Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 beta 3/9/83; site tellab1.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!mgnetp!ihnp4!tellab1!heahd From: heahd@tellab1.UUCP (Dan Wood) Newsgroups: net.misc Subject: Re: Why Smoke? Message-ID: <251@tellab1.UUCP> Date: Tue, 12-Jun-84 12:11:34 EDT Article-I.D.: tellab1.251 Posted: Tue Jun 12 12:11:34 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 13-Jun-84 01:13:28 EDT Organization: Tellabs, Inc., Lisle, Ill. Lines: 76 I've been smoking since I was fifteen (about 14 years now) and I cannot give a valid reason for my habit. The only excuse I have is that when I started smoking it still had an aura of masculinity about it; the Marlboro man was still riding across the TV screen several times an hour, all of my father's favorite TV westerns were sponsored by tobacco companys, and the Surgeon General had only just started putting *mild* warnings on cigarette packages (smoking *may* be hazardous). And then the monster of Peer Pressure reared its ugly head. My younger brother started smoking before I did and all the tough guys that hung around at the park smoked. I remember the day I decided to learn to smoke (and it is something you have to learn). I was at the above mentioned park and some of the guys were smoking. I tried a puff off of a proffered cigarette and just about coughed my lungs out. At this one of the younger kids (maybe 12 or 13), who was puffing away like an old pro, began laughing like a hyena. The implication was that I was a sissy if I couldn't handle a smoke. I acquired a pack of cigarettes, went home, and practised smoking until I could puff away with the best of them. Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to excuse myself for doing something very stupid. Nor am I trying to blame someone else, I'm the only one responsible for anything I do. It's just that peer pressure has a big effect on teenagers. I'm sure that even life long nonsmokers have done something stupid in their youth because of a dare or for fear of being labeled a chicken. Something I think nonsmokers over look is that smoking involves a physical addiction to nicotine; it's not just a lack of will power, it's a matter of over comming a chemical dependency. That's why it irks me to hear a nonsmoker say something like "Well why don't you just quit?". It's just not that simple, and unless you've been there there's just no way for you to understand what's going on. You say "But other people have quit, why can't you?". Sure other people have quit, a lot of alcoholics have kicked their habit too, but that doesn't make it any easier for other alcoholics to kick. I have accepted on an intellectual level that smoking is bad for me and that I should quit, but ingraining this realization on a level that would make an attempt to quit successful is a whole different matter. As for the matter of interaction with nonsmokers, I try to avoid making other people get involved in my habit. If a nonsmoker informs me *politely* that my smoke is bothering him, then I will either move out of his area or put my cigarette out. If some jerk *tells* me to put my cigarette out because it makes him want to puke, then I'll put it out all right, right in his eye. If people get nasty with me, I get nasty right back. I can sympathize with the author of the original article's concern about his children's decision to smoke or not, I have a daughter myself and I hope she'll be smarter than her Dad. She will have the advantage that the dangers of smoking are well known and publicized these days (as mentioned above, when I started the dangers of smoking were only beginning to be hinted at). I can offer some hope in that if a child's parents don't smoke, it is less likely that the child will (both my parents smoke). In closing, I admit that I have a problem but I feel that I will benefit much more from understanding, sympathy, and encouragement than I will from condemnation. I can only speak for myself, but I believe that it's a trait of human nature that people who condemn others for their habits or attitudes defeat their own purpose by making the condemned even more intransigent and less open to hearing the other side of the story. In other words, talking and trying to understand will get you further than yelling and self righteousness will. -- /\ /\ / /~~~~~~\ \ ( ( \ / ) ) Yrs. in Fear and Loathing, \ [~] [~] / The Blue Buffalo \ / || \ / Haunted by the - \ /||\ / ~~~ G \(^^)/ ) o h `--'\ ( z o \) n s o t of G ...!ihnp4!tellab1!heahd