, which seems to suggest that similar mechanisms apply in addiction and withdrawal between nicotine, heroin and cocaine. (see for example [1])

As far as sociological consequences go, there's of course no comparison for various reasons. I don't know the role withdrawal plays, though, which is why it would interesting to get some first hand account.

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18640919/

It was physically hard for a couple months while my brain reprogrammed to run without nicotine (i.e. I was pretty slow/stupid for a while) and once in a while I get an urge (maybe every couple months?), but it's not severe enough that I'm in any danger of ever smoking again. Quit over 10 yrs ago. Others mentioned Allen Carr/Easy Way method, and that was definitely a part of putting smoking in context as just a physical addiction.

As long as you're able to separate yourself from the narrative of "I'm a smoker" and just let go the big dramatic story about how it's hard and you're going to fail then it's relatively easy to just deal with the physical symptoms of withdrawal/craving. I have a strict "no nicotine" policy and it makes it super easy because I never have to wrestle with decisions about whether I'm going to smoke/vape/whatever, the decision is already made.

Oh and I was definitely smoking a pack a day+ for most of my 20's. Quit when I was 30.

I was lucky when I tried my first cigarette in that it just didn't do anything for me. Later I would try cigars on drunk evenings with friends. I enjoyed the smell just never really understood what it was suppose to do. Always wondered about that, maybe just like how covid hits some people really hard perhaps smoking is the same.

I quit a few years ago and never looked back, even made a pet app for quitting smoking as I was learning iOS development. Check it out, recently switched from UIKit to SwiftUI: https://apps.apple.com/app/id1459979131

When I was quitting smoking I found 2 things useful:

1) Alan Carr's book, which in essence is designed to convince you that you actually don't enjoy smoking. I completely agree, when I first started it gave me the sensation, then I had to smoke every half an hour just to stay functional.

2) The cigarette prices. There was no way I can sustain smoking when first move to London. A pack of cigarettes was the same as my food budged.

So, I just quit as a chain smoker. It was bad for a week but I kept observing myself and surely Alan Carr was right. I wasn't getting any boost from the nicotine, I was simply getting rid of the cravings for a brief period of time. In a month all the cravings disappears, in less than a year I had no desire to smoke even among people who are smoking. These days the cigarette smoke is simply something I try to avoid when exposed.

This was not my first time to quit but on the previous occasions I had the wrong mental model. I was thinking of it as stopping doing something that I enjoy, like quitting chocolates. In less than a day it would have turned into torture.

Just observe yourself to see if smoking actually gives you any pleasure or does smoking simply make you functional again. Then remember that non-smokers are functional without the cigarettes and their clothes and hands don't smell horrible.

Notice that there's no boost once you get addicted, it's more like removing tight shoes when your smoke break comes. Would you wear tight shoes only to experience the pleasure of removing them?

Everything gets so much better once you quit. You remember that the streets have a scent, the weather has scent. Just take note on yourself and there's no way going back to smoking, it's just a tremendously bad deal.

I was a half-pack-a-day smoker for about 10 years, quit several times (once for several months), and the only thing that "worked" ultimately was realizing that I simply could never have another cigarette. After the physical cravings subsided, I still had frequent longings for that wonderfully ubiquitous way to 'fix' my internal itchiness/discomfort, but I had made such a commitment that I would have literal nightmares in which I smoked a cigarette--and then woke up in a panic, similar to dreams where I found out I'd accidentally killed someone and was debating whether to turn myself in or go on the lam.

Then one evening about 10 years later I was at a festival wandering around and I had this desire in my brain for something, I didn't know what, and it was a few hours later that I realized the thing I really wanted was a cigarette. It was that night that I changed my internal conception of myself from "ex-smoker" to "non-smoker". I don't have cravings any more for cigarettes, though there is a certain pang, I guess I would call it "nostalgia", and maybe it includes "envy" of people who can smoke a cigarette/cigar socially at an event and then not think about it again for years. Occasionally I will have accidental contact with nicotine (like buying a joint on vacation and getting a weird taste while smoking it and realizing half-way through that it's actually a spliff), and for a few days or a week afterward the light switch is again visible in my mind--though I'm thankfully not tempted to flip it. I wonder in those times whether a never-smoker who has a cigar once does have the same cravings in the days after, but doesn't recognize them as such.

So at least for me, who admittedly was never a heavy smoker, it doesn't resonate that I will struggle with this addiction until I die. The only apparent lasting (mental) consequences are that I have to consciously refuse nicotine even when it would be a legitimately fun and interesting experience (like when I was offered some fancy snuff at a party which everyone else got to enjoy). And when I see someone smoking a cigarette I might get the nostalgia or envy I mentioned above. But when I get within smelling distance it's just foul and unappealing.

Best wishes for anyone who's thinking of or trying to quit.

do you do the diversification trick ? smoking less and finding something else to absorb / massage your mind instead ? so you can find another switch to flick

I gotta say, smoking has not been an addiction for me. After a year of smoking, I quit. I realised I literally didn't get enjoyment from it anymore. 6 years later, here I am, having tasted a cigar just to experience it and otherwise having never thought about tobacco or had urges.

I don't think smoking is always addictive. But, given that it is for almost everyone, I'm utterly fascinated why it wasn't for me.

don't try drugs because you might just like it.

I think Hodgkinson in "How to be idle" nailed it.

Smoking is one of the few things that changes your status by simply doing it: from being a John Doe you become a smoker.

«The smoker simultaneously injects and excuses idleness in his life with every cigarette»

«Many idlers love to smoke. It gives us something to do when we’re not doing anything.»

As a smoker who quit several times over the past 20 years and went from few cigarettes a week to 20 a day, back to 1 or 2 and then 20 again after the lockdown, I think the real threat is not the physical need, that is really easy to overcome, a few days and it's gone.

It's the idea of losing your status and missing the habit of being that kind of person that is really, really hard to win.

But it really sucks, we all know it, it's probably the most stupid thing a person can do, but we still fall for it.

I am absolutely not like this. I smoked a few times in high school >10 years ago, because I'm from a country basically everyone smokes. I didn't have the need or want to have another cigarette after high school because it wasn't as socially acceptable in communities I lived in. So I lost the interest. I never found it hard, nor ever found myself appealed to cigarettes after high school.

I started smoking at the age of 23, so I am probably much more stupid than the average smoker who started or tried it first time in high school.

I immediately lost interest, it's a terrible habit, I never smoked in the morning, rarely during the day, only at night when I'm out with other people, but I keep going back because... I don't even know why.

One thing is sure, if I have something meaningful to do I don't even think about cigarettes.

So in my case boredom is probably the main drive.

Other people might have other reasons to do it.

But it's absolutely something that every smoker should fight as hard as they can, because nothing good can come out of it.

One thing that really helped me to reduce my addiction to just 1 or 2 cigarettes a day has been avoiding "the bad ones".

Those cigarettes that you smoke knowing you won't even enjoy them.

I smoked one after dinner and one after a drink and that was enough.

If you start associating the habit of lighting up one after everyday activities - a coffee, waiting for someone or something, watching a movie, drinking a beer - that's when you are screwed and should understand you're smoking too much. Easier said than done, I know, but it worked on me until I let it win again.

That's a good point.

I quit years before the pandemic, but if I was still smoking when lockdown started I would've probably gone from being a pack-a-day smoker to a two-pack-a-day smoker.

First, all that pandemic anxiety would've made me smoke way more just as a matter of course. Second, being at home all day means I'd have no reason not to smoke. Back when I smoked, if I wanted to smoke at work, I'd have to stop what I'm doing and go outside (which royally sucked when it was either swelteringly-hot out or raining), but in lockdown? I could just smoke in my house all day while working.

I'm so glad I quit before that.

This isn't the same for everyone and it nothing to do with willpower or discipline. My grandparents smoked for roughly 50 years before my grandfather's health deteriorated to the extent he was diagnosed with emphysema and admitted to hospital. My grandmother immediately disposed of all cigarettes and lighters in the house. Neither of them ever smoked again.

My grandfather lived for a few more years as his health declined further. About two years after his last cigarette he confided in me that not a day goes past where he doesn't crave a cigarette. But he never asked for one. He never caved.

My grandmother had a fairly strong physical reaction to quitting initially. She was shocked when her doctor told her the shaking was due to physical withdrawal. She said she felt no different to a heroin addict. But after this physical shock subsided, that was it. She never craved a cigarette again. What's more, she became disgusted by the smell of cigarette smoke encountered in public. It was simply gone from her life.

The difference here is in the psychologically addictive element of cigarettes. Both grandparents had the same physical addiction, but that's nothing. Anyone can overcome that. But the psychological element seemingly ranges from non-existent to unstoppable.

I have experienced the psychologically addictive nature of cigarettes myself, even though I've never smoked. A friend bought some cheap disposable, nicotine-free, e-cigarettes and gave me one. Initially I was going to take it apart and see how it worked. But I tried it, of course. Then I tried it again. And again. There's something about it. Suck through the little pipe. Fill your lungs. See it glow. Exhale the vapour/smoke. My usage was exponential, until it ran out. I immediately considered buying another one. Then I caught myself. I had become addicted to this thing. It's that easy.

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.

I quit 20 years ago. I understand your analogy because if I were to smoke one, I would be an addict immediately (imagine sleeping with an old long-time ex). Where your story goes off the rails is that I am not addicted today; my desire is exactly zero. There was a time that I would dream of smoking, so I was still an addict then, but that time is long gone.

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/

I agree, I quit smoking more than 5-6 years ago. I still get strong cravings every once in a while, especially during bad weather. It is probably because I live in Texas now and I don't get enough opportunities to to deprogram smoking associations that I developed living upstate New York. Recent winter freeze made me just want to smoke every second.

I am still looking for something that can replace smoking, nothing really works. I have tried walking around the office, stretching, meditation, chewing gum, running up the stairs, eating snacks, drinking more coffee or tea, going outside for a short walks, etc. Smoking is really one activity where you can just take 5 minutes break from work every hour, stop thinking about work mentally, or keep thinking about the problem, totally normal to join a group of strangers smoking, or smoke by yourself, go outside to get away from crowd and smoke, smoke to get fresh air. Many times I was able to turn off my mind while smoking and when went back to work, I solved whatever I was stuck at.

This is one activity where I can totally turn off my mind and just be. I used to sit in my patio and watch storms, it was such a peaceful feeling. I don't know what activity can replace smoking. Any suggestion?

I feel much the same as you, smoking to me was always an easily excusable pretext to be alone or speak to complete strangers as required.

I also felt it helped to bridge the strata in the workplace, as a junior I'd often end up sharing a cigarette with an exec or manager of some kind and hear about goings on in a different part of the company or from a higher level which would help to piece together the puzzle of how the business was being run.

It's been many years since I've smoked habitually, a few months since doing so socially, I don't feel the urge, but I do miss the idle moments it allowed for.

There really is nothing quite like it. The closest thing I've found is tending to weeds in my back garden.

I've tried nicotine (in cigarettes, cigars, and vape-based products), but for some reason, it never became this light switch in my head. However, as soon as you started describing this, I immediately thought of my relationship with food, which is not a healthy one.

I maintain a healthy weight (now) and exercise, but this is a daily struggle. Since about the age of 12, certain peculiar foods inexplicably got wired in my head with pleasure, and the way you talk about this light switch is spot on.

I wonder if it has more to do with having an "addiction gene" of some sort – could some of us fall prey to addictive behaviors more than others? If so, why?

Now imagine your problem is not smoking or drugs or alcohol but food.

Imagine you're an alcoholic who has to have half a shot of whisky everyday.

But hey, overweight people are just lazy and lack willpower.

I think your analogy works well mechanistically, but it doesn't go deep enough with that "Switch". If nicotine is a switch then that switch does something. That switch puts you in a more positive mood, eliminates negative self-talk, increases cognitive function. There is a reason people flip that switch.

The reason people smoke isn't simply that they're a bunch of junkies, it's that nicotine is perceived as a solution for their problems. For many people, it is too much hassle to identify the true causes of their need for nicotine, whether it's that they don't feel fluid enough or they feel overwhelmed emotionally. There are ways to fix those core problems in one's life, but to many, using nicotine might seem simpler or quicker.

People seem to think smokers enjoy torching up their nicotine sticks and fouling up the air for everyone else. In reality they are just self medicating. It is worse for them in the long run, but classically it is difficult for an unrealized long term reward to outcompete a short term gain whose effects are immediately apparent.

Your argument above is mistaken.

It's a major factor in why my 80+ year old father is about to go into his 4th open heart surgery, having had a pacemaker the last 2 of those.

He still smokes. He refuses to quit because he sees it as an all or nothing precipice as you characterize above.

Quitting smoking is not some impossible mountain to climb. Talk to your doctor. What works for you will be context dependent. It does work, as proven by people every day. The answer to physiological dependency is time delay + taper down. The psychological re-enforcement loop will break and fade away.

I have done this and am not speaking in terms of hypotheticals.

You could not force me to smoke in any way. I will physically retch at the thought.

Please do not falsely portray quitting smoking as some eternal struggle. In fact, once you do it, it fades within a comparatively short time.

Quitting was very hard. I finally quit when my daughter was born.

For a year I still wanted a cigarette. Every day.

For two years I would still be smoking in my dreams.

That was over 20 years ago. I am no longer a smoker. I do remember the pleasure from it though.

My experience quitting smoking was that once I actually quit, I was just done. I don't normally get cravings anymore, though a few times a year, usually after eating a huge meal that leaves me stuffed or while drinking a lot, I'll think "damn, a cigarette would feel so good right now" and then the thought just fades away in a few seconds. TBH even when that happens, what I want isn't the nicotine buzz, it's the feeling of the smoke hitting my throat.

In fact, being around smoke doesn't make me want to smoke again. It's just the opposite, even. The smell of tobacco actively repulses me now, and if anyone lights up near me I start to feel sick. It's become a truly vile smell for me.

The hard part for me was just getting the motivation to quit. Nothing could really get me to want to quit, and I tried switching to vaping multiple times only to go back to kreteks, because I didn't really care if it'd kill me since I didn't really want to live anyway. It wasn't until I decided I wanted to transition that I got serious about quitting, because nicotine + estrogen is a really dangerous combination, so I realized I needed to quit if I ever wanted to be happy with my body. I switched to vaping pretty much instantly, vaped for a grand total of two months, and then decided to take a break for a few days before I got bloodwork done... and a few days _after_ I got my blood drawn I realized I hadn't touched my mod at all since and didn't even miss it, so I gave it back to the friend I borrowed it from, and I've been nicotine-free since (aside from one time, a year later, when I had a single kretek at a club just to prove that I wasn't addicted anymore and could have just one and then stop).

For what it's worth, I was a pack-a-day smoker for several years before I quit, and I've been nicotine-free for seven and a half years now (six and a half if you count the single kretek I had at the club after I quit).

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.

My SO and I smoke when we walk the dog, which is 2-3x a week, at night. We've done this for 5+ years, neither of us have got addicted. Sometimes we smoke the last cig in a pack and I'm too lazy to buy another one for several weeks, and we're fine. I wonder if there are others who smoke occasionally like us...

I was like that in my early 20s; bumming smokes off friends here and there, smoking sometimes when I was out at nightclubs or raves, bought a pack once every few months, usually couldn't finish it. It just never grabbed me. And once smoking wasn't permitted at bars and so on, I just never did it again. I smoke a pipe once in a while in the summer if I have good tobacco. Or a cigar on vacation here and there.

It's not that I don't get addicted to things. Caffeine has a strong hold on me. I've even felt nicotine cravings, but they didn't feel hard to ignore. I just think some people have a stronger addictive response to nicotine then others.

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

I agree with you and stopped-started smoking on and on for years. I stopped again a year and a half ago. I'm luckily in the phase in which I totally reject the smell of cigarettes (especially packed: rolling tobacco is less harsh); I found that wearing the mask and passing in a cloud of smoke traps that awful smell in my face for much longer and it becomes much more nauseating. One more point for wearing surgical masks in public, I guess.

I think it takes more than one cigarette to acquire the light switch.

I'm addicted to Coca-Cola. What you described with the switch reflects exactly my experience.

I did have tried smoking cigarettes. It never made an addict. I actually don't smoke (I don't like the "taste" of cigarettes).

And the reason I never tried hard drugs is because I'm afraid I may become an addict, although I would love to experiment them at least once.

That was not my experience. I smoked for 13 years, started in 2004, when I was 16. I have had periods when I smoked a pack a day. But in 2017, without even trying to do it, I just realized at some point that I have been forgetting to smoke for a couple of weeks. And I just never bought a new pack after that. Didn't even have to had any disciple of willpower; I'm just that bad at developing any habits.

Reading this, I'm happy it was different for me.

After smoking for years I became a weekend smoker; in weekends I'd go out and after some beers the urge to smoke because so much stronger. It took me a few years to give up smoking in weekends, what helped me the most is all my friends trying to give up smoking so no cigarettes were around anymore when we'd go to a bar.

Eventually most of my friends started smoking again, but I stayed off of them. Now I've not smoked for at least 7 years; and I never feel like there is a lightswitch in my mind. Even after some beers the smell of cigarettes disgust me.

Me as well. I smoked a bit for a decade and change, but I very rarely even finished a pack of cigarettes. There were circumstances during which I smoked, but I never enjoyed smoking much, and certainly never for its own sake.

Which is a shame, because this means I probably shaved years off my life span without the pleasure that drives many to do so.

I agree that it's likely not a universal experience, but I relate to this so much. I just love smoking, and if we had a way to make it safe I'd be smoking every day. I still miss it a long time after I quit, particularly when the occasion would be perfect for a cigarette. I'm pretty sure that clinical depression is associated somewhat with the hold smoking has/d on me; getting better mentally made it much easier to not smoke.

> The thing about smoking is that when you quit smoking you quit it every day. [...] So do yourself a favor and avoid any substance that creates such light switches in your mind

Unfortunately there are switches that one cannot just avoid - like food.

I was watching a West Wing episode last week, where a character says "An alcoholic cannot have 'just a drink'." It's the same for a food addict, except s/he must have 'just a portion'. I have a decent record with shaking off addictions, but with food I just can't go cold-turkey and it kills me.

I have always considered that a very important difference, too.

But I also know people do overcome food addiction, so it makes me wonder, isn't it possible to "quit" smoking in the sense that you set some limits for yourself that you're honestly happy with, and then you aim for staying within the limit, like you would do with food and/or body weight. Does the limit have to be "none"?

You can quit smoking and you can stop smoking. I did both.

How do you know you did quit? You actually are quite disgusted by cigarette smoke and byproducts.

First, after 10 years of smoking, I stopped smoking for 4 years but was prone to have a cigarette every couple of months.

Now after 5-6 year relapse I quit for good. Honestly, I don’t miss a thing. The smell sucks, the taste sucks. The only thing that doesn’t suck is watching smoke come out of your mouth, but it’s not THAT enjoyable tbh.

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 afford to buy the same brand often but i had become addicted to smoking. I struggled with anxiety back then and smoking calmed my nerves. Within 1 year I was smoking 2 packs a day.

Smoking is frowned upon in Ghana, so upon my return there were few places I could smoke. One day while out and about I got really anxious about something and I needed a cig badly. I had to go some distance to get one, and even got a harder time finding a place to hide and smoke. I felt like I was committing the most heinous of crimes cause I had to take off my shirt to ensure the smell didn't stick on me. I didn't even enjoy the smoke because the quality wasn't that good, I smoked in a hurry and kept looking over my shoulder. I simply couldn't live like that anymore. So I quit after that day. The next time I tried to smoke again was 2 months later. I couldn't even finish a stick as it made me feel sick. I have disliked the smell of cigarettes ever since. And that was 7 years ago.

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.

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.

This is why I love working from home. I'll go outside whenever I want and no one will know or try to stop me. As long as stuff keeps getting done, no one cares. Sometimes I just need 10 mins to prune some bonsai trees to feel refreshed enough to continue for the day.

I worked at a few places that allowed smokers extra breaks because of their "need". When others asked for the same breaks, they were denied them.

It didn't really go over well, but nobody cared enough to really fight it publicly. I suspect the morale problem it caused cost a lot more than those short breaks would have.

the random networking is one thing i miss about not smoking anymore. you get to socialize with tons of people/coworkers you wouldnt normally talk to, you all start out with a shared interest and everyones in a good mood.

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 away the box. I think those cigarettes were bearable because of the pollution level in Beijing. Most days you can't see the horizon.

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.

"Peking"? What?

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.

> Beijing is the currently accepted western name.

In the English language, probably. I'm not a native speaker of English and momentarily forgot that "Peking" is unusual (although – in my defense – the English Wikipedia page still has it). But in my native language (German) everything other than "Peking" would be highly unusual.

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.

Within 1 year I was smoking 2 packs a day.

If you have a child who you punish for smoking they'll accuse you of being a hypocrite using this fact, especially when they're fighting for the right to party. :)

Ian Banks in his novel Complicity writes powerfully decrying smoking. Quoting from the novel.

  I take out another cigarette, light it and draw deeply. I 
  gag again, coughing and hacking and feeling the whisky 
  and the can of Export I had earlier slosh around inside 
  me, almost coming up. My eyes are watering. What a stupid 
  drug, what a completely useless fucking drug; no real hit 
  after the first drag, highly addictive and lethal in all 
  sorts of ways, and even if the lung cancer or the heart 
  disease doesn't get you you can look forward to 
  gangrenous legs in your old age, bits of your body just 
  rotting away still attached and dying in instalments for 
  you, rotting and stinking while you're still alive and 
  then they have to cut them off and you wake up after the 
  operation wheezing and burning with pain and gasping for 
  a fag. Meanwhile the tobacco companies sponsor sport and 
  fight off advertising bans and look forward to all the 
  new markets in the East and the Far East and more women 
  taking up the weed to show that they can be brainless 
  fucks too, and suits with worm-shit in their brains go on 
  television and say, 'Well, nobody's actually proved how 
  tobacco causes cancer you know', and you sit there 
  seething and then you find Thatcher is taking half a 
  million from Philip Morris for a three-year find 
  consultancy and you swear never to buy any of their 
  products ever again but at the end of the day you still 
  light another cigarette and suck in the smoke like you 
  enjoyed it and make more profits for those evil fucks.

-- Complicity (Iain M.Banks)

Off topic fun fact: that novel is by Iain Banks, not Iain M Banks. He only uses the "M" for his Science Fiction novels.

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 addicted now?" and every time I felt nothing, from a cigarette, cigar, vape whatever. There must be a high. Is it relaxing or stimulating? My brother who got himself addicted said it "cleared his head" or something. My whole family smokes, none of them can quit. It feels like hypnosis to me, and I refuse to believe in hypnotism. Before you call me ignorant, I know and acknowledge that the addiction is a real thing, it's obvious. I'm simply curious where it comes from because it feels like I can't experience it.

I almost got hooked. Like you, I had tried cigarettes a few times and they did nothing.

Then, 10 years ago, I watched "The King's Speach," where King George constantly smokes, and after the movie I bought a pack of hand rolling tobacco. Gosh, rolling those little buggers was FUN. They gave me a buzz, it was an excuse to go outside, and the buzz wore off very quickly.

About a week in, I started waking up with the idea that I should immediately smoke a cigarette... Then on my bike ride home I'd get the idea that I should smoke a cigarette. I stopped at that point, realizing that if I gave in, I'd get addicted.

The thing is, before the addiction sets in, cigarettes are fun. They're an excuse to go outside, have a conversation with someone, occupy your hands... The nicotine buzz is similar to marijuana, but much shorter and not intoxicating.

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

I would argue that sucking on a lozenge is about as much of a ritual as sucking on a cigarette.

In my head, the lozenge is background noise whereas the cigarette means I'm outside, gotta get a jacket, mask on, bring a coffee, etc

So why not do the coffee break outside, without the cigarette?

Well, coffee doesn't contain nicotine

And that's where it immediately becomes obvious it's not just about going outside, or having small breaks, it's about the addiction that's so destructive that it's easier to deny it than to accept it.

exactly, they're so deeply intertwined. when I read "oh but you could just go outside with the coffee?"...I would say out loud "why, yes...", and its genuinely a novel thought to me. Then, I silently think "but what about the cigarette?", and in that moment, I am enlightened.

I totally get the ritual. The process of grinding coffee and preparing the cups, milk, filter and machine takes ~ 5 minutes or so every morning, and it's one of my favorite parts of the day.

I've got a dog and live next to a park. Taking 45 minutes out of my morning and afternoon to walk her gives me more "headspace" than anything else ive tried.

I guess I get my kicks elsewhere?

Fellow non-smoker to another, but with a very different experience.

Over a decade ago, I tried chewing tobacco. Definitely a stimulant, but of the relaxing variety. It’s like a shot of adrenaline but only on your brain and with no negative feeling side-effects. Or like eating an especially delicious gourmet hamburger that is both interesting in its complexity and relaxing at the same time.

The noticeably pleasant mental stimulation only lasted maybe 5 to 10 minutes but the impression was made. For the first year I would experience definite cravings for “trying it” again. I occasionally still do, despite never repeating the experiment.

The craving is almost entirely decoupled from the actual experience, even though I’m sure the direct experience caused the craving response to be etched on my brain.

I suspect the only reason I’m not a chainsmoker today is because tobacco is so distant from my routine, because no one in my circle of family and friends consumes it, and because it’s longterm negative effects are so well known. If any one of those conditions were not true, I’m relatively sure I’d battling that addiction today.

I deeply understand pursuing curiosity for curiosity’s sake...but especially in your case (given your environment), I think Pandora’s Box is best left shut. Count yourself lucky that such a passing and only mildly interesting high has never tickled your brain the right way, and stop your experiments.

I appreciate the feedback. I'm not at all interested in seeking it out anymore, those days are long behind me. I think I might be able to relate to the "trying it" again craving. I don't think I was able to differentiate that inclination from how I thought I was supposed to feel. Perhaps that's how subtle the addiction is why it's so hard to defeat.

That sounds about right. I might not have a tobacco addiction, but I do have a caffeine addiction. I suspect it’s similar in many respects.

You don’t feel like you really need it, yet you want your morning coffee; it’s baked into your routine. If you don’t drink it, you feel miserable for a day or two, possibly with awful headaches. Even if you break your short-term addiction, it’s easy to fall back into it because what’s the harm in one cup of coffee? It’s so easy to simply have another cup of coffee, and seems so pointless not to. Your brain pushes you to it despite your conscious mind knowing better.

The difference, of course, is that the cup of coffee doesn’t haven’t such a serious downside, and the addictive quality isn’t as intense.

> a stimulant of the relaxing variety

This: what other substance in the world relaxes and stimulates at the same time?

Caffeine and L-theanine (coffee and green tea)

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.

Would you say it's a feeling of artificial normality? I read once that some schizophrenics smoke as a method of self treatment. I'm not sure how else to understand how a nonsmoker feels all the time. Did you ever feel a high sensation again, or was it just the first few times? I'm not familiar with nicotine as a psychoactive drug. From what I'm gathering in other comments, it seems like a user manifests a habit, say wanting to look cool by smoking, and nicotine reinforces it with punishing withdrawal and a restless calling to said habit.

It’s a mild calming stimulant, it does slightly pleasant things in both directions at the same time.

But you adjust to it, so if you try to feel that way all the time really you’re just smoking to get back to baseline, mostly.

Fore, it was _how_ I was smoking more than anything.

It was in large part a social factor. Most of my first line leaders smoked in the Army. Most of my co-workers smoked getting out.

I had tried a few times without ever getting "hooked," until one random day it was about to rain. I was inhaling deeply (desert rain has a great smell), and took my deepest drag yet.

I finally realized I had been smoking in my "mouth" it, so to speak. From there the head-clearing buzz was present, and it truly felt amazing.

Then it started to go away. Take another drag, and never quite reach that again.

Years pass and you start to wonder why you still do this stupid, nasty habit. At this point, you're already addicted and like the beautiful light switch analogy another user gave, it is a conscious effort to always quit, not to pick it up again.

I somehow only picked up smoking a year after separating, not trying to insinuate a 1:1 relationship there. Now drinking... ;)

If you didn’t actually inhale smoke, than it is hard to feel anything.

If you did and you did not see any immediate physical effects, than good for you (as it was really hard for you to get addicted).

When I smoked, even after a few years of smoking, first cigarette a day, or a cigarette after a few hours of break, would have quite dramatic effect on me - buzz/dizziness, increased heart rate, and feeling lightly stunned.

Note that I tried vaping (at the same time as I was smoking) and I felt almost nothing comparing to cigarettes - I got “better” results with snuff tobacco than with vaping.

You need a better vape and a stronger juice -- if you are still trying to transition, that is. Try a proper vape, and not a pen. In most devices, you can alter voltage and resistance to create a custom experience for yourself. I can't even imagine going back to cigarettes. The throat feel is better, and if I want, I can get the buzz first thing in the morning, and all with no smell or waste.

Note, this post does not comment on the health risk of vaping or smoking.

It has many layers. From the physical sensation, think of the relief you get from satisfying a need like eating or resting. It's a ritual, a routine that reassures you. It's an excuse to stop.

It definitely depends how you smoke imo, and probably your predisposition to it. I have tobacco in joints, and I don't smoke weed that much, and I also smoke cigarettes on rare occasions, e.g. on MDMA. I've probably smoked about 100 in my life. I have had moments before where in the day I've thought "I should have a cigarette". However each time that thought has scared me into not having one. In the end it just never grabbed me, and I could go forever without any tobacco without an issue. I don't consider myself addicted to weed either and yet still I would less like to give that up forever than tobacco. So it depends how you use it. If you start to use it with regularity then I think that makes it more likely to hook you.

There is definitely a high associated with nicotine. My wife gets it extremely strongly. It can be quite trippy and even anxiety inducing, or anxiety reducing. It can be both stimulating and relaxing at the same time, almost feeling like an LSD microdose in the weird body feeling. However people who have smoked for any long period don't really get that high anymore

Some of the “high” of smoking is carbon monoxide poisoning.

Primarily it gave me something to do when I was nervous, worked up or indecisive. That is the way I see it in hindsight. It was also a good way to meet and chat up with people I would not interact with at work. I quit it one fine day four-five years back and haven't gone back to it. I have tried to smoke in a couple of occasions, but I just hated the taste in my mouth. At that point it felt like I had indeed kicked the habit.

I had issues with self-confidence and it helped me relax. Sitting alone in a coffee shop felt a lot easier with a smoke, going out with girls I felt easier going with a cigarette in my hand, I and my boys would go out for weekends and destroy two packs each.

I believe that it became a triggering addiction in certain social situations.

And even now when I talk about it I can feel that first drag and the buzz in your head.

It might be glorified and 'cool' but it is the worst addiction there is definitely, just because it is legal.

And if anyone else still struggles with smoking and wants to quit I suggest Allen Carr's great book - "The Easy Way"

One of the rare posts here where I read most of the comments, top to bottom. It’s fascinating so many of us can get so articulate and reflective about smoking.

Couldn’t smoking be considered a perverse form of breathing exercise? Not a beneficial exercise, but definitely a practice of sorts.

Modern (American) society went from taking several breaks a day for breathing to quitting this practice while getting more overweight, overworking, consuming more and more media.

As an ex-smoker I think the same and that's what actually made it harder to quit for me.

Smoking forces you to find open air spaces, is relaxing and induces slow breathing. In some ways it's a form of meditation. Other times it forces social spaces with other smokers in which you have to ask for a ligher and you have a conversation starter.

A nice practice with a terrible health outcome.

As harmful as it is it's absolutely a type of meditation. Taking a few minutes out of your day for yourself.

I quit about a hundred times 20 yrs ago. I don’t why, but after that I finally grabbed this damn book by Allen Carr. I would have never that it would work. But for me it did. Been smoke free ever since. Maybe just pure luck. Maybe it was the goddamn book.

That book is a gentle and thorough introduction to an idea that I, as a smoker, had been hiding from or confused about.

Pretty amazing.

Can you tell me more? I'm familiar with the book but it didn't click with me, and I've had a strange feeling the past couple months I'm missing a really good mental model for where it comes from (tl;dr psychiatrist started talking about it after a year of hinting, but they thought I was a step ahead of where I actually am)

You need to read the whole book start to finish, and be open to its subtle reverse brainwashing. Personally the main eye openers were:

• Nicotine is scientifically proven to be incredibly physically addictive. • The way this physical addiction plays out is when you smoke a cigarette the effects wear off within half to 1 hr, and whether you are aware of it or not your brain starts begging for another hit. Side note: this explains how the tobacco industry settled on 20 / 25 cigarettes in a packet, ie 1 cigarette every 30 mins to 1 hr per day. • The stress / anxiety you think smoking is helping with are actually the resultant cravings caused by the last cigarette you smoked. Thus when you smoke you are in a constant state of withdrawal, it is like you are quitting all day every day. • You are not "quitting" or "giving up" anything, you are addict who is deciding to make a change and stop.

There is lots of other stuff in there, I don't think the above spoils it. Cumulatively the book gets you into the headspace of viewing the journey of stopping as a positive healing process, to the extent that you can actually enjoy the withdrawals and cravings. No joke, it is that eye opening and convincing.

I quit with Allen Carr too, but with the subscription based online portal, not with the book or the documentary.

I forgot when I quit smoking exactly. 1 year, 2 years? I was smoking around 1.5 packs a day. Allan Carr definitely helped, I found out that it is not perfect for everyone though. But still, it is the first thing I recommend to people who want to quit.

I rarely need to remind myself why I don’t smoke anymore and the mentality I gained from Allan Carr makes that justification quick and easy.

I've never smoked (thanks mom for the negative example), but reading Atomic Habits made something about it and other habits clear to me: habits are part of your identity. The best/strongest way to start or end a habit is to convince yourself you are no longer that person. Not "I'm trying to exercise more." I am someone who exercises. Not "I'm trying to stop smoking." I am not a smoker.

This is really hard with smoking because there are so many cues that are tied to it. I recommend the book for some help, it has helped me be a much better version of myself.

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't difficult for me at all - at the time I was pretty busy so I didn't even really miss it. Basically, I just really don't have an addictive personality or whatever other part of our genes causes people to get addicted. I could quit without a second thought, but many other people I know who started around the same time I did are either still smoking or have had a hell of a time trying to quit.

I bring this up because there are so many things that we think of are due to an excess or lack of will power (this view is especially prevalent in the US) - if you are overweight it's because you lack willpower, if you can't quit smoking you lack willpower, etc. etc. My point is that this is usually not true. I was able to quit smoking not because I had a ton of willpower, but because I didn't need it.

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

I think the most important thing for people to realize about nicotine addiction (and all addiction) is that is does not work the same for everybody. Some people can smoke a few cigarettes every other weekend and not think about it otherwise, while others will never voluntarily go more than 45 minutes without a cigarette.

Some fun facts about the ingredients in tobacco..

The reason smoking causes cancer is the high amount of polonium 210, yes, that stuff they used to kill Litvenchenko. The reason for the presence of polonium 210 is flavour. Truly. It sounds far fetched, but, while the polonium is thought to contaminate the plant from the environment. Tobacco plants have lots of sticky little hairs which attract particles. It could be washed out of the product, but manufacturers found that the harsh cleaning required, ruined the flavour profile of the end product. This was thought to be a disservice to the customer. So the highly radioactive polonium 210 remains... For Flavour!

Another ingredient you may be surprised at is urea。 Pig Urine. But this one is not natural. No pigs are strolling tobacco fields and making no1 on the crops. This one is intentional, and in fact is probably the main flavour you pick up from a smoke.

This history of this particular flavour enhancer is very interesting. They no longer use real pig urine in stuff any more, but a synthesized version. This synthesis was invented in the late 19th century (you can relax now). But the paper that introduced urea synthesis to world is regarded as the beginning of the field of chemistry, and an important moment in history. That paper is now part of the western literary canon, and is often required reading for numerous academic fields.

If I get time, I will add sources, but maybe some HN people already know about this?

I didn't know about this and was sceptical but it appears to be right and the CDC[1] mentions it, along with lead-210 being a source of radioactive accumulation in the lungs.

Apparently an information that cigarette manufacturers tried pretty hard to hide[2]...

[1]:https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/smoking.htm [2]:https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2008/08/29/radioactive-pol...

Brilliant, thanks. I'm glad this ain't reddit.

Polonium is not “THE” reason smoking causes cancer, it is “A” reason. There are plenty of other cancer causing chemicals in there too, polonium has good company.

It’s a bit nick picky to point out, but given the historic confusion tactics by tobacco companies, it’s important to be accurate when talking about ways smoking effects health.

https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/t...

"The Buddhists think you don’t quit addictions, you become a new person who isn’t an addict." - this really resonates with me. Don't say "I should do better" - change who you are and what you want will change.

I quit smoking when I got COVID because it was the first time I was too sick to smoke. I’ve tried to smoke since and it just tastes awful. I know this might be crude to say but I’m thankful for having had the virus

I knew a bunch of people who started smoking menthol because of sickness.

For me, menthols never seemed to sit well on my stomach.

Kinda unrelated, but for me the best and first indicator that I'm starting to get sick is cigarettes tasting different.

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 cigarette. It's very easy to not notice that when you smoke, but impossible to miss when you don't. I certainly don't want my apartment smelling like that either.

If they ever made cigarettes that don't smell bad (not weenie vape pens, come on :) ), I'd probably be dead of lung cancer in a decade.

It is a tough addiction.

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.

Which city is this? I’ve lived in major cities in NorCal and SoCal and can’t say that’s ever been my impression. Maybe later in the evening but usually the smokers self-segregate where they’re not around non-smokers.

I'm still smoking at the moment.

I've quit for years and started again.

It's the push and pull .. the need and that satiation that I find so satisfying, and to a certain extent it's that rhythm I find ultimately attractive.

The slow build up of a hunger, before you end it with a delicious meal. The relaxing bath after a 30 mile hike. The 10 hour sleep after a stressful few days running on caffeine. The buzz of endorphins after breaking through the pain barrier on a run.

Unfortunately, I'm a bit of a junky at heart. But I would like to stop smoking.

Allen Carr's Easy way out. It's a book. He explains the mind hack that smoking is. Once you grok that, quitting is easy.

I quit smoking with Carr too, some half dozen times. It would last for a few months, then I would start again after a few beers. The latest trick, good for two years now, is using nicotine-free rolling herbs (edit: things they give as filler to roll your joints, a mix of things like papaya leaves, tea, etc)

I never understood why we need these black & white labels when it comes to substance usage. Obviously, never smoking any tobacco whatsoever is the healthiest option. But so is never drinking any alcohol or never eating any sweets. But it should also be obvious that every cigarette you do not smoke and every beer you do not drink as well as every chocolate bar you do not eat is an improvement for your health. I don't think you are failing unless you completely stop using a specific substance. You are failing when you are not trying to improve.

Why not start by not smoking for a day, a week, a month? Why not consider your internalized, automated habits (like smoking one cigarrete after lunch) and try to eliminate them one by one if you feel like they control you instead of the other way around?

I've heard of quite a few studies that show that some amount of alcohol and chocolate are good for you. I've never heard the same about smoking, though.

Anectode. A few years ago, the "neutral pack" was introduced in France, and for some reason, it was decided that the pack would be so neutral as to not even mention the exact composition of the cigarettes themselve.

(You can get a CSV with the ingredients from some offical website. Whatever.)

One day, I was waiting in line to buy newspapers (the same stores typicall sell tabacco and press here. (And newspapers are that thing... well, too long to explain.))

A supposedly very nice lady was outraged that she could not get the exact composition of her cigarettes any more.

20 years of improv comedy, and I could not come up with "what, you're afraid they might put something bad in it ?"

That lady is probably on Facebook at this exact moment, wondering about the pandemic. And she might have relevant questions, and insane answers.

Thinking about smoking is hard.

Try not to do it if you can.

It is true, they put all manner of stuff in it to make it hit faster/harder, to numb your throat so you can smoke more/inhale deeper, etc. Here's a nice overview from some EU body: https://ec.europa.eu/health/scientific_committees/opinions_l...

This reminded me of this Bill Hicks bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPVivwLym-c (trigger warning)

> 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.)

I think that she means chewing gum to mask off the breath. I'm a smoker and do that very often, it's kinda rude to speak to other people while having a breath of thousand cigarrettes

That hardly masks anything TBH. You smell the same with some hint of mint on top. Most of the smell comes from your lungs, your clothing and your hair. You need to stay outside for a good 10 minutes to make a significant difference in perceived smell. Anything else is mostly wishful thinking...

It does make a difference, even so slightly. Trust me in that one, I have been called off more than one time by not using mints. But yeah, I agree that it doesn't remove the stench completely

I generally never comment on this to my coworkers because I want to be polite and keep good relationships (I've had very hard responses to very polite requests just to open the windows in the past, so I simply stopped commenting).

I'm doing this here because I'm seeing this often, and I want to be honest: no, it doesn't really do much, unless we're talking about ~50cm face-to-face conversations maybe (something that would make me back-off quite sharply, gum or not).

Keep in mind the smell after 10 minutes of open-air ventilation is still not a smell I would consider acceptable. For consideration, a very nasty and strong office fart would be in the same line of stench for my nose at that point. Except a fart doesn't tend to cling on for so long.

Sorry for the analogy :(

That wasn't my interpretation of the blog post, but we'd have to ask the author to find out what she meant for sure.

It's also worth noting nicotine has interesting "nootropic" properties. You don't really have to quit your addiction to quit smoking, and there can be some advantages to continuing if you can afford it in safer forms.

has vaping been out of question?

The author said they were embarrassed by gum. Outside of very specific subcultures, it's safe to say they would be much more embarassed by vaping. But sure, vaping will deliver nicotine, and its significantly safer than cigarettes (though we don't know if it's safe).

It is a suprisingly powerful drug. I gave up cigarettes over 20 years ago and have zero craving for them, the smell is revolting. Looking back, the craving felt a lot like fasting. However today, I have a cigar a little more than once a month on average, and I can tell the nicotine content affects mood, sleep, and maybe some hormone levels for a day or two after, as much or moreso than most prescriptions I've ever taken. There is extra focus and centeredness under its influence and a kind of diminished neuroticism, which I suppose was what made it "cool." There are other factors on that as well, since who today has an hour of uninterrupted solitude (let alone in good company) to sit and do nothing but contemplate, with the space of your own to temporarily pollute, and afford to spend the kind of money on yourself that a good one costs. It would be hard to separate this mini-vacation from the percieved smart drug effects of nicotine. Cigarettes are evil and cruel in every concievable way, and anyone under their yoke who breaks it deserves support.

Fan of OP's interintellect startup as well.

"diminished neuroticism" - you've reminded me of the link between smoking and schizophrenia:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia_and_tobacco_sm...

Nicotine seems to vary depending on the delivery mechanism. Cigar (not inhaled) do not seem to be addictive at all for most who use them, more of a hobby. I've used the little Swedish "packets" you slip under your top lip and those are like a habit that's hard to break while you have a supply, they become part of your daily routine but I've never had any withdrawal symptoms from them.

Cigarettes by all accounts seem addictive as fuck, I did have one when I was younger, desperately wanted another for about 2 days afterwards, after that the craving subsided I never had another one since.

Conversely, I have never had any urge for cigarettes. Occasionally, I crave for cigars. Snus, however, I crave roughly daily despite stopping around 6 months ago. During lockdowns my nicotine use via snus got a bit out of hand -- at the peak I spent roughly a puck a day (so like 20x pouches of maybe 14mg nicotine a day). I usually stayed up two days straight and slept for the third. Once I woke up, I could not get out of the bed without one. Once I stopped using when I ran out, I had headaches which felt like they crushed my head and put the world spinning. This continued for maybe 3 days. After 3 months of discontinued use, I tried one of the stronger snus brands while intoxicated -- the ones I would not given a second thought while at my peaks -- I became so overwhelmed in a matter of a dozen seconds that I could not walk, and had to lie down and avoid puking on the spot.

And despite stopping, I now have this clear cavity on my right side of mouth with the gums clearly redacted. I only spent snus heavily for roughly three months (which probably masqueraded depression or lack of motivation), albeit, during that time almost at all times and occasionally with multiple pouches.

Overall, I have done coffee at great amounts, tried amphetamines and ephedrine, cannabis in most of its forms, some benzos, and self-medicated myself with alcohol, and I must say the physical withdrawals for me have been worst with nicotine, with only benzos taking the lead on the physiological toplist.

I got myself addicted to nicotine gum and I never even smoked. To the point that I was constantly using it. Going through maybe 10-15 2mg gums per day. I used patches and regular non-nicotine gum to quit but I still have the urge, especially when I have difficulty focusing at work, because it does actually seem to help with that.

So, no one knows with complete confidence the long-term effects of nicotine alone (i.e., nicotine when taken without all the carcinogens in cigarettes associated with combustion that are not found in nicotine gum). But the evidence we do have suggests it's vastly safer than cigarettes. In fact, I don't even think we know if it's harmful on net.

https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine

Given the appetite suppression, and the known terrible effects of obesity, it could even be beneficial.

You will get addicted to it though.

Yeah, I'm not overly worried about it, I've read the gwern page before. I wouldn't have tried the gum if I thought it was nearly as bad as cigarettes.

I stopped because I found out my blood pressure was pretty close to hypertension range already, and I didn't have the discipline to control the addiction and only use it sparingly; my use ramped up until I was using it most of my waking time, which felt gross. Chewing gum all the time is kind of a gross habit, and using it that much gave me unpleasant GI effects, like coffee but worse.

I'm mildly addicted to caffeine but I have no trouble respecting self-imposed rules like not drinking coffee after 1pm, I found nicotine much more difficult to resist.

I lost like 7% body fat and been doing more cardio since then, my BP should be better now (haven't actually checked), I'm not totally against trying again but I'd use patches not gum, it seems more difficult to abuse.

Interesting. Nicotine is generally an appetite suppressant, so I'd have thought the weight would go in the other direction. Glad it's working out for you.

it is quite possible that nicotine is a carcinogen itself and there is no safe form

I've read the opposite from gwern - that nicotine is safe, and the carcinogens are mostly in the burning of tobacco products. He tested nicotine as a nootropic, apparently has significant effect.

from wikipedia

> Nicotine can form carcinogenic Tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs) through a nitrosation reaction. ... However, nicotine in the mouth and stomach can react to form N-Nitrosonornicotine,[104] a known type 1 carcinogen,[105] suggesting that consumption of non-tobacco forms of nicotine may still play a role in carcinogenesis.

I like Gwern's nicotine webpage, but the evidence we have is consistent with nicotine being a carcinogen alone. Indeed, he says so himself in his third footnote.

Don't be like me and end up addicted to the lozenges... Still using them after 5 years since I quit smoking.

Better than being addicted to cigarettes though.

Yes, definitely, even if they're not perfect, they can give you some stomach ache, bloating, mouth sores, etc, but overall, I don't regret the trade.

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.

I read Allen Carr's easy way to give up smoking.

It was amazing, it opened my eyes to what my addiction actually was and I have never been addicted since reading that book.

Been twelve years addiction free.

Has anyone else tried writing under some arbitrary restrictions? In case you did not notice, the blog subtitle is 11 sentence essays. The post as well, unsurprisingly, is 11 sentences (... I guess, but it has a number of complicated ones).

A month ago I wrote what I would call a professional post on a social media / networking site. I had drafted it in a text editor first, and when I pasted it to post, I found there was a character limit I'd run afoul of and was forced to edit. It was actually very helpful to be forced to clarify and shorten what I'd written. I'd like to find a way to recreate the forced restriction (especially when discovered only after I thought I'd made it concise already).

Agreed! As much as nuance can get lost in short posts, these limits have saved me from putting many an overly convoluted, rambling mess out there.

I used to write short stories that didn't contain the letter 'e', inspired by George Perec's book La Disparition (cracking novel, highly recommended -- all the translations from French keep it up as well).

It's challenging, obviously, but also forces you to employ very unusual and unique language.

I concur. It's difficult, impractical and making my brain hurt. A grasp of (and availability of) synonym information is vitally important.

Imprssiv.

Went into a wikipedia rabbit hole about restricted writing after reading about E-Prime.

It's a very intriguing topic.

E-prime intrigues me too ;-)

I just love E-Prime. I once, for a month, used social media where I would try to only use e-prime. I experienced a lot of difficulty, but I enjoyed the experience. For a week, I tried only speaking in e-prime and had to use a notepad to formulate my thoughts before speaking. I had more problems then, but also more fun explaining to people why.

Haha, sounds fun, yes.

Do you have any good resources on how to get started?

I have been putting my Linux notes online in the form of a blog. I use a plugin that estimates the time it takes to read each article. I try to keep them all under five minutes, unless I specifically set out to write a longer article.

Inside that, I also try to not use more than 300 words without a new sub-heading, avoid too much passive voice, don't use too many overly long sentences, and don't use the same first word for more than two sentences in a row.

The blog theme is 11-sentence essays, but then the author makes use of a semicolon where, tbh, I'd just have split the sentence. But that would have spoiled the structure/restriction, wouldn't it? Style thing, sure, but I'm with Vonnegut on the topic of semicolons...

Nicotine was natural cure for ADHD at the time when there was no such diagnosis.

I am not kidding: my IQ raised at least 20 points when I started smoking at 16. I was suddenly the very best in mathematics (from barely acceptable level) and was able to concentrate in other studies too.

Unfortunately there was only two years left in school, so I was not able to fill the gaps to gain top marks at everything. Should have started smoking earlier.

I stopped smoking when there was no need to accomplish anything at age 40. It just happened quite effortlessly. I had all the monies I will ever need, and there was not too many opportunities available careerwise.

Turns out nicotine is a really good drug! The problem is that cigarettes are a terrible delivery method.

I've started vaping on ocassion almost purely for work reasons: I vape nicotine to focus and CBD to relieve some stress. It's tasty, fun and AFAIK there really isn't enough research against vaping for me to turn away these benefits. As for cigarattes the negatives would definitely outweigh the positivies for me so I'd refrain from smoking but I can emphasize with someone who would think otherwise.

Another benefit is socializing! I'd often work in coworking spaces where cafe and smoke spot is where people socialize - both are basically drug consumption spaces.

Finally I don't feel any addiction to these particular drugs other than it's fun and tasty - I can go days or weeks without it without any problems. I know there's strong research that nicotine withdrawals can affect mood but I've never experienced any myself though seen it in others. Vaping is easy to dose though you can easily avoid withdrawals with a bit of math!

I quit after some 15 years of smoking. Not experiencing any cravings at this point. On the onset of COVID I even bought multiple packs to experiment with using the filters in 3D printed nasal breathers - didn't even want to light one.

However I wouldn't have bothered quitting had it not been long term health hazard. I quite enjoyed the routine.

As a small kid, I think I was fascinated by other people smoking. I mean come on: there's a gleaming fire stick coming out of your mouth!!

But also, even as a tiny boy with a single-digit age, I was wondering why anybody would voluntarily pick up a habit that everyone knows raises your chances to get cancer? I liked the idea of being "cool" (which to me was the only real "pro" point of smoking), but when compared to a terminal illness, there really never was any temptation for me.

In thinking back about how times have changed since those days, what I find even more interesting though is that smoking was all around you _all the time_. People smoked, you didn't even think about it twice. Inside restaurants where you ate, inside cars when you were given a ride, everywhere.

I remember going to clubs when I was a young man, and that feeling of waking up the next morning with you ears screaming and your clothes, your pillow, your hair, everything smelling of cold smoke. Disgusting.

Coming to think of it, I wonder why I wouldn't want to pick up smoking out of fear of getting cancer but obviously didn't mind ruining my hearing by spending hours each weekend in unreasonably loud clubs. I mean, I certainly found it perverted that in that environment, when you were talking to someone, you were literally screaming into their ear (just think about that...) but I kept going there every weekend.

I suppose in the end, I did it because I wanted to belong. Which, in turn, I'm sure is one of the major reason for people to pick up smoking...

I feel like all smoking advertising and education is wrong.

Smoking will kill you or is bad for you is a message that few care about.

Trying to scare people doesn’t work. People can smoke a pack a day for 20+ years and be fine.

It is the addictive associative nature of it that should have the focus.

If you smoke when you drink, you will have cravings when you drink that will last a life time.

People always think they can stop, but they don’t consider the other events that will be occurring whilst they try to.

It’s a task that must be conducted on top of all the stressful events people deal with during life. It will become a constant multitasking job running alongside everything else.

The moment you can’t focus on work without a smoke break is when you are hooked.

And people don’t grasp the experience of cancer properly. The slow random nature of it. And the years of looking into the abyss with complete regret.

We need to find ways to immerse people in future scenarios to get them to understand addiction and how it happens. Maybe draw an analogy to addictions they already have.

I started vaping around the same time as the first lockdown. I never enjoyed it really and it kind of actually hurt my lungs a couple of times. I stopped. Break until next lockdown. I started smoking a tobacco pipe. Maybe 1 bowl every 3 days. More meditative, lasts around 40 mins, with the geeky hobby of different flavours, blends, techniques. It's also less nicotine and because there's no inhalation, much less worse. But it feels good and much more "right" than vaping or smoking like an addicted monkey.

I never got into smoking cigars, they seem to last way longer and be more powerful. Like being forced to drink 10 espressos over the space of 20 minutes.

Cigars aren't a million miles away from pipe tobacco, you don't inhale them either (some do, but they're lunatics). Larger sizes will probably take an hour, the largest closer to two. Power wise, it very much depends on the cigar, some are very mild, some very powerful, but my personal experience is that much like pipes they aren't addictive for most people, I smoke 2-3 a week in the summer when the weather is nice.

More than 10 years after quitting smoking, I was standing on a balcony in NYC with a few friends from Italy. They lit up as we drank and talked, and while I didn’t have a true desire to smoke one with them, the thought crossed my mind. What would it be like? Just one cigarette to remind me of when I was young? I think buried deep in our minds once we’ve started smoking and no matter how long after we quit is this question of what it might be like to try it one more time.

I smoked a pack a day for 18 years. In the past 10 years I smoked maybe 2-3 packs.

The key hacks to this change for me were:

0) decided I will not put a hard barrier (“quit”) but rather reduce (“stop”). This reduces the guilt during the inevitable setbacks.

1) find and break the frequent routines that involve smoking (first coffee + cig => replace with tea. It tastes terrible with cigarette; colleagues asking for a smoke => work from home, etc)

2) very consciously ask myself for every cigarette what is triggering it. Why do I think I need it. If there is no reason - then abstain from smoking, but if there is a good reason - focus on the reason. It’s ok to have a cigarette if there is a good enough reason but I need to think hard about this reason and try to eliminate it.

3) even for relapses, arrange them such that they do not ever turn into micro routines. Smoking in a rarely visited club or place is ok. At home - not okay.

4) make experiment with alternating 2 weeks of non smoking with 2 weeks of smoking, noting my well being. The difference is obvious and very visible.

As a result, now I sometimes socially smoke at parties, with smoker friends - but each time after careful consideration of whether the inevitable headache in the morning is worth the “fun” - and again, very carefully checking that the situation didn’t have a potential to turn into a micro-routine.

I never quit and if I want, I can always smoke again. But I consciously don’t want to.

These hacks are obviously specific to my wiring and may not work for everyone, but just thought to write it in case this helps someone. Good luck!

I gave up just over three years ago. It was bloody hard. I came up with a couple of things to say to myself if I wanted a fag. I used them as mantras as soon as I wanted a drag.

I came up with "I don't want to die" and "I don't want to smell".

I also made targets - 1 day, 2, 4, week. Fortnight. Month. etc (I will never go back ...)

If you want to give up you can but it is bloody hard

On and off smoker here, mostly pipes, sometimes cigars and cigarettes. I always found it easy to start and stop(for months to years at a time). 23andme shows I'm at reduced risk for nicotine addiction. I've got an addictive personality and had problems with other things, but nicotine was never one of them. I'm type 2 bipolar though, and lately I've found nicotine works really well for managing a depressive cycle. I can break a negative thought loop with a nice bowl of tobacco, gingerly inhaled.

I have to watch it though. Sometimes the depressive cycle is really just a nic-fit. Nicotine is tricky. I'm also noticing that, as I get older(46), smoking triggers what feels like prostatitis. It doesn't last more than a day, but man it's apparent that my prostate doesn't like nicotine.

I think I’m fortunate that I find cigarettes fairly easy to pick up and put back down. Don’t get me wrong, I get hooked like the rest of us, but I seem to naturally fall off the hook after some time.

I usually pick them up to cope with intense emotions. Not healthy, I know. After a few weeks of smoking 2 packs per week (not per day, thankfully), I begin to feel intense anxiety from smoking. The longer I continue the habit, the worse the anxiety gets. It escalates to the point where thinking of a cigarette makes me sweaty and nauseous, and actually smoking one will trigger a panic attack. After a few of those attacks I can drop the cigs with minimal fuss.

Anxiety feels like a curse, but in this case it acts as a restoration force against my tobacco addiction. Life is strange.

(No, anxiety is not a good thing, and no, you should not smoke cigarettes)

Here are the steps I took that have helped me not smoke for the past 1.5yrs:

1. Switched from cigarettes (great taste) to an iqos (disgusting taste).

2. Threw away my iqos the day before I moved countries (back to my home country).

3. Arrived in new country around new years, set that new years resolution.

4. Spent first 1-2 months of new year living with my parents while I searched for housing.

Aside from the resolution, each step wasn't particularly aimed at quitting _forever_. With time under my belt, I've since adopted a hardline "no cigarettes for life" mentality. It comes at the cost of being overly judgmental of others who are smoking. It keeps me in check though; otherwise, I sense that a relapse is far too easy.

To this day, I can recall how a good one feels. The calm of a sunset. And I can remember how a bad one feels. The sore throat, cough, headache, numbness, sleeplessness, smell, and ennui of ignoring all that when preparing another one.

When bad memories had been accumulating for a long while, I quit. And it was easy to recall the bad ones whenever I would think of lighting one again. So I didn't. Even if I knew it'd be a good one. Because there would be bad ones after.

I won't forget the good ones either. And if I ever think I can just smoke the good ones, without smoking the bad ones after, then I'll start again.

One aspect of smoking that I don’t see talked about much is how it screws with your blood’s ability to transport oxygen effectively. This can drastically increase your risk of complications if you have to have surgery.

My friend is a plastic surgeon and refuses to operate on smokers unless they quit for six weeks to give their body enough time to generate functional blood cells. A few patients have lied to him, though. One had a breast augmentation and her nipples died and had to be removed due to insufficient oxygen supply to the area.

If you have to have surgery, it is best to stop smoking for at least a month and a half.

I have been a smoker for over 20 years as well, I think it was hard at first to quit smoking but I agree with the author article, something changes in you.

Every now and then I feel like I want to smoke and I buy a pack of cigarette, I smoke chain a couple of them and figure out I don't really like it and don't want to do that anymore and I don't get the urge anymore for four month or six...

I have been doing this for the last five years or so, maybe i didn't quit fully but I don't do a pack and half every day or have to wake up mid night to have a smoke anymore.

I don’t see the appeal of chain smoking the first cigarette is nice but subsequent cigarettes does nothing for me.

One cigarette a day is about how much I can do and actually cognitively recognize the effects.

That is not to say that some part of me does not want to smoke more than one. Cause there is such a part of me. But I as a verbal entity can not justify it in any way. It just does nothing. In fact it makes me feel worse.

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.

I used to think it was hard too, but then I read _Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking_. I followed the instructions and continued smoking while reading the book, sometimes literally standing outside my apartment building with a cigarette and book in hand. I read it all the way through in two evenings in a random November. I forget the year; it was long ago. After I finished the book, I put it down and told my girlfriend at the time (now wife) that it worked. I haven't had a craving or cigarette since.

It was a 100 to zero transition. Previously when I tried to quit, spending time with smoking friends would get me to smoke again. This time, it didn't. One of my smoking coworkers, mid chat, said he would be back. I told him I can keep talking with him while he goes out for a smoke. He asked if I was crazy, I had just quit, he didn't want to be a trigger. I went out and joined him for some fresh air while he smoke and nothing. Not even a small inkling of a craving.

It worked.

Smokers sometimes claim that they'll experience good feelings from cigarettes. But what proportion of those good feelings end up being relief from withdrawal, plus fresh air and an outdoor break?

Personally, I know my caffeine withdrawal kicks in each morning and a lot of the good feeling of coffee is canceling withdrawal plus a bit of warmth or icy cold, and hydration.

Smoking is the worst. I was subjected to chain smoking indoors while growing up. Can't help but intensely dislike the habit.

I smoke occasionally with friends during parties and never after. I've been doing this for a few years now and haven't gotten addicted. This is probably due to the fact the I was heavily addicted to video games during college and kinda of have a mental resistance now.

Smoking occasionally with friends is fun. Especially during cold weather.

The urge to smoke does go away in my experience. Now i don’t ever think about it. The physical addiction only lasts a few weeks but is super intense; the only thing that took the urge away was exercise. The psychological addiction took years with many relapses. I was hooked again within days of “just one”. This too does pass!!

> The Buddhists think you don’t quit addictions, you become a new person who isn’t an addict.

I don't think that's true, unfortunately. You can quit smoking and stay addicted to other things.

You can even quit smoking and stay addicted to smoking, being on the verge of falling for it again. That was not the case for me, but it happens often.

I guess I'm the only person in the world who smoked for 15 years, and stopped on a beautiful day, without suffering. I still smoke very occasionally, socially, once a month maybe, but I definitely stopped having daily cravings to smoke alone days after I stopped.

Not quite the same, but I smoked every time I drank for two years, and then just stopped for no reason. Never had a craving, I just "felt like" having a smoke for two years, and then didn't anymore.

This was during the time when you could go to a bar or club in Florida, show some person with a giant bag your ID, and receive two packs of cigarettes, free. I did this multiple times a week, so I always had a huge stack of free cigarettes and bar matches. That was also how I learned you could make friends by always having either a free cigarette or a lighter.

>> The Buddhists think you don’t quit addictions, you become a new person who isn’t an addict.

The Buddhists believe that you ARE the person that does not need anything, f.e. smoking, to be happy. The only thing you have to do is finding your true nature that is already there.

I started smoking at 13 and quit at 22 cold turkey. 8 years later, I still sometimes dream at night about lighting a cigarette and it feels ecstatic when I do. Then I wake up and spend the entire day craving a smoke. The hook runs deep.

I used to smoke only at work or when on work trips. My reason to stop was mainly the smell. I hated how my fingers smelled after a smoke. Every time I have the urge to smoke, I remind myself of that smell and it goes away.

The best thing about quitting is having that occasional cigarette

I don't know if you're making a joke or you're serious. If you're able to quit regular smoking and have only the occasional cigarette then more power to you. But for me, the "occasional" cigarette has doomed many long bouts of smoking cessation. Sometimes i'd fall right off the wagon and other times I'd manage the "occasional" smoke for months. But make no mistake: once I had that one cigarette and opened the door, the intervals between the occasional smoke would get smaller and smaller until I was back to my old habit.

I just passed the 10 year mark since my last cigarette. It's easy these days and I almost never think about cigarettes but I still wouldn't trust myself to have one.

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

Makes me think they have not met a single addict ever. This quote makes absolutely zero sense. Most addicts stay addicts for the rest of their lives. They fight their addiction most days if not every day.

I don‘t think it correctly reflects Buddhist teaching, though.

You become a new person moment to moment and even „you“ is not putting it correctly and everything is tied together by cause and effect regardless.

Perhaps a better way to look at it is that the Buddha is only teaching by skillful means. So that quote may be the right thing for a particular addict at a time. In that sense it is true, but not as an absolute truth for everyone always.

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

Does anyone still smoke? I smoke every day, heavily, and greatly enjoy it. I'm smoking a cigarette right now

How do I quit smartphones?

Throw it in the trashcan.

I smoke 3 to 5 cigarettes a day. A smoke to coffee, on the balcony while gazing at the sun, after a decent meal.

Some say you have to avoid all the stimulus when quit smoking. I will not stop walk out onto the balcony and enjoy the sun. I do kot wan to stop drinking coffee.

I'll quit when this carton is empty. Promise.

Best thing we can do is to ban it completely.

If governments truly gave a shit about their people and medical resources that's exactly what they should do.

This is a slippery slope. Should we also ban high sugar products, alcohol and videogames?

Stop reading and run

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.

None of those things are actual physical addictions like nicotine is.

Are you saying that mental health issues are somewhat less excruciating than physical ones?

social media is probably worse for humanity than nicotine

I'm not convinced this is true, and even if it is, it'd only be because so many more people use social media. For any given individual who uses both, there'd be way more personal benefit to quitting nicotine than giving up social media.

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