Why do people smoke?
Asked by
Utta_J (
252
)
December 19th, 2009
I just wanna know what makes people smoke. when on the box it tells you something bad could happen to you, and some people spend at least a thousand dollars on cigarettes a year!!!
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59 Answers
Calms me down, takes the stress off.
is it bad that I answer this question wile smoking?
I smoke for the Tar, Nicotine, Carbon Monoxide, Formaldehyde,Hydrogen cyanide, ooooh and the Benzene… where else can you get all that good stuff in one spot? yum
Because they like it when people keep beating the same dead horse over and over again…
last year I spent $5475.00 on cigarettes.
@tyrantxseries: That’s nothing compared to what your medical bills in the future will be.
I haven’t smoked for a long time and I still miss it. It was so enjoyable and relaxing and wonderful to suck in that smoke and then slowly exhale, ahhhhhhhhhhh.
I have said this before but I will reiterate for the newcomers. If at any time it is decided that smoking is not bad for my health, do not, I repeat DO NOT get between me and the nearest convenience store because I will run you down in my rush to buy a pack!
lol, you mean Canada’s medical bills
Because we were dumb enough to start one day and before we knew it, what was an occassional cig. here and there is now several cigs to a pack a day. Not proud of it but it is easier done than undone.
You start to rely on it when stressful situations come about.
Most people smoke either because they enjoy it or because they are addicted. Myself, I don’t particularly enjoy cigarettes – they taste like crap compared to other smokeable herbs. Nor am I addicted – I tried to get the addiction going back about six years ago, but I can’t get over the bad taste to smoke enough. I smoke 0–2 cigs per day because it’s a legal way to calm my stomach away from home. If I didn’t, I could not get through many of my classes – I’d have to go home at the halftime break because the pain gets too distracting. This way I can nip downstairs, have a cig with my professor and chat about the class, and head back up to finish out the lecture. Also, I work a stressful job as a medical receptionist and occasionally I need one in order to avoid killing the doc or the patients.
I have smoked for years,I don’t now but if you ever start it is hard to quit, no matter what anybody says there is no benefit to smoking, some will say it calms me down,some will say it takes the edge off which are both excuses that I used, but the truth is if you never start none of that is true. Tobacco is one of the most addictive drugs known to man and it is very difficult to stop. DON“T START
Some folks do it too fast with too little lubricant.
Because we are still barbaric by nature.
We have just made the fire and smoke easier to dance around.
Addiction and stress relief, that I’ve seen. Oh, I’ve also seen people do it for appetite control and to have an excuse to hang out with girls who are smoking.
“I just wanna know what makes people smoke. when on the box it tells you something bad could happen to you”
So what? Bad things can happen to you when you walk outside.
Somebody told me once that blind people don’t because if you don’t watch the smoke, it’s no fun. I have no idea if that’s true, I’ve only known a couple of blind people.
Smoking is a very complicated addiction. I smoke basically because I’m a smoker. There’s a lot more to it than just the physical addiction. It’s something I have struggled with for years. And people smoke for a variety of reasons, most, at least many of them, not entirely rational. 50% of people who smoke with die of smoking related causes. If got on an airplane and the flight attendant told me that only 50% the passengers would service to reach their destination I would, course, get off the plane. It would be the only rational thing to do, yet I continue to smoke. I have quit on and off over the years but have always ended up going back to it. I quite for 17 months once and started up again, long after my addiction to nicotine had been conquered. Like I said, it’s a very complicated addiction. I can understand why it doesn’t make sense to people who have never been smokers.
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I smoke for the pure smooth aroma and taste. It makes me feel alive with pleasure.
@holden yeah but thats something different when you walk outside you dont know whats gonna happen but on a cigarette box it tells you exacly what could happen!
I wonder when they are going to start putting warnings and pics on the side of the bottles containing alcoholic beverages!
Do you think that would be a deterrent???
@rooeytoo Here’s the US alcohol warning on bottles and cans:
GOVERNMENT WARNING: (1) According to the Surgeon general, women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects. (2) Consumption of alcoholic beverages impairs your ability to drive a car or operate machinery, and may cause health problems.
I smoked when I was in high school; never very much, a pack a week would have been the most. I haven’t had one since I was 20 & still, every once in awhile I think how nice it would be to have a cigarette.
@jaytkay – wow, when did that happen? I wonder if they are on cans here, I must check. Do they have pictures of car wrecks or people in the gutter?
So I guess it’s not too much of a deterrent, hehehehe.
@holden, yeah, I hear you. Sometimes I wonder why I walk outside, too.
They started just to see what was up, and became hopelessly addicted for years and years and years, some never able to quit.
@jaytkay now that is amazing, I didn’t even stop drinking until 1990, I must have been too off to even notice it those last 2 years!
Guess that answers the deterrent question for sure! Although, aside from the pregnancy part, that is a pretty mild warning. They need some pics and stronger words. I don’t know what the photos on cigs are like there, but here they are sickening, literally.
I love to smoke I love cigarrettes its especially good with a coctail. Its my only habit now and Im not a butthead smoker I respect everybody and never expose anybody else. I love the scary pics on the back of the packet. I’ve been smoking since I was a little kid
@rooeytoo I didn’t even stop drinking until 1990, I must have been too off to even notice it those last 2 years!
Well, I’ve had my share since 1988, and if I didn’t have a can of beer in front of me, I wouldn’t have been able to recite one word of the warning.
Our cigs have no pictures yet, just a verbal warning. A new law was signed in June 2009, requiring new regulations and packaging in the next couple of years.
Warning labels. More government intrusion into my daily life. Disgusting.
@proXXi – I agree but I think if it is on one, it should be on the other as well. I am one of those people who believe alcohol is a greater health danger than smoking.
@trailsillustrated – you are in Australia too. I can’t believe you like those pics. If I were still smoking I would have to use a cigarette case just so I don’t have to look at them. And the price in Australia is unbelievable, I couldn’t afford to smoke here. People use credit cards to buy a pack and they have different sizes of packs and you don’t get a matches with them. Actually I have never seen a pack of book matches since I got here. I don’t think they have them.
@jaytkay – hehehe, well I am pleased our little discussion made you more aware and informed me also.
@rooeytoo, we’ve just had notification (within the past month or so, I think) that moderate alcohol consumption of any kind is healthy (for men, anyway). So when I tell people that I’m eating healthy these days… well… I haven’t started having “healthy” lunches at work yet.
And I also slap myself on the forehead in the morning when I leave the house, “Gosh, I could have had a Bloody Mary!”
My guess is they like endangering themselves and don’t give a flip if they endanger those around them either. They also enjoy smelling bad to everyone within a 5 ft. radius. This must be true, because they have a choice and still choose to smoke. Oh, and the pregnant smokers want to increase the risk of miscarriage and of their child being illness-stricken, and the smoking parents like bumping days off their children’s lives by smoking. You know, you don’t have to smoke in the same room as a child to harm them- holding a child w/ cigarette carcinogens on your hands, breath, clothes etc. is harmful as well.
@CyanoticWasp – yeah one month it’s good for you, next month it’s not. I recently read that it is bad for sperm count so now if someone is having trouble getting pregnant, time for the sperm donor to knock off the booze!
Or wait til next month and it will be different again.
@BBSDTfamily I take it that you don’t know anything about addiction then. Of course, we all know that everything is a choice anyways. I choose to inhale the toxic chemicals spewed out by the thousands of internal combustion engines around me. I choose to be hit by a car that decides to drive up on the sidewalk. It’s all about choice :)
For me, there is an element of addiction, but it also calms me more effectively than any medication and with fewer side-effects.
I recently tried to quit. Got the patch and everything. Four days later, my wife is begging me to buy a pack so that my mind works right, my sense of touch returns (I had a hard time judging and accidentally gripped her too hard a few time or otherwise misjudged my strength) and I would stop twitching. Considering the patch, I don’t think it was nicotine withdrawal either. Three drags and I was back to normal.
@jerv I think it’s awesome that you made the effort to quit. I do know a lot about addiction from my own life. I also know about getting real and realizing that you don’t have to let something control you. People can blame whatever they want, but the cigarette (alcohol, drugs, etc.- whatever it is that they are struggling with) doesn’t just jump into their body. It’s a choice, and everyone knows by now what the risks are.
And your analogies that you gave hardly compare to choosing to light up a cigarette- yours were just being exposed to outside factors.
@BBSDTfamily Maybe I am just crazy, but that sounds contradictory. Either that or your definition of “addiction” and “choice” are different from mine… and many dictionaries I’ve seen or maybe it’s just a difference of opinion between us because I don’t think that willpower alone can “cure” everything. I mean, I’ve heard people say that mental disorders are a choice too since it’s all in your head. Or maybe it’s just that you sound too much like a born-again and I (as a devout Agnostic and a bit of a cynic) have a visceral reaction to that sort of cheery delusion.
As for the risks, I used to know but then there were over-reactionary people who claimed that cigarettes also cause Communism, low gas mileage, and teen pregnancy so I take the with a large grain of salt.
Besides, if there are Chinese centenarians who have smoked 2 packs of Marlboro Reds a day practically since Phillip Morris started making them, then one has to wonder anyways. (Of course, people will blame the tobacco and give the people who make the chemicals they add to cigarettes (including the pesticides used an the tobacco plants) a pass, but I digress)
Regardless, I have my rather strong opinion, you have yours, and I don’t want a fight here since I don’t think either of us will be changing our minds regardless of what the other says. Lets just agree to disagree and move on, shall we?
I’ve quit smoking cold turkey for a month or more at a time after smoking every day for months, and never experienced any withdrawal symptoms at all. Maybe I’m lucky…
@smack Luckier than me apparently. Not the first time it’s happened to me like that either.
@rooeytoo yes I think the pics are a scream and Ive gotten a box of redheads thrown in if I ask at bottlo—i can afford to smoke—
@jerv What I mean is that you make the choice (a series of choices, actually) to buy a pack of cigarettes, light one, and smoke it. Therefore, blaming anything else is ridiculous because the cigarettes do not jump into your lungs by themselves. The examples you gave were exterior things happening to someone, not the same here b/c with cigarette smoking it is something you do to yourself. People put down things that they are addicted to everyday. It’s wishful thinking when people blame cigarettes for things (for example, your story of you grabbing your wife). The added stress that comes with trying to stop an addiction can make it easier for people to snap in ways they otherwise wouldn’t, but it is the overall lack of self control that leads to those actions.
You’re free to have the opinion that people over-react to cigarette smoke (hell, some of them do) but I only referred to harmful effects that have been proven, not merely claimed. There is a difference between “fact” and “opinion”. You can’t have the “opinion” that cigarettes are not harmful when they are proven to be harmful. You can be delusional to the fact, but it’s not something you can have an opinion on… that would be the same as saying your opinion is that there is no gravity, no other planets besides the Earth, or any other fact.
And I don’t see where religion plays a part in being able to state facts about the harmful effects of cigarettes. I haven’t said anything that I made up or believe to be true… just things that I know to be true. You’re citing extreme examples to try to discount me, not sure why.
The cigarette is a drug delivery vehicle. Your question would be more on point if it asked, why do people do drugs. Same reason I’m drinking coffee right now. It makes me feel better.
@BBSDTfamily It is true that starting to smoke is a choice. After that though, I think that you over-estimate the limits of self-control, and that is where I take issue. Not all of us can be Shaolin Monks, just as not all of can dunk like Michael Jordan no matter how hard we train. As for religion, it really doesn’t except insofar as you sound like a lot of people who have tried to convert me over the years and I react poorly to zealousness. Even cheery “morning people” rub me the wrong way.
not for long if I can help it
@tvshowhost Huh? If by that you mean that you think you can stop people from smoking, just do a little research on Prohibition.
@jerv The Host might have meant that he/she is in the grips of a nicotine addiction and intends to quit soon. I agree with you that if it was meant in the way you took it, that would be a little odd.
@tvshowhost Welcome! Glad to have you with us. As you may have noticed, we find it helpful when people provide some detail in their answer. I like to step back before I press the “Answer” button and try to look at what I’ve written from a stranger’s perspective. It helps!
Because I am an idiot and an addict,. I dereive no enjoyment from smoking but go berserk if I try to quit.
@jerv so you would like alot longer answers, I am adult and I am not a child, you just dont give me orders, you need to get a crastal ball for me to see into other persons minds and their thoughts, I keep it simple.
Now, where’s that crastal ball when I need it?
@gailcalled In the same cabinet as my “dereive”. This new notebook has no spell-check installed and I’m working without a net…
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