<< Heroin and crack aren't LOLOL your previous posts of somewhat intelligent content has turned to complete lunatical drivelling now. >>
Funny, I thought that about you after the first! lol!
<< Heroin and crack aren't inherently evil, it's the character and maturity of the person that uses it that determines how dangerous they are... yet we illegalize them. >>
We agree! I'm no fan of the War Against Some Drugs. Tobacco is no different - nuff said.
<< LOL so how long does it take for this 'learning curve'? Tobacco has been used widely for almost 400 years, and it's people are still killing themselves... so obviously time doesn't play a factor here. >>
Smokers UNDERSTAND they are killing themselves = that's the learning curve. It is not a "free" pleasure, it comes with a price. Europeans didn't understand this for some time after tobacco was introduced into European society, it took awhile for the adverse effects of smoking to become obvious to them. Nobody was taking a toke and dropping dead. They were dropping dead 30+ years later, and since the effect is so far removed from the cause, it took them a while to realize that smoking was "bad". That's a "learning curve".
Mark Twain wrote a rather funny bit about antitobacco zealots in the 1860's, it begins:
"I don't want any of your statistics. I took your whole batch and lit my pipe with it. I hate your kind of people. You are always ciphering out how much a man's health is injured, and how much his intellect is impaired, and how many pitiful dollars and cents he wastes in the course of ninety-two years' indulgence in the fatal practice of smoking; and in the equally fatal practice of drinking coffee; and in playing billiards occasionally; and in taking a glass of wine at dinner, etc., etc., etc."
Hmm, antitobacco statistics in 1865!! Odd, for a society that, according to money-grubbing antitobacco lawyers, only recently 'discovered' tobacco was bad because tobacco companies said it wasn't.
Of course, Twain wasn't denying that tobacco was harmful, what he was saying was 'MIND YOUR OWN F-CKING BUSINESS'. If people want to kill themselves in manners of decadence or indulgence such as eating eggs and bacon, drinking coffee, sky-diving, hanging from cliffs, racing cars around in a circle at 200MPH, punching each other's lights out inside a ring, its nobody's business or place to tell them how to live their life.
I agree that there should be a priority on being fully informed. Smoking is addictive, and its harmful to your health. If that's ok with you, light up! Its your life. But, don't go suing anyone when you get lung cancer, just as we wouldn't tolerate a motorcross racer suing if they were paralyzed in an accident. Well, some would tolerate it (trial lawyers mainly), but most wouldn't.
<< Well, i should rewrite that... people that drink alcohol REGULARLY will build up a tolerance of it and get progressively worst. But tobacco is so much more insidious than alcohol... the effects are mild, so one doesn't see the addictive nature of it until they are addicted. >>
So, alcoholics see the addictive nature of alcohol before they are addicted? That would be the logical deduction that could be made from your statement that cigarette smokers don't know they're addicted, until they are addicted, and that's why nicotine is bad, whereas alcohol isn't so bad. That pretty much describes EVERY addictive substance (which is part and parcel of the reason they are addicting).
The very fact that a person would find themselves having a desire to eat, drink, smoke, more should be their first clue. Again, that's what "limits" are about. If you have none, then you're not going to notice that you're having a desire to engage in an activity more and more, because there is no frame of reference for "more". More than what?
<< Of course the desire to smoke was his motivation... but was it an 'overindulgence' as you claim? >>
If he was going a few days between a cigarette, his physiologic addiction to nicotine was likely broken. As quickly as nicotine is addicting, its refractory dependence remediation is equally as fast. That is a basic law of any substance which acts upon the brain. Fast acting = fast remediation. Slow acting = slow remediation. Nicotine potentiates dependence very quickly. On the rebound, that dependence remediates very quickly.
It was more likely his psychological addiction he was having problems keeping in check, which is not uncommon for those with addictive propensities. We won't discuss psychological addiction, because that really has nothing to do with the issue at hand with nicotine - chemical addiction. People can get psychologically addicted to any thing. It sounds as though your friend had other issues going in his life than just attempting to quit smoking.
<< Having a cigarette once every couple of days? The motivation to smoke isn't for a 'me want' factor, but to alleviate a physical and mental anguish. Almost all behavior is to a certain extent a selfish behavior, but there's a difference from gaining something positive from removing something negative. According to you, everything would be a 'me want' factor. When i cook dinner, i have a motivation to satisfy something within myself. When i go see a movie, that's a 'me want' factor. Hell, when i take a dump, that's a 'me want' factor as well. >>
Not really, except for the movie part. Your choice of food is the "me want", not your hunger, if we're truly talking about hunger eating vs. pleasure or stress eating. Pleasure or stress eating is all about "me want", which is misguided into a potentially harmful behavior (just like all addictions). You've got an itch you don't know how to scratch, in a manner of speaking, so you find a pretty good surrogate.
<< Oh please, what kind of idiotic statement is this. Psychotic and should be incarcerated because of an addiction? What kind of behavorial/cognitive credibility do you have to make such moronic statements? >>
He couldn't control his actions or decisions, correct? Anyone who cannot control their actions or decisions is obviously insane. I agree that nobody should be put in jail until they harm others or break the law, there are lots of crazy people walking around who aren't really a danger to anyone. Its not against the law to be crazy. We've got a few lunies in my community, but they're for the most part harmless (at least they have been thus far).
<< According to this logic, your grandfather is psychotic and should be incarcerated as well... he rolled his own cigarettes from the time he was 12 until he died at 87 from a heart attack, and you say that's not an addiction? His body just had a lower tolerance for nicotine, so he didn't need as much of it to reach the same level of pleasure as somebody who may have needed 10. >>
My grandfather controlled himself just fine. He went days without smoking and it never bothered him that I could tell. The lower tolerance excuse doesn't cut it.
As I said earlier, I have a friend who smokes cigarettes in the same manner. He changes to cigars or pipes from time to time. The first time I saw him smoke a cigarette it sort of surprised me, and I mentioned that I didn't know he smoked. He responded, "I don't smoke a lot, just every now and then." I asked how long he has been smoking "every now and then", thinking he must have recently started. He responded, "Oh, maybe 20 years."
At the time, I was as mislead as you are about smoking and addiction. I asked, 'how can you do that? Don't you get urges to smoke more?' He said (paraphrased, I wasn't taking notes, but the discussion went like this): "Oh, I could smoke a pack a day easily. I used to smoke about a pack a day for a few years, then I quit for awhile because my wife hates smoking and nagged me to death. But, I really like smoking, so we compromised; I wouldn't let it become a full-time habit again, and she wouldn't nag me to death about it."
Now that got me to thinking about my grandfather a lot and how he "didn't smoke much" either, as well as a few pipe and cigar smokers I've known who "didn't smoke much" either, and it changed my thoughts about the matter. Clearly, he derives as much pleasure from smoking as anyone. If he didn't, he wouldn't smoke. He confirmed he has urges to smoke more, but he set limits and stuck to them. Restraint is one of those things that is just an absolute mystery to those who have none.
Every honest former addict I've ever talked with said they went through all the 'motions' of quitting, made all of the requisite 'pledges' that courts, counselers, or family members wanted them to make, did all the 'affirmations', but they did NOT really want to quit, and so they "relapsed". They were just fooling everyone, including themselves, because its a lot easier to work with the system than against it. You'll get out faster so you can get high again if you jump through all their hoops the way they want.
When they finally WANTED to quit, it was not nearly as difficult for them to do so. In fact, every ex-smoker I've talked with has said something similar. When they made up their minds, when they were finally serious about it, they quit. My mother quit smoking after many unsuccessful attempts. She had nearly given up quitting because it was so tough.
One morning she woke up and had a spastic coughing spell, she hacked up a huge amount of brown smoker's phlem and nearly choked on it. That was it, she threw her cigarettes, every ash-tray and lighter in the garbage, and never picked up another cigarette. She made my father smoke in the garage, which he wasn't too happy about.
I became addicted to Vicodin after a shoulder injury. I have a high addiction potential to narcotics. Narcotics don't affect everyone the same way. Narcotics make some people nauseous, 'uncomfortable', 'spacey', lethargic. Those people have a low addiction potential to narcotics because they simply don't like how they feel on them. Not me, narcotics make me feel on top of the world - like a million bucks.
When my primary refused to prescribe any more and would only prescribe non-narcotic Darvocets, I thought 'screw that!' and went to another doctor who would prescribe Vicodin (being in the medical field, I had connections). When I finally realized, 'holy cow I'm addicted to these things', I stopped right then. Was it easy? No, I had been taking them for 4 months, it wasn't easy.
Remember my six-month long depression where I rarely ventured out of my apartment? I wasn't exaggerating. I didn't even clean much during that time, my apartment was a freaking MESS! I didn't shave, I would go three days between showers, I wouldn't answer the phone. I worried my poor mother so much that she hopped on an airplane, which she hates to fly, and flew 2500 miles just to see if I was still alive. I convinced her everything was ok and apologized for worrying her, even though she knew I wasn't "ok", but at least I was still alive, so she grudgingly went back home. I continued to live like this for another two months.
How did I get over this, did I run to the doctor for drugs? Nope. I realized 'Holy Sh-t! I have only been out of my apartment 10 times in the last six freaking months! My apartment looks like a crack house, and I smell bad. This isn't right. I can't live like this.'
I immediately started cleaning, and cleaning (including myself), and once that was done, I got my ass out and found a job.
These stories are legion. Of course, so are the stories of people who claim they "can't" help it. Who are we to believe, the HONEST former smokers and addicts who say they tried to quit many times but couldn't, because they really didn't want to quit bad enough, or they weren't really serious enough about it, but when they finally were, they quit? Or those who try to hide behind some excuse?
If you want to believe the latter, fine. We disagree. Its really about who you want to believe.
Nobody can change their life until their attraction to the result (benefit) is greater than their aversion to the effort (cost), or until their aversion to their current situation is greater than their aversion to change. WHERE EVER we find someone whose aversion to their current situation is GREATER than their aversion to change, we find - without fail - RESULTS. And this includes the addict, anyone who claims otherwise is pulling your chain.
If you want to be an "enabler" or "facilitator" of excuses, that's your business.
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