Responsibility and Smoking
Well, as many people know, I’m a smoker, and I don’t like it.
I currently smoke half a pack a day, which is down from a full pack each day for nine years as of a month ago. I have tried quitting many times, but have failed just as many times. The most recent attempt, though, has helped me to cut down drastically, and I have maintained that reduced level quite well.
I recently told someone of my intent to quit smoking, and he promptly took the opportunity to tell me (in far more words than I’m telling you) that his grandfather had died from cigarettes. He also made it very clear that it was cigarettes, and not smoking, which killed his grandfather.
Well, as I just went out to relieve some cravings, I started thinking about what I was told. This person blamed his grandfather’s death on cigarettes, as though the cigarettes were among the most vile and evil creations in existence. Usually, when someone is explaining how a ‘thing’ is evil, I take a step back to actually examine this ‘thing’ to see just how evil it is. Yes, nicotine is a poison which alters the brain chemistry of humans pretty dramatically. Yes, inhaling smoke of any kind increases your chances of getting cancer. Yes, carbon dioxide, also found in any type of smoke, is also dangerous in relatively small doses. Yes, the various other chemicals found in cigarette smoke cause arterial hardening, increase blood pressure, and have been proven to very drastically increase a person’s chances of a heart attack.
But, the cigarette itself is not evil.
It does not have motives. It can not choose to be smoked or not. It does not have the ability to have a consciousness, so then, how could the cigarette be evil?
Well, if I asked this person those same questions, he would probably get very angry at me, because I would be implying that his grandfather killed himself. I don’t know much about this person’s grandfather, but I do know that if a person where to stick a knife through his own heart, the act would certainly be considered suicide.
Today, we have enough knowledge to realize that if you smoke cigarettes, you are increasing your chances of contracting a smoking related illness, and possibly even dieing from that illness. Unfortunately, most people who smoke started before they had realized their own mortality, so the likelihood of death doesn’t affect them nearly as much as social pressures, such as from the media telling us how bad it is, (which makes it mysterious and enticing to those who do not realize their mortality) and from peers who want to strengthen their social status and validate their own choices by making others imitate them. (Quick tangent: I believe that educating people about the immediate, guaranteed effects of tobacco would go much further to decrease the rate of new smokers, than trumpeting the possible (but not guaranteed) long term effects.)
What that means is that I am committing suicide, or at least increasing my chances that I will die earlier than if would if I had never smoked.
That’s right. I’m responsible for smoking, not the cigarettes.
That also means that, since I’m not being influenced by an outside source, I have the power to quit. Of course, I still have to go through an adjustment in my brain chemistry, which isn’t nearly as pleasurable as the first adjustment I went through as I was becoming addicted, but I still have the power of choice, because I have to make a choice every time I pick up a cigarette.
I do also want to add that, just because I have the ability to choose to smoke or not, does not make it any less of an addiction. For those who have never smoked, imagine having an itch. The natural response is to scratch it and forget about it. Imagine if scratching that itch is causing you damage, even though it relieves the discomfort momentarily. In fact, it is scratching that is causing the itch to develop about an hour later. If you don’t scratch, the itch gets worse and worse, and your subconscious mind knows exactly how to get rid of the itching: you scratch it. Few people live consciously enough to keep their subconscious minds from making that scratch, and so an addiction is born. It can not be helped to smoke, even though there is a choice to smoke individual cigarettes. The choice to be a smoker is never made, though.
I’m going to keep this post short, because I have a new book sitting at home by Allen Carr. Hopefully it will help. If so, it will probably be the first book that I review on this blog. 
Hi Adam, I’m a smoker too (currently from, like, two cigarettes a day to upward of half a pack). If you need support, let me know. I’m battling this same exact demon as well.
=^..^= * c o u g h *
Thank you very much for the support.
I have set a date when my last cigarette is going to be… Friday will be the end of it all.
I have read Allen Carr’s book The Easy Way to Quit Smoking, and it pointed out quite a few things that I have been doing wrong in the past. Whenever I would try to quit before, I would cut down just before. This has the opposite effect of making each cigarette even more precious to my subconscious mind, which of course makes it harder to quit. Also, Allen Carr talks about how just one cigarette is the bane of every attempt to quit smoking. Finally, whenever I have actually succeeded in quitting smoking, I’ve been waiting for that moment when I become a non-smoker… The moment is when you put out the last cigarette, and it doesn’t feel any different from being a smoker, except that the cravings start to go away.
Finally, instead of feeling like you are giving up smoking, it is important to look at it as though you are freeing yourself from smoking. The nicotine doesn’t give you any pleasure, it simply takes pleasure away from your future… much like a person wearing tight shoes in order to feel the pleasure of taking them off. Right after you smoke is when you feel ‘normal.’ At least, you feel as normal as your poison infected body can feel, which as a person smokes more and more, it becomes worse and worse.
Well, I need to take this week to get back up to a pack-a-day smoker, so that I don’t feel deprived as I’m waiting for the next cigarette, so that when I do quit Friday night, I’ll have a realistic view of exactly what I’ll no longer be missing.