Why do people still smoke?

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I've recently been around someone who smokes at least 25 cigarettes a day.
She is an intelligent, hard-working, friendly, twenty-something woman. She hopes to have a baby with her husband.
And yet she continues to smoke like there's no tomorrow.
I just don't get it. How can people keep doing this, when the health risks are so well known and accepted?
I'm not even asking from ignorance - I smoked for a while late teens/early twenties, mostly because kids then smoked because they wanted to look cool, and because I couldn't think of anything else to do at parties I stupidly attempted to tolerate except smoke on people's porches.
Studies claim people keep smoking even though they know they're killing themselves just straight out because of addiction. But this hardly seems like enough of a reason. I quit myself and it was no big deal. Just as I did heavy alcohol, and years of benzodiazapines and painkillers. Withdrawal is uncomfortable, no denying that. But you know you have to give it up because it's killing you. Withdrawal is temporary. It's like a cold or flu - you accept you're going to feel like garbage for a few weeks, but then you'll be ok.
I suppose it makes sense for people who want to die / don't care if they live, but the woman in question does not want to die, and wants to live enough to start having babies.
The more I consider these kinds of habits, the less sense it makes. Especially smoking, as this seems to be the highest risk factor and the most common. It seems like lately, everywhere I look people are smoking away.
How can this behaviour be justified? Just curious (and baffled).

They smoke for the nicotine which they are addicted to. Better question is why smokers don't switch to E-cigarettes.

they enjoy it.

when people stop smoking they will not die?

what high risks? one may die when opening their fridge or while riding a bicycle


this man in the video was never seen without a cigarette in his mouth, even during this long interview. he lived 98 years





i don't smoke. it tastes bad

Even worse, I still see people buy and use chewing tobacco and either spit around outside work areas or carry a spit / chew bottle or empty soda bottle.

It's particularly weird to me because my grandpa did this until he got throat cancer which killed him.

I guess all I can think of is people use weird habits to cope with stress or their jobs or both. My grandpa was a WW2 Marine who fought in the Pacific and maybe he used both alcohol and nicotine as some weird distraction from bad memories.

Otherwise, I do think a lot of people have to put up with dumb s**t in their jobs and generally caffeine and nicotine are the main legal drugs you can consume at work unless also taking a prescription. Maybe this is all a flawed attempt and self medicating away a feeling of work drudgery.

I don't understand the mentality of smoking either. I tried smoking when I was 12, just to impress my older brother and his mates, but I didn't fall addicted to it.

Many smokers say smoking is like an antidepressant, but I think that is just an excuse. Also it has a placebo effect on people. It's a stupid way to deal with your problems. I'm one of the most anxious, stressy people out there, but I don't smoke. Or drink.

Also smokers develop such an irritating, loud cough. And when they keep coughing, they blame everything but smoking.

I just wish there was another way people can insert nicotine into their bodies without having to breathe in harmful chemicals into their poor lungs.

Because having a lack of regard for your own personal health makes you a "tough guy". But that only really applies to smoking, drinking, and maybe gambling. If you eat junk food at all then you're nothing but a disgusting pig who will get diabetes or have a heart attack. Never mind that smoking and drinking can also cause those same things.

Smoking has decreased quite a bit, but that's mainly because tobacco is incredibly expensive and public smoking is banned everywhere, at least in my country.

In the group I used to live in, however, nearly all the other residents smoked like chimneys and the choking and coughing coming from them was horrible. One guy I remember would get beet red in the face from choking so much. Most of the other residents had schizophrenia so nicotine supposedly relieved their symptoms and the staff seemed to encourage them to smoke. They had an indoor smoking room where they *thought* it wouldn't taint the rest of the house. And there must have been billions of cigarette butts tossed outside, but the staff mostly would just clean them up. If only the nicotine was supposed to ease schizophrenia symptoms why didn't the staff just get them to wear patches instead?

They do - it's called nicotine patches and nicotine gum. It's more than just the nicotine - it's everything that surrounds it - the lighting up, the smoke, smell, taste. I've watched several Intervention shows and the drug addicts are hooked on what's involved in getting the drug ready, the needles, the flashback of blood in the syringe. When I drank alcohol, a lot of what I miss is what I did around the drinking - I have this really cool globe bar with all the extras of crystal glasses, decanters, special wine thingies to put air into the wine, little jewelry that I put on my wine glasses, a lot of my drinking items were antiques. That's what I miss along with the taste and the warm feeling. I never liked getting drunk.

The gum tastes revolting.
The patches do nothing.
I gave up many years ago but I would still consider myself addicted.
I will smell the smoke or see a discarded cigarette on the ground and get strong cravings, but I don't act on them, usually.

individuals have their own strengths, weaknesses, and reasonings for doing what they do whether they are/appear correctly justified or not.

nicotine is supposed to be highly addictive, so there’s never been any desire to try anything that contains it, not to mention a pack of cigarettes is like $10 here, and the only thing that’s even remotely interesting about them is the nostalgic smell of certain unknown brands of cigarettes, among other scents of things like certain cigars, and pipe smoked tobacco that was smelled regularly during childhood. for the most part, as a non-smoker, most other smoke smells quite bad if not revolting... maybe there’s something in similarly triggered comforting nostalgia for some that smoke who went through childhood development exposed to regular second hand smoke, as smell is supposedly the most primal of senses.

Ah interesting, I see these kinds of justifications a lot - I'm not one of those people who is all over others to stop smoking, the woman in question even smokes around me and I don't say anything. But -

Surely they could find safer, healthier things to enjoy? Doesn't it ruin the enjoyment a bit if the person knows what they're doing is destroying their body?

Of course not, but it is well known that smoking increases your risks of diseases it's really horrible to die from, like lung cancer and emphysema. I knew someone who died from the latter, and it was horrible, she practically suffocated to death and was well aware of it. When I was drinking, I always thought about what it would be like to die from stomach cancer, as heavy drinking can cause this. It was always very stressful because I knew I had to stop, I was damaging myself and setting up for horrible things in the future. It's just weird that smokers don't seem to realize this. If you don't smoke of course you have to die from something. But smoking is known to shorten lifespan sometimes by 10 years, they estimate, and as noted, causes horrible diseases you can suffer from for years before it kills you, causing disability and other health complaints.

There are high risks. It's common knowledge - I'm not even going to bother linking anything. It's true one cannot protect against random fate, but generally, people combat this by doing what they can to keep themselves safe and healthy. You have to live your life, but generally most people keep very high risk behaviours to a minimum. Plus, the statistics of your likelihood of death-by-fridge-door or a bicycle stack are very low compared to the statistics of death and health problems associated with smoking and other similar behaviour, like hard drugs or drinking.

It's said that every smoker has an ancient relative they use to justify keeping smoking. Such cases of people smoking heavily into old age are rare. They are not the norm for people who smoke heavily. And who's to say older people who smoke don't have health complaints they would otherwise not have, if they didn't smoke? Good health and quality of life are also considerations. I was reading an interesting article recently that claimed that your likelihood of contracting colds and flus was based on genetics. Perhaps these rare cases are genetic anomalies too. Certainly not the norm.

It's interesting, that. People can smoke around me and all I am is paranoid about health risks of passive smoking. It never occurs to me to want one. Same thing with drinking - people can drink around me, I can be left alone with straight spirits in the house, and I won't feel any inclination to drink. I think that has to do with this -

That would suggest some of these kinds of behaviours are situational, which is perhaps why I feel no inclination when I have given up, and circumstances have changed that possibly accounted for the behaviour in the first place. Unless I was in the same time and place, with the same surrounding conditions, feeling in the same way and in my case, with the same huge problems I had at the time, the substance itself holds no appeal. It's interesting. The psychology of addiction would be interesting to study, though I doubt anyone really knows what goes on in these kind of habits completely.

There was a warning on a hair spray that said "do not smoke until hair is dry". No, do not smoke ever, even after your hair is dry.

My girlfriend's brother & her mom smoke because their anxiety & depression is worse when they don't maybe because of addiction.

For a while, I had a long driving job and did start gradually getting hooked on Monster Energy. I suppose based on that, I could see how a person could get addicted to almost any substance to cope with a job or life situation.

Because I live with other people who also smoke, It's hard to give up when you start noticing the intense smell
of smoke decay in the walls. Smoking alleviates this problem. Plus it helps me have my morning crap so
that is good thing. I used to be able to give up cold turkey regardless, but now I'm on to roughly 50-60 smokes per day...very bad I know...sometimes Im lucky and have roughly 30.

I have tried e cigs in the past, an awesome chinese study was giving out free about 30 - 40 e cigs or so.

Back then it was awesome, and helped me quit for quite a while.

Now I cannot find any good enough e cigs to get. I was given a 10-15 dollar ecig kit with one (just one!) smokable
in it, it had some changable filters about ten. Now they are all gone. Plus i don't really like it as much as
the chinese ones because the smokable is weighted, bit hard to leave it in the mouth to smoke.

I might try the vapor cigs though, the one with the cartridge or whatever and an open mouth part.

Does anyone know where I can get e-cigs for free? like from a study or something?

Looking to find something as good as the chinese ones I had.

Also, must be able to deliver to australia.

Cheers.

Well an addiction is an addiction and I understand addictions can be difficult to kick. What I don't understand is why people even start in this day and age. I knew a boy in junior high who's mother smoked and he would become very irate if she smoked in his room. He was very against smoking. Yet by the time he finished high school, he was a smoker.

I've asked people why they started to begin with, particularly given the ill health effects, but I've never received a clear answer.

That's interesting - what are those "e" things like? Are they as bad for you as regular smokes, or bad for you at all?
Someone randomly gave me some kind of herbal cigarette thing (no that's not a euphemism) when I was living in the city, which I did smoke for some reason (probably because it wasn't dangerous) but it was bloody awful.

That's another sick thing about addiction. Same thing happened to me. I hated alcohol all my life, because all my relatives are lifestyle, lifelong alcoholics of varying intensities (the ones who aren't dead from it yet anyway, as many of them are) and were very heavy when I was younger. I swore I'd never turn out like them. But I did - for a while, anyway.
Someone told me it is because that was what you were taught, and all you were taught if you were raised by addicts. And when you run into a situation you can't handle, you don't have any idea how else to cope with it but rely on the screwed up ways you were taught to.