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Comment by yodsanklai | Hacker News Reader

Tobacco is quite interesting. It's not enjoyable. I don't know anyone who enjoyed it the first times they smoked. It takes efforts to get addicted. But once people are, it's extremely hard to quit, and lead you to an early death with quasi-certainty.

French author Michel Houellebecq refers to it ironically as a "perfect" drug, in the sense it doesn't provide pleasure, only addiction.

Good job US to manage to reduce their use. In my country, it drives me crazy that we're not able to prevent kids and teenagers from smoking, because this is the root of the problem. It's a huge cost for them to pay, and society as whole in term of healthcare.

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I've smoked intermittently for years. Whenever I started back, it was triggered by something stressful. I don't know if it is the addiction lurking around even after not smoking once in 5 years. It is extremely calming in those stressful situations.

And as ex smoker, I find it interesting it's not the smoking itself that was 'stress reducing' for me. But those 5 minutes I would make free for myself to do nothing (smoke) and just think.

I once read that smoking is a bit akin to a guided breathing exercise in that way - during those 5 minutes you breathe consciously and in a more controlled manner than usual. I don’t know if its actually true but it always made sense to me.

It’s not tobacco (Which I’m convinced is not all that bad when stripped of all the processing and chemicals) but it’s whatever they are putting in the cigarettes.

Like about of folks here I enjoy a cigar from time to time (1-3 times a year) and suffer none of the addiction problems. The taste and aroma is legitimately nice, like having a nice cup of coffee or a scotch. But after smoking one there is no desire to have more and I’m usually smoked out for a few months to a year.

It’s tobacco - nicotine is highly addictive.

I never smoked normal cigarettes only used self-rolled tobacco without additives and I am still addicted.

Smoking cigars is different since they take out most of the nicotine carrying parts - at least that’s how a Cuban cigar maker explained it to me.

Nicotine is addictive, but not for long - somewhere between 3 days and one week. I don't smoke cigarettes anymore, but switched to vaping. Despite using no-nicotine liquid for ages, I still have cravings - not at all for real cigarettes, just for inhaling. The psychological addiction is far greater than the physical one.

So it is addictive long-term, the addiction is just psychological and little to no physical side effects. It still has the highest psychological addiction of any drug I tried (never used opiates which is the one that is more addictive imo)

I hear from people who did both that smoking is harder to quit. It's just not the nicotine itself, from experience.

It's not just "whatever they are putting in" that makes them addictive or pleasurable. There's just something about inhaling through a little stick and breathing out smoke/vapour.

I almost got addicted myself when someone gifted me a nicotine-free e-cigarette. At first it was a curiosity, then I ended up puffing it regularly. When it ran out my mind went immediately to acquiring more, but luckily I was able to catch what had happened and learnt something about cigarettes.

I wonder if there is a "sports stick" which doesn't use any vapor altogether and is just a stick with a paddlewheel which just makes inhaling harder lol

I use nasal snuff, it seems much less addictive.

> There's just something about inhaling through a little stick and breathing out smoke/vapour.

i think it might be related to the same breathing exercises some people do to control the vagus nerve, with the added help of some mild stimulants

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagus_nerve#Stimulation

slow breathe in (through some restrictor), small hold, then steady release

> It's not enjoyable.

People wouldn't get addicted if it wasn't enjoyable. People's first experience with smoking cigarettes might not be enjoyable because cigarettes taste, smell, and feel awful, but the nicotine inside them is so incredibly enjoyable that it gets people to ignore the awfulness of everything else.

I've quit now, but I've used nicotine for years. In the first few months it gave me a rush, it made me more alert, energetic, and provided a distinct boost in concentration.

Some (but not all) of those positive effects wore off after a couple of years but I always felt like I was getting something in return. It's been a year since I quit and while withdrawal symptoms (awful, by the way, I definitely don't recommend starting!) have gone away and I don't get any cravings anymore, I still notice a slightly reduced level of functioning in myself. It's slightly harder to get started on things, stay focused, and get them done.

Denying this reality by pretending that nicotine is just universally bad and doesn't provide any form of pleasure is how you get teenagers to ignore everything else you said when they try it and find out that it does all of those things.

Teenagers smoke for social reasons. It's very rare to see adults picking up smoking. Also, I'm not sure how many cigarettes you need to smoke before you get a good feeling out of it, but probably quite a lot.

Eventually, nicotine relieves the discomfort of addiction, which is what people conflate with pleasure.

It's true that after years of use (almost exclusively vaping) nicotine didn't make me "feel good" anymore (like it did in the beginning), no matter how much I used, but it still made me function at a slightly higher level which indirectly made me feel better.

> Tobacco is quite interesting. It's not enjoyable.

I remember the first time and it was enjoyable, a very pleasant feeling. I didn't need to try to like it. I was never addicted either, I just liked it when I was out once a week. Then I didn't smoke any for months due to being busy with other life stuff and the next time I tried it made me vomit and that was that.

Tobacco is definitely enjoyable - just because you have to acquire a taste doesn’t rule it out.

Many things you have to acquire a taste for - personally for me that was any kind of alcohol, olives, raw fish, spicy food, oatmeal or even coding. None of these things were enjoyable or did provide pleasure the first times i experienced them - now i find it hard to imagine living without.

> I don't know anyone who enjoyed it the first times they smoked.

Cigars and pipes have quite a nice taste and aroma. I don't have any memory of not having liked it, so I must have enjoyed it the first time.

Cigarettes, on the other hand, did indeed suck so much that I never got into them.

> Cigars and pipes have quite a nice taste and aroma.

They really don't

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