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For the same reason overweight people point their cars to the fast food drive-up window and order non-healthy foods and drinks which will rot their teeth!
Yes, because emotional factors often overrule logic and reason when we make choices.
Why do people still eat meals from Cheesecake Factory, arguably the unhealthiest chain restaurant in the United States?
Why do people still have unprotected sex?
Why would someone ever try meth?
Why do people still ignore our greenhouse emissions despite the doom and gloom forecasts of scientists?
Anyway, there are a several reasons that people take up smoking in the first place: the "cool" factor, parental influence, peer influence, its appetite-suppresant capabilities, its stress-reducing capabilities, the fact that it's a stimulant, etc. The problem is that once it becomes a heavy habit, it's hard to quit. You know it's bad, you know that most people look down on it (here in the US, anyway), but you're addicted.
I smoked a bit when I first turned 18, but it was never enough of a habit for me to become addicted. I used to have one or two cigarettes a night, and I did so as a way to wind down and contemplate things at the end of the day. There was no big production around me quitting, I just stopped buying cigarettes one day after a little less than a year of my nightly smokes.
I'm not even sure if this is the right category for this, but I'll give it a shot.
I don't understand why people still smoke despite the knowledge behind the damage that it can do to our bodies. Not only is it harmful to ourselves, but it is harmful to those around us. Also to add, smoking is an expensive habit. I'm in college and I'm shocked to see the amount of kids in the designated smoking areas. The cons outweigh the pros, so why would you do it (I have the same philosophy for drinking).
I smoke because I want to and I have always paid for my own cigarettes. It is the only vice I have left since I never had sex with random strangers, don't drink and don't gamble and got over my food addiction that caused my past morbid obesity (I've gotten that under control and have lost 500 pounds without surgery, pills or programs.)
By the way I do not smoke around those who do not smoke so you can put that blanket on someone else.
I also do not throw my cigarette butts out of the vehicle window or toss them on the ground.
If we are outside at a fair or park listening to the concert at the park I always ask whomever is closest to me if they mind if I smoke. If they mind I move, if they don't mind I don't move.
CSD610, when you say that you've lost 500 lbs, is that inclusive of yo-yo weight gain/loss? Because to have lost 500 lbs would mean that you had to be at least 650 lbs, which is nearly immobile in most cases (unless you're super tall). Does that mean you were smoking in your house?
I'm not even sure if this is the right category for this, but I'll give it a shot.
I don't understand why people still smoke despite the knowledge behind the damage that it can do to our bodies. Not only is it harmful to ourselves, but it is harmful to those around us. Also to add, smoking is an expensive habit. I'm in college and I'm shocked to see the amount of kids in the designated smoking areas. The cons outweigh the pros, so why would you do it (I have the same philosophy for drinking).
Stress and status anxiety for less than upwardly mobile young. Keep in mind that many younger folks ditch cigarettes (for other drugs, including Prozac etc.) because of all intensifying status anxiety, they got to fit in the corporate world inside and out in order to get fed and get laid by the cool chicks. I know at least one upper level exec who was canned because he couldn't quit smoking (in a parked car during a break, I mind you) and thus he was not projecting a desired corporate image. Cigarettes no longer do a trick for the upwardly mobile crowd, but stress and status anxiety is getting only greater every year. Those must be compensated for in other ways. It's not a fact that less smoking means better health speaking of society overall.
As people get older, they settle in their income bracket and the kind of women/men it attracts, social isolation sets in, a cigarette becomes the only "friend" for great many. If a cigarette is your the only friend you just don't give a dime about your health (and health of all those indifferent, health conscious people surrounding you). Some cigarette smokers don't give a dime about trash disposal for exactly the same reason - "alienation" from the health conscious, feel good, indifferent human mass and its rules. Cigarette smoking per se is irrelevant, there are deeper reasons for the asocial behavior.
Last edited by RememberMee; 10-12-2013 at 11:47 AM..
IMHO its because of nicotine and other assorted addictive stuff added to ciggies to keep ya buying their cancer sticks and making the corporation profits. I know alcohol consumption has something to do with it too as I was a frigging chimney when imbuing myself in the cocktails. I started at 14 and smoked for 20 years but I did mange to quit. it was a sunnabitchin' hard feat to accomplish and took more than one try to quit! you have to set your mind to really wanting to quit that was the key for me. I took up scuba diving with the money i saved and now swim with fishes!
It has more to do with belonging and being accepted, at least in the beginning. I started smoking as a teenager. The 'nice' kids didn't accept me socially, but the kids who smoked cigarettes and were also outcasts in other ways let me into their circle. Smoking was something that bound us together. Even years later, as an adult in the business world, there was a sense of camaraderie amongst those of us who smoked.
I've quit, but I do sometimes miss that social bonding time that having a cig with another smoker brought.
I think you're really onto something, here. I'm one of those rare idiots who started smoking as an adult (with parents in the medical profession, no less). I started for reasons too ridiculous to explain here, but I soon found a very unique social dynamic among smokers that I have to say, I really enjoy. I travel a LOT, and everywhere I go smokers are corraled together. All you have to do is whip out a smoke and you instantly have new friends. Some of it the "pariah effect", I think...smokers understand each other's habit in a world where it's become virtually taboo. Some of it also seems to be an effect secondary to the relief and relaxation when you smoke. It's like we have a whole little microcosm going. I've made some very beneficial connections in the smoking section, with amazing ease. It's a shame we're all going to die of cancer....
I have a history of clinically diagnosed anxiey and depression, and smoking eases the symptoms somewhat. Go to a public mental health center sometime and you'll see a ton of smokers outside. The percentage of smokers among those with mental illnesses is staggering when compared to the general population.
Finally, I find it meditative...the rhythmic acts of manipulating the cigarette and breathing the smoke, the slow-moving and swirling wisps...non-smokers will laugh at this but it's soothing to the smoker.
I'm all too aware of the nasty smell/taste and the negative health effects, and would like to quit at some point. I know..better now than later...what am I waiting for?...etc. And I'm aware of the manifest and latent financial costs of my habit. I do go out of my way to be courteous, too, because I know it affects other people...though non-smoking bans in some public spaces actually make it harder to be "polite" in some ways.
So anyway, it does have its appeals. Addiction is only one part of why smokers keep lighting up. Do I wish I never started? Sure. But the toughest part of quitting, for me anyway, may have nothing to do with nicotine.
Last edited by Slithytoves; 10-12-2013 at 07:44 PM..
By the way I do not smoke around those who do not smoke so you can put that blanket on someone else.
I also do not throw my cigarette butts out of the vehicle window or toss them on the ground.
If we are outside at a fair or park listening to the concert at the park I always ask whomever is closest to me if they mind if I smoke. If they mind I move, if they don't mind I don't move.
Same here. Not every smoker is a jerk. I resent people who are irresponsible or inconsiderate about their habit. I tend to speak up to them more quickly than many militant nonsmokers. I also don't smoke in my house because of my pets. It drives me nuts when people smoke in a house where other lungs live, especially the lungs of children or creatures that can't speak up about it.
It's worth noting that there's no common demographic among these "bad" smokers, though there seems to be a stereotype. Oh, how people love to generalize.
Last edited by Slithytoves; 10-12-2013 at 07:48 PM..
I smoked (for dozens of years) because I was self destructive. So glad I learned to like myself more than to do that.
People are drawn to morbidity.
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