Poll: Do you smoke?
I do not know why I am asking this. Perhaps because I have been trying for the past year to stop and have not yet. In the process I have come up with countless of theories, but they may be useful for something else as they do not seem to work for smoking. I think smoking is psychological and very intriguing. I believe that the process which underlies the cessation of smoking is the same process which makes an elite athlete spent countless of painful hours training, or a renown writer immense itself. You see, I think smoking after a time becomes part of ones Identity and to get rid of this very strong attachment, there must be a rather basic something which may be applied to many other things. Now I may be boring you but I stopped smoking weed about four years ago, by that time I was smoking every day and had been for perhaps 2 years. Although some of you may say that weed is not that addictive, at times I did have a strong urge to have a splif and so would if I could find any, while at other times I felt completely comfortable being next to others smoking while I didn't, or had one only due to being pressurised but not attach much importance to it. I don't know, I think there is a great hack which may be achieved by hacking smoking. :)
Thoughts?
48 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 127 ms ] threadAsk yourself if you really think its reasonable to pay $150 for 2 x 3.7v batteries that connect to a hot wire and an LED because there really is nothing amazing or expensive about the technology that make these work though due to the newness of the product, Smoking Everywhere and other heavily marketed brands have been able to tempt consumers to part with big money at mall outlets and elsewhere.
The kits go for $10 - $15 wholesale from China and fierce competition online has sellers giving them away for as low as $35 sometimes or for an average price of around $50. There is also a far wider range of devices online as suppliers are having Chinese manufacturers create more advanced modifications to best compete. The best e-cig out there right now would you believe is one you can make on your own from a cheap flashlight!
I've become very taken with e-cigs and have quit tobacco effortlessly for almost a year now using them. The FDA though is very confused about them. They are stopping some imports but allowing others...some say it's do to with the packaging (don't market them as cessation devices!- nearly all the chinglish manuals do). Hong Kong recently outlawed them even for export so this has hindered supply in recent days. I set up a slinkset site to follow the news at http://www.e-cignews.com you can also find a list of all the stores there. I swear I add at least 1 new one a day.
The last three months I've managed to smoke a total of seven cigarettes.
Its a major pain. In reality my ambition was to quit completely but... when the craving hits me I find myself using my entire mind- all the logical skills I've learned over the years- completely focused on convicing myself why I should take that ciggie. That its ok. That its not _that_ bad for my health. etc.
And its almost impossible to resist.
At least for me, its this last cigarette I find the most difficult.
I've been able to keep it down to about 5 per day for a couple of years now.
I am 28 and have been smoking since I was 16, have "quit" two times counting something close to three years combined, but have obviously returned to it later. Both times I quit I simply:
1. Threw the cigarette box I had with me.
2. Did not lit a cigarette, no matter what strange ways my brain took in order to seduce me back to it.
I'm having trouble googling up a reference, but I did find this:
http://www.accessibility.com.au/news/adhd-appears-to-increas...
"We've already shown that nicotine-based medications can treat ADHD symptoms"
Nature ran an article about how a patent was keeping an arsenic based cancer drug out of reach of patients.
Nothing is all bad.
http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/v13/n9/full/nm0907-1005.htm... (subscription required)..
In the same manner, a cup of coffee can relax someone if they're a caffeine addict.
One way to judge is to look for withdrawal symptoms, but this requires changing my behavior to test ..
So the idea is that if something that stimulates most people, and used to stimulate me, now relaxes me, I've become dependent on it ..
Very intuitive
When smokers want to have more concentration, they take short and quick puffs. This gets a low level of nicotine in the blood. At a low dose, nicotine increases norepinephrine and dopamine. So it acts like a stimulant.
When smokers want to relax, they take long and deep puffs. This increases the dose of nicotine. And at high doses, it affects serotonin and opiate levels in the brain and acts like a sedative.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine#Psychoactive_effects
Yes, actually. Protective against Alzheimers and Parkinsons.
Inhaled tobacco smoke actually has MAO inhibitors in it, which is beneficial for certain people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine#Toxicology
Amongst other things, nicotine's a vasoconstrictor. Long term exposure may not be the best thing for one's cardiovascular system, even leaving out the tar, volatiles, and plutonium that come with tobacco smoke.
Then there's the whole dance it performs with neurotransmitters and multiple addictive centers in the brain. I recall some researchers speculating that it may be so addictive at least in part because it activates multiple centers associated with addiction, whereas most drugs only activate one or another of those centers.
On the down side, there are health risks (obviously). And to some non-smokers, the smell is really repulsive. (I've had people try and convince me that this is bullshit. Um. No, trust me, not everyone is physically wired the same way, to some people smokers are unpleasant to be around just after they've had a cigarette. We're not lying.) And it wastes time and a non-trivial amount of money.
Good luck if you decide to quit - it's very hard, but people manage it.
queue classic vonnegut: girls who smoke, fuck:
http://www.lunabase.org/~faber/RICHH/karen/Smoke
I eventually found that when I took wellbutrin to stop smoking it had the exact same mental effect for hacking. You may want to see your doctor and give it a try.
That said, don't start smoking, ever, for any reason. It's a terrible habit that takes forever to quit, costs thousands of dollars a year, and can easily start with just one smoke.
I used to smoke and found this also to be true. HOWEVER, when actually working with a team at an office I realized it was actually decreasing performance because I had to constantly dodge out back for a smoke break, completely disrupting my flow. Even most places where I've lived the past 5 years weren't really smoke friendly, so smoking just became a huge distraction rather than a concentration aid.
In addition to the obvious health and financial reasons, this was a big reason that I quit. Thus, even though I'm all for less government, I fully support smoking bans.
I wonder if the same technique would work for harder drugs. I.e. legalize cocaine and heroin, but make it so that the only place people can legally do them is in a cold alleyway 30 yards behind the pub, next to a garbage dumpster. This way you'd get rid of the drug-dealing related crime but make it seem like a pretty lame habit to pick up.
Coding is a miracle for the smoker, and vice-versa.
When working on a specific task within my code, I refuse to go smoke, wanting to stay in the zone and get all of my thoughts in there and working - thus, savings my lungs.
After a task has been completed, especially the difficult ones, I find the 5-7 minute break before moving on to the next task to be extremely beneficial. It gives me a few minutes to unwind, gather my thoughts, and anticipate/plan what my next steps will be.
For us modern Westerners, morality has evolved from an authoritarian, rule-based system to a consequentialist one based on individual judgment of specific cases. An example of the former would be Jewish law: don't eat certain foods; don't wear certain clothes; don't perform certain activities on certain days. Why? Because that's what G-d and the rabbi tell you to do. Or for Catholics: x is a mortal sin, y is a venal sin, tell the priest about it and he'll tell you how many Our Fathers to say to atone. Nowadays most of us think of this stuff as superstition, even the religious among us. We decide for ourselves what's the right thing to do, and we evaluate potential actions largely on their consequences. It's OK to lie to your friend to spare her feelings. It's OK to kill someone in self-defense, or in defense of others. It's OK to steal money to buy medicine for your dying wife. Most of us accept this way of looking at the world, with all its gray areas. Personally, I think this is progress.
When you're quitting smoking, you have to decide -- constantly, every day -- which is more important: your need for a cigarette right this instant, or the damage that will be done to you by that one cigarette. And if you keep thinking about it that way, eventually your craving will grow so powerful that you'll say fuck it and choose the cigarette.
So the only way to stay quit is to adopt a rule: I will not smoke cigarettes because I am not allowed to smoke cigarettes. It feels odd, to decide that certain questions about what you'll do are settled in advance, because we're not used to it. But it worked for me. Good luck.
I guess that's a lot like the concept of principles and paradigms that Covey advocates in his 7 habits of highly effective people.
(I realize I'm best describing heavy smokers.)
...hmm, I think I'm addicted to HN.
ps: in the psycological sense that ardit hints at
Controlled tobacco use is not really dangerous. A few cigarettes a week are not going to kill you. A coke and a candy bar every day just might. Why the disparity in self-righteous outrage?
What about fat people, they can't be really smart either, right?
Oh and people wearing glasses can't be too smart either. If they were smart they'd know that getting rid of the glasses through lasic would get them into a better position on the job market.
Are the smokers here 18 to 34 or 35 and older; majority wise?