still a smoker
I will never smoke any tobacco ever again as long as I live. When I was a smoker I smoked pipe tobacco, but in reality its a hundred times filthier than a cigarette.
I want to point out some fallacies in your post for other smokers. Not picking on you, because I was the same before I "got it". I often wondered how I could survive a family outing, or even cold turkey quitting without a cigarette.. but now I wonder how I survived being an average smoker for 10 years.
I used to smoke cigarettes but gave that up because it can get expensive and let's face it, it's bad for you.
This statement is wrong on so many levels and how I know you're still a smoker.
Firstly there is NOTHING to give up yet everything to gain. If you're saying you "gave up" the good feeling and the image of the cool smoker, I'll tell you the temporary relief you get smoking tobacco is the same as what non-smokers enjoy all day.. every day! And as far as the image.. Only exists in movies (ANY movies! from kids to adult) to subconsciously get you hooked on tobacco.. the reality is smokers are
despised by non-smokers and
pitied by ex-smokers.
Yep, it can get expensive and it's bad for you. But you were probably thinking about the weekly expense of it. Since you're still a smoker and you can relapse into cigarettes any day, smoking must be considered a lifetime expense. $87600, $6 pack a day for 40 years.
I don't smoke every day but....
Rationalizing your tobacco addiction... since obviously if you don't smoke daily you're not a "real" smoker. Casual smokers do this too. "Oh I don't smoke every day only when I want to" Or "I only smoke a few cigarettes a day" but when you're talking to them you see that during the course of the conversation they've already smoked a few.
Right.. Even those times when you get the resin hit.. a concentrated double shot of ashtray.
Yes, smoking isn't great for you but neither is sugar or red meat. A little here or there isn't much worse than a steak and a snickers bar.
More rationalization. "Life isn't good for you, eventually it kills you." "I could get hit by a bus tomorrow" But with smoking you're literally paying for the privilege to smell like $hit and kill yourself earlier, possibly from very slow painful death. throat cancer? lung cancer?
??? Red meat is a good thing. I cut the fat off. A snickers bar a day is not bad. Compared to a pack of smokes... A WEEK??
This mindset is that of a still-smoker. Whether you smoke daily or a few times a year, you're still a smoker suffering primarily psychological withdrawal all the times in between. By your post I can see that you feel you've given something up by stopping smoking cigarettes and you feel that smoking a pipe a few times a week lets you "relax".
The "relaxation" is the greatest fallacy in smoking. In fact its the addiction to tobacco that made you stressed in the first place. Physically it only stresses. Heart rate increases as the brain gets less oxygen. It's a chain, the first hit makes you want another one... When you realize that smoking is a chain reaction that continues because of your perceived relaxation from it (which is temporarily relieving the stress that the previous fix caused) then it will be a lightbulb type moment.. Realizing that you don't need to smoke to feel good and it's all in your mind!! Good luck.
