Why do people still smoke?

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mutual reinforced judgemental virtuesignalling , yeay great way to go
the righteous usefull youknowwhat's;

Its a horrible habit i know and yes i do smoke. Actually forced myself at school to try and fit in as everyone was. It is potentially more addictive than heroin, so isn't that easy to stop, but can understand why a none smoker would see the illogic in this, then add being on the spectrum where in effect it becomes a form of stim as well.. Double paradox.

I tried smoking when I was 12 just to impress my older brother and his mates. I sat with them often and smoked, enough to get hooked. But I didn't get hooked. I thought about my lungs, and I thought, "do I really need to do this for the rest of my life?" So I just said that I didn't like smoking, and I've never touched a cigarette since.
I was just a child, and I had low self-esteem and no confidence whatsoever, but it still wasn't hard to just say no more and not get hooked.

Most smokers blame their parents for smoking, because their parents smoked while bringing up their kids. Well, my mum's parents smoked too, but my mum and her brother never smoked a cigarette in their lives and are grossed out by it. And my grandmother gave up smoking in her 40s, and has never smoked since.

So it CAN be done, if you really wanted to and you put your mind to it. All it takes is will power.

I don't get it either. People say they start because of peer pressure and I know other kids or adults might try to make you feel bad for not smoking or drinking or doing drugs and try and convince you why it's fine and find justifications like someone in this thread did for that old man who heavily smoked and lived for 98 years.

I think smoking in your house with kids or around them should be considered child abuse. So any kid that smells like cigarette smoke would call CPS and they come and they see smoke in the walls and their whole house smells like it and bam kids are taken. Now the parent would have to change their smoking habit or quit smoking and clean their house now to get rid of the second hand smoke. Can't afford it, they should have thought of that before having kids. Harsh, oh yeah but I am sick and tired of hearing about parents smoking around their children and hearing about them suffering like someone mentioned in this thread about someone they knew in Junior high. Don'y these parents have any respect for their kids and they care more about their habit than their children? ell yeah smoking around them and in your home and in your car should be child abuse.

Yes, i agree somewhat... I can understand if you dont smoke why you dont get it but even though i do i am very self conscious of it, i will move away from people and certainly dont around children... When you are stuck 7 days a week in boarding school and you are everyone's target and punch bag you will often go to extreme lengths to fit in! Even if it is just a little.
I was an athlete when younger and even when trying to smoke i would feel like throwing up after... But then finally the addiction kicked in.

Lots of smokers I known started when they were kids & lots of kids do things not considering the health effects.

I smoke because of stress and anxiety and because i don't have anything else to do sometimes.

I dont know but my hypothesis is it is not only the addiction that one has difficulty with but has also become a form of a stim... Double whamy!

Knew health benefits, but surviving in an environment where you are around people 24/7 became a matter of survival to fit in just a little... Both could have perceptions of negative health benefits there.

That sounds about right! I've been trying to quit for a long time now but there's just too much stress in my life right now..

I started as a teen because it was something to do with my hand in public besides stim with my hair or my hands.At that time it was socially excepted and most of the other kids smoked.Now it's an addiction.Usually I buy organic tobacco, at least I'm not inhaling the junk they add to cigs.
I also had an ancient relative that smoked like a steam engine with no ill effects,he was almost a hundred when he died and it wasn't from cigarettes.Other than smoking he had no bad habits.Always an exception to the rule.

It doesn't necessarily have a damn thing to do with addiction. For some of us, it's a nervous stim, a "fiddlestick."

I smoked from the age of 14 and I've never had a craving for nicotine in my entire life, not once. In the 1990s, when employers started insisting smokers step outside the building to indulge, I merely left mine at home, and confined my smoking to the evening hours, after work. Did I go into withdrawal convulsions during working hours due to the lack of nicotine? Nope. Never gave it a second thought. I just enjoy having the object in my fingers and inhaling the tasty smoke. That's all. Wonder what's so great about it? Only one way to find out.

In fact, since switching to the E-cig and vaping, I've reduced the level of nicotine to 0%, but I'll never stop, because I ENJOY the activity and it keeps me from tearing the heads off judgemental schmucks who feel sanctimoniously obligated to look down their noses at those whose behaviors don't match their own. You do realize that you're acting just like the NTs who bully and oppress the autistic for being different? Mind your own damn business, you behavior snobs.

Health isn't even a concern. Smoking is no less unhealthy than drinking carcinogenic diet sodas by the caseful and I've known several nonsmokers who do that. Why don't you waste your time preaching at the millions of fatass diabetics who will die of heart attacks and kidney failure because of their lifestyle behaviors? Or the functional alcoholics, ruining their livers and crashing into innocents with their vehicles? Or the tea-totalers killing strangers by texting and driving?

The connection between smoking and lung cancer has always been tenuous at best - there still has been no study that established exactly HOW smoking causes lung disease, and when statistics are compiled, they include people like my own grandad, who quit smoking at 35 and died of lung cancer at 88. They say your lungs are clear 7 years after quitting. What the hell happened? Or was there no real connection at all? But you can rest assured, when the statistics are compiled, he'll be part of the PROOF that smoking causes lung cancer.

By the way, I read a study in 1998 that pipe smokers (who don't inhale into the lungs, but still absorb nicotine through the mucous membranes around the tongue) actually have a mortality rate 2% LOWER than non-smokers, probably due to the relaxing ritual of filling a bowl, tamping it down, carefully lighting it, and gently puffing away (and it's aromatherapy - pipe smoke smells great). Beautiful handmade briar root or meerschaum pipes are fascinating art objects to collect, as well.

And, by the way, the secondhand smoke argument has been repeatedly debunked (as if I weren't living proof, coming from an era when ALL adults smoked, and kids like me grew up riding around in smoked-filled cars, windows rolled up, and four or five grownups all puffing away - not only did I not die of lung cancer at 13, like I should have, I'm 58 and still healthy as a horse).

Bottom line, stop swallowing Social Activist propaganda. Just because you saw it on TV or read it online don't make it so, no matter how convincing it sounded. In 1970, Junior Scholastic Magazine, distributed to all US schools, did an entire issue on how the whole planet would be encased in glaciers, as the Earth plunged into a new Ice Age, by the year 2000, due to CO2 emissions.

"researchers say" is not PROOF of Jack-Diddly-Squat.

Try concentrating on your own life and stop obsessing on what other people choose to do with their lives and bodies, which is none of your damn business. Turn that judgmental focus on what YOU'RE doing to YOURSELF that might be considered stupid or unhealthy. Like sticking your nose into places where it might get bitten off.

I don't mean to sound alienating but I still don't really understand because my family has it's fair share of substance abuse issues and my reaction has always been "Well, I'm not touching that stuff!" So someone knows there is a tendency for addition to a particular substance in their family, and knows it causes more problems than it solves, I don't understand why they would try it themselves.

addicted, I am trying to work on cutting down though...I was going to get a nicotine vape, with a built in tank that doesn't leak and see if that helps me cut down. Also there are some nicotine pouches you can put in your mouth that don't have tobacco, I tried one out and that one was kind of strong but I think they have one with less nicotine. Compared to a lot of people who smoke cigarettes I don't really smoke that many but its hard for me to entirely go without them. I find my addiction to caffeine to be more severe as I get a terrible headache if I go without caffeine...if I go without cigarettes I just feel very fidgety and can get frustrated more easily. But I think it is more the nicotine than cigarettes themselves.


And I kind of hope maybe me and my boyfriend can both reduce smoking, he smokes a lot more but he's expressed at least wanting to cut down...so we could support each others efforts.

If you're directing this at me, since I started the topic -

Fair enough. And if you'd learn to read, you would see that I have found out. I used to smoke.

Here we go. I was waiting for someone to go off the deep end and start getting ultra-defensive and nasty. If this is directed at me, please read my posts first. I have noted form the beginning of this topic that I am not against people smoking. People can do whatever they like. I even mentioned that I work with someone who smokes, and who smokes around me, and I don't mind. Before you get on your own high horse and start defensively attacking people, please learn reading comprehension. I was simply curious about this topic, as there is a big concern with many people about the health risks. Some people may be in denial about this, but medical research argues to the contrary. But if you want to believe it's healthy that's entirely up to you. I'm not passing judgement on anyone, for doing anything.

Yep, soft drinks are definitely bad for you. I used to drink heaps of this before I really realized just how bad it is, and now I only drink it once a week, when I visit someone who really likes it and drinks it all the time, and wants to share. I don't preach at anyone. You however may benefit from thinking twice before insulting people for their disease. Many diabetics have this disease for many reasons, including being born with it, not just because they're "fatass." And I was an alcoholic. Believe me, I know very well how unhealthy that habit is, as it nearly killed me!

Yah, relaxation has definitely been indicated for good health and longevity. However there has also been some correlation between pipe smoking and tongue, throat and mouth cancers. Inhaling isn't necessarily required for some health negatives to be indicated. I haven't really looked into pipes as a collector's item, but can see how they have a certain charm for some.

I really hope you're right about that! I get so paranoid about it, but don't want to be rude around people who smoke and be all precious about it as it it's sarin gas.

Medical research can definitely be wrong. We have ample proof of that. But the health risks around smoking aren't just "propaganda." It's common knowledge now. And many people (including me) have known people who have died bad deaths directly because they smoked (emphysema).

I'm not obsessing. Trust me, you'd know if I was obsessing. It was just a question, to ask why people engage in this behaviour when from my perspective it was dangerous and bewildering. And again, learn to read. I never claimed it was my business, or passed judgement on anyone. If you're this defensive about it, you may gain some insight examining why that it. Why does someone asking a question make you defensive and unpleasant, and feel the need to attack other people for things that may not be their fault (like your diabetic argument)? I have more than enough awareness of my own bad habits, and remedying those - as I said, I was an alcoholic, and have been sober a few years now. I am capable of understanding my own self-destructiveness.
Perhaps you should be looking at your own behahviour, and whether or not it is ever justified biting someone's nose off just for starting a topic in a spirit of inquiry.

They smoke because the placebo effect is working too strong for them. To become addicted to cigarettes a person has to force itself to do it, then they unconsciously are programming their brains to associate it with a pleasure. If a person is really going to quit, then it has to do anything as possible to quit it. The other cause is laziness or a comfort, cause it is much more comfortable to develop the habit than to break it. If anyone comes back to thing that makes them addicted, then no wonder they cannot quit it. It requires to be always 100% clean of the habit and not to do it even, if a person has 10 minutes of life left, before their death.