When I get super terrible, a single tablet (2mg) can make me feel better. Doesn’t even make me feel like I need another. Fine for weeks
They called it a peace pipe for a reason. We’re the ones that went and capitalized on it and made it horrible and deadly addictive.
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
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.
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.
Yeah, my coworkers take smoke breaks together and I genuinely think I missing some important socialization because I 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.
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.
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.
I never understood this argument.
Colleague goes for a smoke break? I go with them, just don’t smoke.
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
I haven’t smoked in 15 years, and I could start again tomorrow. I love smoking and still miss it.
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?
4 years free myself!
I quit smoking cold turkey almost 10 years ago. I promised myself I can start smoking again when The Fall happens.
That’s good! The nitrites in cold turkey are probably super bad for your lungs.
I’ll see myself out…
Well done, I know that feeling even though I’m only on my 2nd year without cigarettes after smoking for 30 years.
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.
Five, hundred, cigarettes.
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”.
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.
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.
A friend of mine started smoking because it was the only way to take regular breaks from his construction job.
I just went out with the smokers when they were taking smoke breaks. I only ever got shit about it from two bosses and everyone else backed me up so they dropped the issue.
This is what I miss when I switched to an ecig. Even if you get given the same breaks as a smoker, what are you going to do, sit inside? Then people will still bug you.
But as a smoker you get to go outside, the smoke smells horrible to non-smokers so the number of people who can bug you is reduced (Moreso now since less people are smoking), and that break can truely be a ‘turn off brain from work’ sort of break.
Take the ecig outside?
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?
Some of y’all have never been addicted to anything and it shows.
No one is questioning why addicted people keep smoking. We’re questioning why non-addicted people start smoking.
It certainly does have an effect, albeit much less than hard drugs. I’ve smoked twice. The second time I decided to try a cigarette with a beer to see why people liked it so much. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to never try smoking again.
I believe the head rush effect is mostly when you first start and after that it diminishes and then you’re just dealing with the withdrawal.
This is correct. Though if you go a day or two without smoking you get the head rush back again for only that first smoke which is the insidious part about it
It’s like a lot of other drugs. You never get that initial high back, but you keep chasing it.
Basically why I am extremely hesitant to try most drugs. Either I don’t like it, or I DO like and and want to keep trying it… either way the odds of it being a good thing for me long term are pretty sketchy.
Chemically addictive drugs aren’t worth it. Ones that aren’t physically addictive can just be pleasant and then you don’t feel any particular compulsion to do them beyond the desire to do pleasant things.
Not saying to go out and do some drugs or anything, just sharing that plenty of people have done things like hallucinogens, found it to be a fun and worthwhile experience and then never felt the need to do it again.
Agreed. Just not worth it.
I’m fortunate in that I’ve tried several things and never really got hooked, but if there was one that could eventually hook me it would be nicotine or opioids.
So this is funny. I was raised with smokers. Didn’t smoke myself. Why? Because I got nothing but cough. Second hand smoke got me used to nicotine and it didn’t work xD
But! After smokers died off, and I lived alone for some time, I got used to no smoke and it backed off. Friend tried again to get me to smoke. So I inhaled like I did earlier and huh. I got hit, quickly.
So I swore to never smoke anyway. I already knew the high won’t last long before organism gets used to it, but I am gonna have cravings by then, so meh. And seen two close people ruined by it too.
Cigarettes and coffee, man. The diner I used to go to (20+ years ago) had a single “non-smoking” table in the middle of the restaurant, the tar turned the walls yellowish (it was a 24 hour diner and closed once a year for a few days to deep clean the place), and there was always a haze. I didn’t smoke personally, but I spent a lot of time there.
When the smoking ban hit, it hit that place hard. A few weeks after it went into effect, I went there and thought they had changed the coffee they used because it wasn’t nearly as good. I asked the waitress, and she said it was the same, you just didn’t have all the cigarette smoke to go with it anymore. Turns out they used the exact same coffee as every other diner in town, they just had a constant nicotine-laced aromatics to go with it.
You already said it kills you faster then if you didn’t smoke.
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
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
Just use patches man
Smoking not only kills you, but those around you too.
I still don’t understand why they don’t outright ban cigarettes entirely.
Lol as a non smoker when I take a rip I feel so lightheaded and awesome. No wonder people get addicted
I know what you mean. As a non drinker I love getting drunk every week.
non drinker
every week
Pick one.
Thatsthejoke.jpeg
Oh :/
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.
I don’t smoke myself but you need to know that cigarettes are super-processed crap. They intentionally add more poisonous shit to them. Even I like the smell of loose leaf tobacco smoked in a pipe, or in a quality cigar. The reason people first started smoking tobacco is because it smells good. But you’re right that’s not cigarettes.
Yep. Cigarettes smell and taste terrible, but I love the smell of pipe tobacco and cigars. I enjoy smoking a cigar a few times a year. Though, the smoke only smells good in the moment. Once it permeates clothing, it reeks just as bad as cigarette smoke the next day.
They intentionally add more poisonous shit to them.
What and why
tar, formaldehyde, and benzene are all added to cigarettes. Tar is a binder, the formaldehyde is a preservative, and benzene is an accelerant. The problem is that all of these things are toxic and/or cancerous.
Smoking loose leaf tobacco is the healthiest way to do it if that’s what you want to do. The little foam filters in cigarettes do nothing and the additives added to processed tobacco make it much more unhealthy.
Thanks for the info :)
Picking up girls and making friends mostly.
The rest is to get away from dancing/ loud music/ heat.
My ideal place to go out would be a location with no dancefloor just a bar and a smoking area where you can’t smoke. Unfortunately the vibe of the smoking area just hits differently and no one can explain it. It cannot be replicated. It’s magic in a bottle.
