Smoking not only kills you, but those around you too.
I still don’t understand why they don’t outright ban cigarettes entirely.
Most smokers want to quit or at least they say they do.
You already said it kills you faster then if you didn’t smoke.
Because nothing matters. Never gonna retire. Never gonna own a home. Couldnt afford kids even if i wanted them. Why worry about “being productive” into my fuckin 80s?
There’s something pleasurable about exhaling mist out of your mouth.
plus potential undiagnosed adhd self med maybe? I always could solve any problem if I only had a smoke to think. It’s like some kind of unlocking full potential
It’s been 10 years since my last and I still miss that full potential feeling. I feel like I live with a constant fog on my mind without it
It’s very hard to part ways with the clarity that nicotine gives me. As if teleported to some dimension where everything is easy suddenly and very clear. Time slows down
Fuck maybe it’s worth going back just for that clarity. I never really recovered since quitting
I thought I could overcome it with sheer force of will and my brain will somehow get used to it and work fine without nicotine but that never happened
I miss that kind of focus
Just use patches man
It’s not worth going back! I’m trying to quit, my advice to you don’t think about the high. Think about how expensive it is, how gross it smells, how much time it takes from your day, how much easier it is to breathe. The high is fleeting, the damage to your body is permanent.
Yeah I know I know. I even can’t do it like medically I am not supposed to more than usual person.
I need some kind of substance that works like nicotine, is easy to obtain and has less or no health risks
Probably gotta go to psych at last but I procrastinate on that since years
I was thinking recently let’s go and enroll in a course to become air traffic controller but I need nicotine for that. To pass tests and to work
Thing is I can’t even take the nicotine pills technically because I am in thrombosis risk group.
If I was usual medically person I would just take nicotine pills and deem the eventual risks completely worth having actual ability to focus and work. Without nicotine my career life is depressing if it even exists
I underestimated how this vile habit helped me pass to the top university but to be honest when I was studying I smoked like a lot, more than I ate and started to feel so fucking terrible that I switched education to something easier that I already knew how to do
Tried in high school. I wanted to be able to smoke even if i didnt have or couldnt smoke weed. Thankfully a couple days in cigarettes made me vomit and I stopped without looking back. Wish I had been able to do that the first time alcohol made me vomit.
It’s cool
Smoking a cigarette feels like you’ve been standing your entire life and you just sat down. Then it feels like nothing and the world hurts when you don’t have it
Five, hundred, cigarettes.
This is actually a very good description of how a shot of heroin feels, when you have a habit. It’s just much moreso than cigarettes.
Awww man I was really looking forward to heroin in my later years.
I haven’t smoked in 15 years, and I could start again tomorrow. I love smoking and still miss it.
I quit smoking cold turkey almost 10 years ago. I promised myself I can start smoking again when The Fall happens.
Well done, I know that feeling even though I’m only on my 2nd year without cigarettes after smoking for 30 years.
4 years free myself!
Thats a good streak, dude. Keep going :)
Yah, remembering the feeling of being knifed in the chest still keeps me from going back.
Have you tried smoking cigarettes instead of knives?
Besides the chemical addiction part, it’s also a genuinely social one as well.
Smoking areas are designated places where strangers talk to each other. Asking for a light or offering one is a super simple way to break the ice. My dad quit cold turkey several times but he always fell back into the habit hanging with his friends
Yeah, my coworkers take smoke breaks together and I genuinely think I missing some important socialization because I don’t smoke
Take a cup of coffee or tea and go with them. There are multiple modern addictions that you can choose from.
And be around people smoking? Disgusting
Take a sparkler to hold, so you can ask for a light
That’s actually very good advice
I never understood this argument.
Colleague goes for a smoke break? I go with them, just don’t smoke.
When I smoked, we had people that would just come and hang out for the break and the conversation. Go for it, it’s fine. Just don’t complain about smoking or you won’t be welcome, predictably enough.
One of my colleagues will even occasionally ask me “Heading for a smoke, wanna come along?” I just love chatting with him, I’ll try to stand upwind so I don’t catch as much second-hand smoke, he gets some company too, everyone’s happy.
This is what I used to do, the smoking area outside was a nice little shaded area, i just generally stood upwind of the smokers or slightly askew to avoid the 2nd hand smoke. No one gave me shit, I was just asked occasionally if i smoked.
Smoking is also an activity that some workplaces allow you to use to justify extra breaks.
For example, it’s easier for one of my coworkers to go outside and have a smoke break without judgement than it is for me to go sit in the break room for 5-10 minutes and eat a snack if I’m tired.
I’ve worked at a cleaning job where the smokers were allowed to go outside whenever. Some even went on a smoke break several times per hour. The nonsmokers like me on the other hand were reprimanded if we sat down and drank something outside of the scheduled break. I complained, but the boss was a smoker and just told me they need their smoke break but I don’t need coffee… One coworker whom I talked to about that even said they started smoking because of this and because the non-smokers were expected to work more and cover for the smokers on their cigarette breaks.
I had a job where breaks were working breaks unless you were a smoker. That’s when I went from only smoking socially to being a regular smoker.
My grandfather picked up smoking in WWII because non-smoke4s didn’t get any breaks from digging trenches.
It took over 50 years, but WWII still managed to kill him.
Still a big reason a lot of joes start smoking. If you don’t have nicotine and alcohol issues going in, the Army is happy to issue you some.
The Air Force may have split from the army in 47, but some traditions carried over.
Wouldn’t be at all surprised if most of those AAF guys had a flask in the bomber jacket. Gets cold at altitude you know.
Also, nicotine serves as a pretty fair appetite suppressant and stimulant, thus why some of us fell into the habit in early college. Easier to justify the cost of a meal a day and a smoke than it is for the supplies to make three squares a day, at least in a food desert.
Lol as a non smoker when I take a rip I feel so lightheaded and awesome. No wonder people get addicted
All I get is a scratchy throat, a bad cough and an awful taste in my mouth. I get addiction, I don’t get how people start smoking. Why do they power through this? Just to belong? Be one of the cool kids?
I know what you mean. As a non drinker I love getting drunk every week.
non drinker
every week
Pick one.
Thatsthejoke.jpeg
Some of y’all have never been addicted to anything and it shows.
Yeah you say that like it’s a character flaw.
“You’re worthless suckers have no vices”
“You’re worthless suckers have no vices”
Vices are social taboos, not iron laws. And if you haven’t ever transgressed, I gotta wonder what kind of life you’re living (particularly in a society that’s puritanical in its ethics)
So unless you commit a crime of some kind you are not a real person? I don’t understand what arguement you’re trying to make
You sound like you would actually benefit from drugs lol
Loosen up ffs
This MF’ER so scared, they ain’t never even jaywalked 🤣
Jaywalking isn’t actually a crime anywhere other than the United States so no I’ve never jaywalked.
I commit crimes on a daily basis. I’m skeptical of people who follow all laws without thinking. Do you really never speed while driving or jaywalk?
I’m saying that the person in the green text is judging people for going through something they have literally no experience with.
Obviously addiction is bad, but that doesn’t mean the people who become addicted are stupid or make bad decisions. The way addiction works means there is no choice. If it was as simple as making a choice addiction wouldn’t exists.
Actually, addicts chose to be addicted when they chose to ingest addictive drugs before they were addicted. Hope this helps ♥
Wow, the world is so black and white! No nuance or context at all, you can just call everything like you see it. You’re so smart for being able to see the world one dimensionally. Thanks for the help 🙏
You must be a trump voter.
Absolute statement like that coming from an obvious place of smug ignorance is always entertaining.
I look forward to your debate with others in this thread.
Thats nonsense. If there was no choice noone would ever quit anything. People need to acknowledge that bad choices got them into the addiction so they can recognize and avoid triggers while sober. Doesnt mean someone’s a bad person, we all make mistakes daily, some bigger than others.
You are right its not as simple as making a choice, but one can’t recover from an addiction without personally choosing to do so. Its essential to the process and generalizing all addicts as helpless doesnt serve anyone.
I think the issue they’re having is why are there still young people that smoke, regardless of income, demographic, race, area, every category has some amount of young people smoking. You can’t explain them ALL away by lack of education, unideal upbringing, etc etc.
My mum always said when I was growing up she believes no one will smoke soon since we have so much education on it in school. Yet I’m 37 and teens are still starting smoking. I live in what is considered a fairly rich and well educated area. They’re not addicted before they start. They do have a choice. It is as simple as making the choice not to start. They’re not in a situation that they don’t know better.
We shouldn’t have as many people under 40, under 30, under 20 smoking as we do.
IMO if you go your whole life not trying drugs you’re robbing yourself of important experiences.
Everyone should known what addiction feels like, even if it’s just the slight nagging of a cigarette.
Everyone should do a psychedelic at least once, most people who have had a positive trip rank it as one of the three most important experiences of their life along with things like the birth of their child.
We owe it to ourselves to experience as much of the human experience as we can tolerate, because the future versions of ourselves will thank us for it.
I’m an active opioid user tapering down to quit. While I get what you’re saying, I don’t necessarily agree. There’s a lot of people in this world who will go off the deep end after trying any substance for the first time (I’m an example).
As for psychedelics, it can be beneficial; there’s just a lot of factors that go into whether someone should use it or not. Some people, despite the less addictive nature of LSD and psilocybin, develop a habit to regularly use regardless. Other people might be prone to mental disorders developing from just one trip.
We owe it to ourselves to experience as much of the human experience as we can tolerate
Despite understanding your general point, I can’t say I agree with this. I think the issue is understanding that your experience is not everyone’s experience.
Addiction isn’t a mild curiosity, it’s a disease that can and does destroy lives. The notion that “everyone should know what addiction feels like” downplays the immense suffering, loss, and trauma it causes for individuals and their families. You don’t need to burn your hand to understand fire is hot and you don’t need to become addicted to appreciate the power of compulsion, craving, or loss of control. Empathy, literature, conversation, and observation can teach that to a very high extent without the risk. To me this is like injecting something that intentionally causes cancer just to see what it’s like to be a cancer patient/survivor.
Psychedelics are powerful and not universally positive. Yes it’s true many people have profound, life-changing insights from psychedelic experiences, but others experience terrifying, traumatic, or destabilising trips. For those with underlying mental health conditions (which may be undiagnosed), a psychedelic can tip the balance in a lasting and damaging way. There’s no undo button. It’s not a one size fits all rite of passage.
I don’t believe living a rich, meaningful life is simply about ticking off extremes. It’s about integration, understanding, and self-awareness. You can live deeply and wisely without ever ingesting a substance that alters your brain chemistry. Meditation, grief, love, art, parenting, solitude, etc. There are many things that can produce life altering insights without putting your body and mind at risk.
“Experience as much of the human experience as we can tolerate” sounds noble, but some things should not be tolerated lightly. There’s a difference between pushing your boundaries to grow and deliberately dancing with danger. The idea that the future version of yourself will thank you for trying a drug might be true in some cases, but for many that future self is wishing they’d never touched it. I’ve seen it first hand.
The human experience is vast and worth exploring, but not all experiences are equally safe, wise, or necessary to live a rich and meaningful life. You couldn’t pay me any amount of money to go caving and I don’t think my life will be significantly worse having not experienced it.
You did a great job of ignoring the word “tolerate” in my comment.
You’re doing a great job of ignoring my point that many people can’t tolerate a single time.
They won’t know till they try
Sorry you had a bad trip, that’s no excuse to be permanently afraid of life or your own body and to scare others out of having important experiences.
I think I see what you’re saying. To go through addiction is to experience life from a novel perspective. If one’s goal is to experience all life has to offer, if they want to touch the very extremes of human existance, “getting an addiction” would probably go on their bucket list. It produces both highs and lows that no other experience can emulate, and has enabled you personally to grow into a wiser, more complete person. I can dig that.
I’m just not sure how many people here are ready to consider taking their own lives to that far of an extreme. Not everyone in a theme park wants to ride the most intense roller coaster, yet they still have a grand time at the park. In the same way, many people are perfectly content without touching the fringe edges of human experience… and that’s a perfectly fine and valid way to live.
Being a drug addict doesnt mean homeless on the streets. Also many people have tried hard drugs without realizing it. Adderall feels remarkably like methamphetamine. Vicodin and oxy feel very much like heroin. Benzos like Xanax are some of the most addictive substances weve created, causing seizures in those who quit cold turkey. Alcohol is still one of the most potent substances and causes numerous problems for nearly all parts of society.
I never understood alcohol being legal and promoted while all the other drugs were demonized. Its inconsistent at best.
I’m a Stoic and a Hedonist among other things, IMO i get one life and then i go back to nothing forever. I owe it to myself to fully explore my world, mind, and body to the full possible extent before i get snuffed out for eternity.
Although I understand the sentiment, I like how my brain works and doing anything to impact it is something I find very, very not appealing. On top of that, there’s a good chance I am especially susceptible to addiction. I’d rather not tickle that particular tiger’s tail, thank you very much.
Nothing against the people who enjoy partaking; it’s just not for me.
In order to do things people need to overcome the fear of doing things, there are plenty of other great way to improve yourself in that regard if you do ever want to try new unknown experiences.
Maybe one day you will feel safe enough to give something a try, and there are even ways of temporarily altering your mental state to a lesser degree without drugs.
Everyone’s owes it to themselves to do heroin once.
This unironically
I’m saving my heroin arc for retirement
I’ll take one heroin please
Just a little PCP, once.
Yeah you really have not lived until you’ve done a bit of angel dust.
Everyone should known what addiction feels like, even if it’s just the slight nagging of a cigarette.
the future versions of ourselves will thank us for it.
Sorry I’m having difficulty reconciling those two sentences. Because personally I don’t think the future version of me would like to have lung cancer, it sort of feels like it would be a detriment to my life goals.
Smoking 1 pack of cigs doesn’t give you lung cancer
You’re already engaging in dopamine loops akin to drugs when you intentionally misunderstand internet stragers in order to be indignant and dismissive twoards them.
It’s just a smaller and less satisfying squirt of dopamine than many drugs would give you.
I understand being afraid of things as a defense agaisnt trying them though, it’s a very human response
Everyone should known what addiction feels like
Everyone already knows at least sugar. And after that, coffee and alcohol.
And social media, online shopping, phone usage or similar.
Idk about alcohol. I’m on the other end of the spectrum with that one. Reflexively loathe drinking because I associate it with feeling like shit in the morning. I usually only touch the stuff when people shove a drink into my hand.
Just say “misery loves company”
It’s possible to have a healthy relationship with drugs.
It takes more mental fortitude and mental self-improvement than most people are willing to put in tho
Is it like that saying, “If you’re gonna be dumb, ya gotta be tough”?
If you want to have a positive experience with something that removes your sense of control, like psychedelics, you need to not be a coward, you need to understand your emotions, you need to be capable of letting go of total control and the humility that comes with that. As well as having an understanding of your own mind and understanding what the drug will do.
You saying edgy things to my ernest comments gives you shots of dopamine, you’re being dick because you get drugs for doing it. You don’t care about bettering yourself mentally enough to notice you are a drug addict already.
I hope your dad sees this. You’ll finally have impressed him.
Because it’s a drug that makes you feel good?
Also: I am now convinced that a sizable portion of the Population is neurodivergent in a way that Nicotine does A LOT more for them than “a slight calming effect”.
ADHD and cigarettes pair so nicely. 3 mins of turning off the world every hour is why I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to quit. Being a single unit item is why things like vaping never worked for me either. I had a small amount of luck with cans of fizzy drinks, but I’d need an insane amount and 2 weeks off work with none of my usual triggers for a chance.
Apparently there are some people that live under the illusion that nicotine doesn’t actually do anything, I saw one of these guys in another thread. I’m sure whoever placed them under that illusion did it with good intentions, but the implication that there are people getting hooked on it every day just to look cool is so funny
Because it’s a drug that makes you feel good?
More specifically, its a stimulant that makes your brain more active and helps you cut through your exhaustion. Like caffeine, its a “work drug” designed to crank more units of labor out of you in a limited time span, at the expense of your overall health and well-being.
That’s why capitalist countries have been so loathe to outlaw it, when compared to the creative/transgressive stimulants like LSD and THC.
TL;DR: Show me someone with any hard-to-quit habit, and I’ll show you someone that’s self-medicating for something.
This is tragically under-appreciated in our society. Especially when it seems everyone is converging on some kind of self-diagnosis, and collectively coming to a “hey nobody’s normal” conclusion. We’re so very close to framing help as “harm reduction for nicotine” and “maybe it’s also neurodiversity and/or trauma”, but we keep missing the mark and argue about vapes instead.
Also, as the greentext suggests, I personally think we’re way past the point where people that can avoid starting or can quit easy, have already done so. What you see these days is a rather hard-core use cohort that has complex addiction to work through.
So… yeah. Helping a friend quit? Please work with them to consider the jenga-tower of adverse psychology that a-pack-a-day might be holding up. It could be way harder to pull off than either of you think.
90% of schizophrenic people smoke. It helps their illness. I don’t know if the mechanism has been discovered.
Fascinatingly, tobacco has been used as “traditional medicine” by native populations for centuries. In psychedelic ceremonies, it’s very common to have a tobacco component. So I’m sure there’s a link between tobacco and the psyche.
Nicotine makes my whole body vibrate and I would describe it as feeling quite high for about 2 minutes
That goes away when you become a regular smoker.
Interesting. It makes me feel like I suddenly became super heavy, like the Earth’s gravity just dialed up a notch. Oddly, if I were already high on cannabis, a toke of nicotine would take away some of the weed buzz. I know I wouldn’t be “more sober” with both, but it feels like it (which makes me then think that I wasted that weed by doing both.)
I wanna hear everyone’s experiences. I’ve always been curious what drugs (including nicotine, caffeine, and alcohol) feel like to other people.
Oh it does also make me feel heavy. I usually have to sit down for a moment if I hit a friend’s vape
Caffeine doesn’t affect me. Never drank coffee regularly any time in my life, but any time I’ve attempted to use caffeine from any source (including some pretty strong energy drinks) to either wake up, or stay awake, I haven’t felt any different at all.
When I was a teenager, we would smoke weed then smoke cigarettes really fast to get a head rush on top of the weed. It’s how I got addicted.
Same. Literally chasing highs for like years in high school. Such a dumb idea. Let’s get really good at doing all the drugs!
I read that the MAOIs in Tobacco can enhance the effects of nicotine.
Thus, if you really want the fix, the effects will be much stronger.
I was in the military, and smokers got breaks.
It does have a felt effect, but is very mild. The thing is that the body loves nicotine, and even if you’re not consciously getting high, your body is getting high. That’s why vapes were able to become popular.
The body loves it so much, the smoke stops smelling bad to you.
I’d rather smell like smoke than body odor after being in the field for a week or two with no showers.
I (also military) used to grab a cup of coffee and bring it out whenever the smokers went out (though I had to start doing half a cup, because the smokers took a lot of breaks).
Then one chief established there would be no more “smoke breaks” for the smokers, but everyone would get regular breaks (and the smokers could take theirs outside). People (including the smokers who had been taking breaks all along) started making jokes about taking their “union mandated” breaks. And the smokers just went out twice as often.
smokers got breaks.
When I quit smoking, I pretty much stopped going to parties, conventions, dance clubs, and concerts. Having an excuse to get out of the crowd and noise and decompress for ten minutes every couple of hours made “going out” so much more tolerable for me.
Don’t forget the nicotine fix.
Easy. Say you’re going for a smoke and then don’t actually smoke.
Did this at work all the time. I want to hangout and chat too
You and your rational solutions… You are clearly not addicted.
Yeah, chances are one day that’d lead to smoking again. Likely pretty quickly.
Quit that shit. Maybe relapsed once or twice and still beat myself over it.
However, I’m probably not quitting weed for the foreseeable future, but I pace myself heavily with that (twice a month max)
I stopped smoking and had two bacterial infections the first since years. The second one end up in a Pneumonia.
Is smoking healthy?
