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Author
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Topic: Are you a smoker?
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Randy Stankey
Film God
Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 04-19-2010 11:06 PM
My father was a smoker and an alcoholic. I can't remember a time when he didn't have a beer in one hand and a cigarette in another. I grew up in a bar. EVERYBODY around me smoked and drank. I didn't smoke because I thought it was "cool," per se. I just smoked because that's what everybody did. Smoking was "normal."
The only reason I didn't smoke till I was almost 18 is because the old man would have beat the shit out of me if he ever caught me. I mean that literally. It would have been a genuine ass-beating. I'm not joking. I had several ass beatings for more minor things.
I am aware of what it it like to be addicted. I have done just about every substance that doesn't take a needle to use. I was well on my way to becoming a multi-substance addict. I drank quite a bit and I smoked and popped pills almost every day.
I went to AA and NA. I had outpatient treatment. I did a short stint of inpatient treatment in a locked ward as well. I took individual psychotherapy and group therapy. I took pastoral counseling. I think I did just about everything.
There is physical addiction and there is psychological addiction. Both of those are easy to understand and, if you put your mind to it, they can be beaten. But the thing that is a real bitch to beat is neurochemical adaptation.
Neurochemical adaptation causes fundamental changes in the way you think and feel. It is not a physical drive to take drugs. It is not to satisfy a habit. You actually undergo personality changes when you use drugs and, the more you use drugs, the more pronounced those changes become.
You can be "off" drugs for years and still be under the influence of neurochemical adaptation. For heroine and nicotine, I think it can take ten years or more for your brain chemistry to normalize again. That is why people find it so hard to quit smoking or doing other drugs.
They don't understand neurochemical adaptation or they simply think that neurochemical adaptation is the same thing as psychological dependence. It is not. Doing drugs actually makes you become a different person. Once you realize that and learn to apply it to your own life, the rest of the habit becomes easy.
You can take anti-nicotine drugs and you can chew Nicorette or use other kinds of nicotine replacement. You can exercise and lose weight and do all sorts of things. But, unless and until you understand the third part of the puzzle, it's probably not going to make a lot of difference what you do.
Once I understood this and learned how it applied to me, everything else became easy. I thought, "How could I be so stupid?"
To be clear, the "weakling" comment was hyperbole. But there is still a grain of truth to it. You will NOT quit smoking until you understand what it is that keeps you smoking and you learn how to overcome it.
Smoking is a learned habit. To quit smoking, all you have to do is "unlearn" the habit. ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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Chad Souder
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 962
From: Waterloo, IA, USA
Registered: Feb 2000
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posted 04-20-2010 11:56 AM
Smoking tobacco, like every drug that is restricted today, had beneficial origins. The short-term benefits of nicotine include relaxation, appetite suppression, increased concentration and it is a laxative. Studies have shown long term benefits include protecting against Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Nicotine itself takes a good long while to become addicted to.
Fast forward to our tobacco companies mixing in things that speed up addiction, which add all sorts of nasty problems and causes people to want to smoke much more frequently. I don't smoke and I'm not condoning smoking. It does stink and leaves a mess. There are also the obvious disadvantages. Do the positives outweigh the negatives? I doubt it. But, as with every drug that is restricted, there are some medical benefits. The trick is, if your need for one of the benefits outweighs the potential hazards, to limit consumption and use as clean a product as possible. Having consideration for those around you that are bothered by it certainly wouldn't hurt either.
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Sean McKinnon
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1712
From: Peabody Massachusetts
Registered: Sep 2000
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posted 04-21-2010 10:48 AM
I dunno maybe I am not explaining my point properly here. I understand cigarettes kill more people annually than alcohol related death. However some people do die from alcohol related illness, and some peopel who have never had a drink die from it, or are negatively affected by someone else's drinking. I see it like the difference between a handgun and a sword. I am sure in today's day and age more people die every year from gun inflicted injuries than sword inflicted injuries but they are both weapons and they both kill albeit in different ways. It is possible to use both a handgun and a swords without killing anyone also. To me it is the same with nicotene and alcohol. They are both drugs, they are both addictive, they both lead to long term disease, and they both have the potential to harm others who do not use the substance.
As far as Joe's comments about alcoholism not being a disease I find it helpful to review the definition of what a disease is;
quote:
disease /dis·ease/ (dĭ-zēzī) any deviation from or interruption of the normal structure or function of any body part, organ, or system that is manifested by a characteristic set of symptoms and signs and whose etiology, pathology, and prognosis may be known or unknown.
By that definition alcoholism causes a documented change in the normal brain chemistry when someone who is an alcoholic drinks alcohol and alcoholism is defined by a characteristic set of symptoms whose pathology is well known and documented. Alcoholism is a progressive disease that leads to death if untreated. There is no cure for alcoholism or other forms of addiction but with treatment it is possible for the addicted person to remain substance free and to lead a happy, productive, and succesful life.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 04-21-2010 12:59 PM
Jonathan, your example is an sounds like an exception, not the rule. Further it doesn't quite make any sense. You're saying that smoking is outlawed indoors (including bars) in Ohio, yet some bars are deliberately letting their customers smoke anyway? If that's the case then Ohio must have some really lackluster regulation enforcement.
Here in Oklahoma, ABLE commission is at the other extreme. They're out constantly looking for bars that screw up and allow underage drinking, even to the point where ABLE pays underage minors to try to enter bars and buy a drink. With some bars unable to allow cigarette smoking due to their locations within a restaurant or hotel ABLE has added anti-smoking enforcement to the list of things they can use to bust bars and fine the living hell out of them. Consequently, bar operators usually don't screw around taking any chances. Most places have 100% ID checks. It doesn't matter if you look like you're 80 years old. If you don't have a valid ID you're not entering the bar.
quote: Sean McKinnon
I dunno maybe I am not explaining my point properly here. I understand cigarettes kill more people annually than alcohol related death. However some people do die from alcohol related illness, and some peopel who have never had a drink die from it, or are negatively affected by someone else's drinking. I see it like the difference between a handgun and a sword.
Annually, nearly 3 times as many Americans die of diseases stemming from second hand smoke than they do of diseases related to alcoholism. The total of second hand smoking deaths is still greater than the combined total of drunk driving deaths and deaths from long term alcoholism.
I agree alcohol abuse can lead to tragic consequences involving non-drinkers. It still doesn't make alcohol equally as bad or worse than cigarettes, especially when a greater number of non-smokers are dying as a result of exposure to second hand smoke.
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Jonathan Smith
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 201
From: Youngstown, OH
Registered: Jan 2010
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posted 04-21-2010 01:40 PM
You have to be exposed to smoke from several hundred thousand cigarettes, or more to die from it second hand.
Look at the people that are getting it first-hand from a half-a-million cigs before they die.
So, I think, in moderation, it's no worse than chomping on bubble gum or working around gasoline all day.
And, again, auto exhaust is worse for you, outdoors, than exposure to second hand is.
Indoors, it depends on the area. I've been in bowling alleys where you could have 1,000 people lit up and you couldn't tell the following day.
You shouldn't be allowed to smoke in booths, hospitals, little offices, but in a bowling alley, a bar that is 100% full of smokers nearly all of the time?
Come on.
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Jonathan Smith
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 201
From: Youngstown, OH
Registered: Jan 2010
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posted 04-21-2010 03:48 PM
Right on, Randy!
Hell, just the NAME "Kick ASS" used to be enough to get you shut down.
It used to be we had a thought/race/gender/tits police in this country.
Now it is the PC/health police.
I'll be God-damned if someone can PROVE that my smoking a cigarette, outside, is causing harm to someone next to me on any more of a level than the signal from their cell phone is irradiating my brain.
Eating a flame-broiled hamburger, or standing next to a burning candle is JUST AS BAD, I kid you not.
And all this crap about smoking harming the environment, cigarette ash is GOOD for the environment. Why do they thing that fire departments do CONTROLLED BURNS every year?
It's not just to cut down on excess brush, the flora grows back faster, stronger in areas that have burned down than it does in open fields.
I GUARANTEE that, 40 years from now, there is going to be as much crap about cell phones radiation, shielding, and signals as there is about cigs today.
I know, I know they serve and active purpose, but why is it all land lines now have to be cordless? Why can't you just get a 20 foot cord and quit spewing radiation all over the room every day?
People need to put things in perspective. Cigarettes, are they bad for you, sure!
But is second hand smoke bad, yes, as bad as a candle or incense, or a hamburger cooked over an open flame. Hell, ionization from a projector bulb is probably just as bad for your lungs.
Carbon arcs were worse. Nitrate was far worse.
What about the chemicals used to make film. Should film be banned because some idiots dump the silver-laced bleach and fixer down the drains instead of getting paid money by a company that will come and take it out?
Should film be banned so they can use all the silver to make a bunch of obsolescent BS computer equipment and coinage with it instead?
Every law, no matter how well intentioned, that is put on the books, serves to further restrict the fabric of our societies. There used to be TEN laws (and, no, I don't believe in God; I believe in common sense, human rights, and helping my fellow man). Now how many are there, ten million?
Some well-thinking person made crossing the fucking street except on a crosswalk illegal. He made sleeping off a few beers too many in your car a DUI (without the engine on). He made having an ashtray in a bar (without anyone smoking for years) a $150 fine in my state.
Randy has pointed out, quite wisely, that people ought to be held to their own common-sense to decide for themselves. Many bars and restaurants started enacting their OWN smoking bans in 2005 in this state.
Laws like this shouldn't be enacted to make up for the inadequacies or the underfunding of law-enforcement.
Each individual incident of public misbehavior needs to be evaluated individually, not with some broad-sweeping generalized BS law handed down from on high.
Is driving 110 MPH bad? Not if your wife needs a C-section and is dying. Not if you're late to your friends' funeral, or on a way to a wedding.
Is shooting someone of the opposite race to death bad? Not if he is in your home trying to rape your wife.
Is having an abortion bad? If your husband doesn't know anything about it, and is providing you with all the money you need, maybe it should be.
Sorry to get political, but this sort of excessive legislative posturing on here makes me sick. It reminds me of the song "Signs."
You can smoke weed indoors in California with a "prescription" (they ought to just legalize it and drop all the bribery and the facade already), but you can't smoke a cigarette in a bar full of other smokers, or in a stadium (or outside during the game, even with a ticket stub) that was 10% FINANCED by taxes on cigarettes.
Sorry to get worked up about this, I am not even a full time smoker, maybe 3-4 a MONTH, but I really resent people on this forum ranting on here about how OTHER PEOPLE should do this and that and that. Who do you think you are to think you can read someone else's mind, and judge them, punish them, when people are all just trying to get by, feel alright, be successful, and live comfortably?
There are, I think, evil people in this world, but so much of the tragedies in human history have come from simple misunderstandings, linguistic anomalies, superstition, that everyone ought to step back, take a deep breath and put theirselves in other people's shoes before they cast a stone.
Joe, if you have never been addicted to a drug, you have NO RIGHT to cast judgement on others that have. If you grew up in a home with smokers, or in the 1940s, or had the disposition that you enjoyed the smell of smoke (a lot of people do, I do) you could just-as-easily be a 2-pack-a-day smoker as anyone else on here.
I always try to give people, even those I don't see eye to eye, the benefit of the doubt because each of us are wired a little differently, have our own inclinations, but are basically good people at heart.
I've met very very few people in this life who are truly evil. Even people I hate, my worst enemies, I don't consider a single one of them evil, bad. They may be chronically misinformed, misbehaving, idiotic, or childish, but I can understand where they are coming from when they do things that make me see red.
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Joe Redifer
You need a beating today
Posts: 12859
From: Denver, Colorado
Registered: May 99
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posted 04-21-2010 04:32 PM
Jonathan, last I checked you did not write the Constitution so it would be ill-advised to claim what rights I have.
And by the way, I did grow up in a house of smokers. My mother and my grandmother got lung cancer. Both of my grandmothers, if fact. It killed them both. Heck, my grandfather died from emphysema due to smoking. I don't see where I am casting judgment, though. Maybe, due to your addiction (which, of course, absolves you of any and all responsibility), you are hallucinating text that isn't there in my posts? You're really grasping for straws here in your defense of smoking.
Like I said, it is an individual's choice if they want to smoke or not, I just wish that they didn't have any desire to smoke via their own free will. Nothing I say will make any smoker quit.
quote: Jonathan Smith
I GUARANTEE that, 40 years from now, there is going to be as much crap about cell phones radiation, shielding, and signals as there is about cigs today.
Probably not, as technology will improve.
quote: Jonathan Smith
Every law, no matter how well intentioned, that is put on the books, serves to further restrict the fabric of our societies.
So you believe in anarchy? Do you honestly believe our society would function well without any laws at all?
quote: Jonathan Smith
Is driving 110 MPH bad? Not if your wife needs a C-section and is dying. Not if you're late to your friends' funeral, or on a way to a wedding.
If you are late for a funeral or a wedding, it is your own tardy ass' fault in the first place for not managing your time correctly. Learn how to be on time. It is not an excuse for speeding and endangering others' lives. That's just stupid. Regardless, it certainly is bad if you get into a wreck and kill people while driving that fast. That's why you call for a police escort or the like.
quote: Jonathan Smith
Who do you think you are
The same can be asked of you.
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