Smoking and Autism

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Another ex-smoker who has no intention of lecturing or berating you Of course I was fully aware of the dangers, just as I also fully understand how it helped you. I vape now, drooped to no nicotine over the years, these days the gesture itself and playing with the e-cig is like a form of stimming for me, it still helps me relax and cope better in stressful situations.

One of the nice things about vaping is that instead of having people hate the way you smell, everybody wants to stay close to you because some e-juices smell so good

Something amusing I noticed is how often the most aggressive, hectoring anti-smokers have some pretty nasty and unhealthy habits themselves, oh the irony

OP I still smoke and have done for way too long. I've given up a few times but ultimately start again. If you give up for long enough to fully get over the cravings you may come to realise how offensive the smell of cigarette smoke is to a non-smoker. I feel the extreme reactions of some people are fully valid and should not be ignored.

Nicotine has some benefits if taken in small doses, as do most things, it's the tar and toxic chemicals produced by combustion that will mess you up. If you can give up, do, find out how to get nicotine medication in a different form.

I find that discussions concerning issues like smoking flame easily, because people get so defensive both ways. When people feel they need to defend their position, they are prone to attack the other party. This attack is perpetrated often by linking totally unrelated things like personality characters to the choices under discussion (for example non-smokers are pictured as boring hypocrites and smokers as weak minded). But in this case if you do X, Y will not follow. Smoking doesn't attribute you with coolness and non-smoking doesn't attribute you with boredom.

And lastly back to the original question: I do not see a link of any kind between autism and smoking. Smoking might offer for some stimming opportunities or relief of some kind, but so do many things. These things were very likely a by-product of a choice that in the beginning based solely on other things, since at least the effects of smoking can't be a part of the personal experience before you even have started smoking.

Another former smoker who won't knock you for doing it. Truth is, I'd go back to it in a second if it weren't for the health risks.

The days, I use nicotine lozenges, which have some of calming, emotion-leveling effects of cigarettes.

I think there really is something to what you said about the beneficial effects of nicotine. I really can't survive without it because my emotions go out of control. With it, I can keep from melting down.

i've been thinking the last few days that one of the reasons I miss cigarettes is that you can use them to dose yourself right when you need it. Wham, the nicotine goes right to your brain. I struggle throughout the day with anxiety and emotional dysregulation. It used to be that when I got a pang of anxiety or started getting upset over something, I'd just light up and the bad feelng would go away.

When I was in my 20's, I remember watching a fellow worker, an NT, start smoking -- something that doesn't of course usually happen at that age. Before he started, he was twitchy and anxious. After, he was laid back, mellow, and cool. Also, smoking makes you more outgoing, great for someone who's socially phobic like me, and helps with boredom, which is great if like me you're also a bit ADHD.

I'm not going to go back to it because of the health risks, but I can't say that I regret having done it, or that I don't miss cigarettes when I get upset. Given the consequences it doesn't make sense for most people, but I was struggling to the extent that I think it made sense for me. Of course I'd like to live a long life, but if you're paralyzed with anxiety and meltdowns, what good is that?

Human lungs and smoke are not a match.
Human brains on the other hand like to be stimulated. It is an interesting dilemma

I don't smoke anything nor drink alcohol.
I am not better than those that choose other wise.

Sugar and salt also trigger human brains.
I was pretty much sugar free for 11 years and last November broke it. Attempting to taper down. May go cold turkey soon.

I've mentioned this a few times before, but I've never smoked. Unless you count all the times it was second-hand from other people when I was a kid.

Of course, everything else I do and don't do is sending me to an early grave, so why should I end it even faster by smoking?

I don't drink alcohol, either. I know you're supposed to drink a little of it each day to be healthy, but I just can't. The medication I'm already on could drop a horse, anyway.

As a moral issue or personal habit, I think every perspective on smoking has been expressed a zillion times squared ad nauseam and there seems nothing new at all to add to that dialogue.

There is another conversation perhaps to smoking + autism, with less explored nuances and contextualisation. Smoking in relation to autism and whether the incidence rates are different from NT populations has not (as far as I know right now) been researched. Perhaps it should be, if only because for both populations it is a public health issue. The question then becomes: are there different factors (or not) in operation for different populations?

If smoking didn't raise the neurotransmitter dopamine, I speculate that hardly anyone at all would smoke at all. We know what dopamine's general function in human life is: it's the reward neurotransmitter, and plays a vital role for the species. Possibly no-one would have the motivation to do anything if it didn't exist, and we would die out as a species.
We are motivated to do things that feel good, and dopamine release feels good. Of all substances which can be ingested or inhaled to raise dopamine levels, smoking is probably the fastest.

We also know (one can speculate as to whether the two are related or not) that depressed and anxious people, people with histories of childhood abuse (including emotional and psychological abuse, not just sexual and physical forms) are more likely to become smokers, and that humans are not all born equal with the same natural levels of the major neurotransmitters. Some have a deficit in one or the other or more than one.

Some seem to have no innate deficiency of any of the major neurotransmitters. However levels at birth are only a predisposition, because levels change over time and in interaction with the environment; there are daily variations.

These speculations only scratch the surface, I think, of a much more complex and contextualised issue of AS and addiction generally: are process and substance addiction profiles and incidences the same or different across the two populations? How many addictions of either kind might the 'average' NT have vis a vis the 'average' AS person? And if there is a true difference, has it arisen from environmental factors (eg bullying and PTSD say) or innate factors, or an interplay of the two? Why are some individuals in a population more affected than other members of the same population?

We don't know, because (once again) the studies haven't been done. We have only our personal experience and observations of others to base those speculations on. Nothing in AS is ever as simple as it looks, it seems to me.
There are huge gaps in the knowledge and context.

I know of one small study in the literature from some years back. ASD subjects were less likely to smoke than the general population and the psychiatric population. I'm not surprised that more studies haven't been conducted since most research doesn't focus on those who can smoke anyway.



This sounds like an interesting research project for some autistic scientist. I've heard that addictions are common among those on the spectrum, but I've never seen a source given. I wish there were more pathways into research so that autistic people could be better represented.

Anecdotally, I've noticed a great deal of smoking amongst inpatient outpatient people with psychiatric disorders (e.g., schizophrenia).

Let's suppose that was confirmed - with the correlation we still wouldn't know whether that was an outcome of the intense and widespread marginalisation and exclusion they experience (far greater than AS people do, and ours is bad enough at the current stage of social evolution). The correlation wouldn't necessarily be illness related, though we could safely bet our bottom dollars on that's how it would be reported and accepted without any questions being raised.

True, but that's just a***holes. They just happen to be a***holes who smoke. The same pattern of behaviour could be applied to people who get on the train, start eating something that smells obnoxious when everyone else is trapped in there with the stench and may be prone to motion sickness already, then get off and leave all their trash from the food all over the seats.
That sort of behaviour I just view as inconsiderate, and it really sh!ts me. It's a mildly sociopathic disregard for other people that isn't confined to smoking, but really shows up more obviously in that instance.

VisInsitas, good assessment.

B19 seems to be one of the few constructive people here while others just tend to use strawmen or try to derail the thread. Those trying to derail it only comment on how objectionable they find smoking to just say something. This thread is about the effects of nicotine on people on the spectrum and not whether you object to smoking. I want to hear whether smoking or vaping has a positive effect on the psyche of auties.

Btw, I think there was a study on it and it lessened the frequency of anxiety attacks andeltdowns among more severely affected subject sensory wise.

Like putting chewing gum in inappropriate pubic places (footpaths, furniture) and the disgusting habit of spitting in the street or any other public place.. repulsive and anti-social behaviours that actually upset me more than smoking.

so far so good, but dragging in labels as antisocial behaviour is a very dangerous new-word-order representation,
who's the judge of what, being judgemental is a temptation not a goal

OP, I did find this abstract about an exploratory study re smoking incidence in ASD and other populations:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 8103001239

I re read the OP

Smoking can calm folks down whether NT or AS.
Which at first is weird since it is in the amphetamine class

2 things might be happening
1 is that some meds affect people differently. Most get munchies or calm on weed. A few get the opposite - not hungry and aggressive.

The second is when you give your body something it is missing that it is used to and craves or "nics", your system gets "satisfied and calm"

Just my 2 cents in the 5 A. M. Hour.