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