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From: andrew@orca.UUCP (Andrew Klossner)
Newsgroups: net.med
Subject: Re: Smoking, Starting
Message-ID: <1768@orca.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 26-Sep-85 11:12:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: orca.1768
Posted: Thu Sep 26 11:12:44 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Sep-85 07:50:41 EDT
References: <274@mot.UUCP> <464@aesat.UUCP>
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 23

> Either nicotine is not addictive (in the strict sense), or not all cigarette
> smokers are nicotine addicts. I offer my own behavior in evidence, as follows.
> 
> 20 years ago I was a cigarette smoker, 1-1/2 packs a day. I quit after six
> months; just stopped enjoying them. Now I smoke a pipe in two kinds of
> situations: at work (5 days a week), and if I'm at my in-laws (about once a
> month, on a weekend). Now since I only smoke a pipe, and regularly go 48
> hours at a stretch without it, I don't believe I can be classified as
> nicotine addicted. Now, here's the kicker. Once or twice a year, I forget
> to bring my pipe to my in-laws. When that happens, I will bum a cigarette
> off of my brother-in-law. I will smoke it, with inhaling. Yet I have no
> craving whatsoever to return to regular cigarette smoking as a result.
> 
> Except for opiates and perhaps alcohol, it seems as though the term "addiction"
> is used far too loosely. I lean toward toward the "addictive personalty"
> notions more than toward the addictive substances/behaviors.

You're kidding yourself.  Yours is a description of a physical
addiction.  Substituting a pipe for a cigarette doesn't cut off your
supply of nicotine.

  -=- Andrew Klossner   (decvax!tektronix!tekecs!andrew)       [UUCP]
                        (tekecs!andrew.tektronix@csnet-relay)  [ARPA]