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From: toml@druxm.UUCP (TurnbowGV)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Re: Why Smoke?
Message-ID: <869@druxm.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 26-Jun-84 00:33:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: druxm.869
Posted: Tue Jun 26 00:33:55 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 13-Jun-84 06:46:21 EDT
References: <798@pyuxa.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver
Lines: 26

I don't understand why anyone is looking for a rational reason for
smoking.  I can't imagine that there is one.  The reasons for smoking
are all irrational (and, as such, much harder to combat).  If any smoker
thinks he has a rational reason for smoking, I must consider him insane.
The trouble is that smoking (like other habits and addictions) is begun
because of peer pressure or some other equally powerfull emotional
reason, and is continued because of emotional reasons or physical
reactions.

As a nonsmoker, I have two reactions to smoking:  when I think only of
myself, I am grossed out by smokers, and wish for all kinds of rules and
laws to isolate me from the smoke (I'm especially grossed out by people
who smoke in restaurants); when I think of the smoker, I wish I knew a
way to motivate him to stop doing something that hurts himself more than
it hurts me.  As I understand it, there is no way to kick the smoking
habit through logical reasoning.  The only way to do it is to find an
emotional impetus against smoking that is stronger than the emotional
impetus to continue.  Although I'm no expert, I understand that a common
emotional argument against smoking is visualizing what it might be doing
to a person you love (like the woman who quit smoking because she became
disgusted by the fact that she only saw her grandson through a haze of
smoke, and thought about what that smoke must be doing to him).

		Tom Laidig
		AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver
		...!ihnp4!druxm!toml