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Comment by qq4 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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 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?

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.

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.

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"

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.

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.

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