If one person is addicted to alcohol, and another to smoking who should quit ASAP?

Apples and oranges. There isn’t any way to compute a fully accurate exchange rate.

I’m more averse to smoking (never smoked anything) than drinking in moderation. Though there’s no way to equally measure consumption, I think smoking is more likely to cause lung cancer, emphysema, etc., and it makes you and your surroundings smell and taste like stale cigarette smoke.

Alcohol can also get you killed in various ways (drunk driving, falling, fighting, bad mistakes, and when overused chronically, organ disease), but in moderation is not really unhealthy. But alcoholics can have terrible behavior problems which can lead to domestic violence, depression, unemployment, etc.

I’d want the alcoholic to get help first if they are having behavior problems. Then I’d want the smoker to try to quit.

Alcohol, it can kill you in a single sitting. Tobacco takes time.

Alcohol, you are more likely to kill others.

Both are injurious to health but smoking is hard to quit IMO. One should try to quit smoking first and reduce alcohol intake frequency / amount gradually at the same time!!!

The drinker. He/she is more likely to be involved in some kind of accident than the smoker. (IMO)

Alcohol is more damaging from heavy use in the short term, but not in moderation, while a single cigarette has significant deleterious effects.

@imrainmaker take it from one who has quit both, a drinker who quits smoking is more likely to start smoking again very quickly from being triggered while drinking, while a smoker who quits drinking will not be triggered into drinking just by having a cigarette.

Your question would have to be more specific, does the smoker smoke daily, does the drinker drink daily. Is the person who drinks an alcoholic, is the smoker addicted? Not all people die from cigarettes nor alcohol. In fact, a woman of 101 years old says she smokes daily and always has. I think drinking is more dangerous to other people around you. Car accidents and crime that is instigated by alcohol. I often wonder why bottles of booze don’t carry health warnings such as ‘Drinking could lead to the deaths of toddlers in cars’ or ‘Drinking can lead to you being raped if you have too much’ (Just as a few examples).

I guess my question would be: why does it have to be one or the other? Both can be bad so why not quit both? And if it is two different people, why can’t they quit at the same time?

I would say smokers should quit first. Mainly because other people around them who aren’t even smokers can still be affected by the smokes. Alcoholics who don’t drive won’t bother anyone, most people can ignore them just fine. The general rule is that if you want to poison yourself do it in your own room so other innocent people won’t become the victims.

Driving isn’t the only way alcoholics hurt people.

Thanks. I’m with most of you alcohol of course

Alcohol is mind altering substance so, of course it can cause multiple fatalties even the first time, and not necessarily with a large (small and large subjective terms) quantity. Both are damaging, of course ideally quit both, both people quit. I asked the question because someone said smoking way way worse, which is a blanket statement which doesn’t take into account that some people are only addicted to 2 cigarettes per day, some 2 packs a day and some people are addicted to a bottle a day or more etc.

I think I’m going to have to say smoking but they both do bad things to the body. Alcohol ruins the liver and smoking ruins the lungs.

@Sup_peeps You just made a statement without adding the why part. Please read the other posts. Of course they are both harmful.