Smoking a cigarette feels like you’ve been standing your entire life and you just sat down. Then it feels like nothing and the world hurts when you don’t have it
Anon discovers cigarettes
Submitted 1 day ago by LifeLemons@lemmy.ml to greentext@sh.itjust.works
https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/92d2f779-16fe-4aee-977a-2a52533478af.jpeg
Comments
thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
This is actually a very good description of how a shot of heroin feels, when you have a habit. It’s just much moreso than cigarettes.
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 7 hours ago
Awww man I was really looking forward to heroin in my later years.
ikidd@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
I haven’t smoked in 15 years, and I could start again tomorrow. I love smoking and still miss it.
FGoo@sh.itjust.works 19 hours ago
Thats a good streak, dude. Keep going :)
thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
4 years free myself!
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 7 hours ago
I quit smoking cold turkey almost 10 years ago. I promised myself I can start smoking again when The Fall happens.
stringere@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
Well done, I know that feeling even though I’m only on my 2nd year without cigarettes after smoking for 30 years.
dukeofdummies@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Besides the chemical addiction part, it’s also a genuinely social one as well.
Smoking areas are designated places where strangers talk to each other. Asking for a light or offering one is a super simple way to break the ice. My dad quit cold turkey several times but he always fell back into the habit hanging with his friends
ArchRecord@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Smoking is also an activity that some workplaces allow you to use to justify extra breaks.
For example, it’s easier for one of my coworkers to go outside and have a smoke break without judgement than it is for me to go sit in the break room for 5-10 minutes and eat a snack if I’m tired.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 1 day ago
My grandfather picked up smoking in WWII because non-smoke4s didn’t get any breaks from digging trenches.
It took over 50 years, but WWII still managed to kill him.
Waldelfe@feddit.org 15 hours ago
I’ve worked at a cleaning job where the smokers were allowed to go outside whenever. Some even went on a smoke break several times per hour. The nonsmokers like me on the other hand were reprimanded if we sat down and drank something outside of the scheduled break. I complained, but the boss was a smoker and just told me they need their smoke break but I don’t need coffee… One coworker whom I talked to about that even said they started smoking because of this and because the non-smokers were expected to work more and cover for the smokers on their cigarette breaks.
scathliath@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Also, nicotine serves as a pretty fair appetite suppressant and stimulant, thus why some of us fell into the habit in early college. Easier to justify the cost of a meal a day and a smoke than it is for the supplies to make three squares a day, at least in a food desert.
JennyLaFae@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 hours ago
I had a job where breaks were working breaks unless you were a smoker. That’s when I went from only smoking socially to being a regular smoker.
askat@programming.dev 20 hours ago
Yeah, my coworkers take smoke breaks together and I genuinely think I missing some important socialization because I don’t smoke
iAvicenna@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
take a cup of coffee or tea and go with them. There are multiple modern addictions that you can choose from.
ikidd@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
When I smoked, we had people that would just come and hang out for the break and the conversation. Go for it, it’s fine. Just don’t complain about smoking or you won’t be welcome, predictably enough.
Alaknar@lemm.ee 16 hours ago
I never understood this argument.
Colleague goes for a smoke break? I go with them, just don’t smoke.
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 7 hours ago
You already said it kills you faster then if you didn’t smoke.
nebulaone@lemmy.world 1 day ago
As someone who has done a lot of drugs, nicotine having “no high” is just bs. Yeah it’s mild, but take a few drags very quickly and find out.
cortex7979@lemm.ee 14 hours ago
As like for many drugs, this search starts seeking pleasure and ends up, avoiding withdrawal with no high
nebulaone@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Can confirm. Ruinied my life. Ironically it was alcohol that destroyed me.
Comment105@lemm.ee 1 day ago
I don’t think nicotine is a bad drug, necessarily.
But smoking is a terrible way to take it. Lip pouches also have their detractions, with the wounds they create.
Perhaps the teas or sprays are better. Or maybe salves, if nicotine patches do anything then a salve should work too, I’m guessing.
nebulaone@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
Nicotine is poisonous when swallowed. A tea is a horrible idea.
IDew@lemm.ee 1 day ago
My question exactly… I genuinely don’t get it
AbnormalHumanBeing@lemmy.abnormalbeings.space 1 day ago
Like many things, it’s an irrational decision to start at some point, and then addiction keeps you doing it. I have tried out a few drugs in my teenage/young adult years, including some “hard” ones, which ended up genuinely being one-off curiosity things for me. But the one that I simply wasn’t able to kick until last year was nicotine. It really is scarily addictive for something so widespread and legal. (Alcohol was also hard, but easier for me).
That, and the part about “no high” is just not really true, even after you develop a dependency/addiction (with rapidly diminishing returns, of course). But especially when first starting to vape/smoke, there are very much effects beyond placebo. It hooks into a lot of your neurochemistry, and like most things that do, you feel that. To the point that, e.g., many people that consume weed with tobacco, will think the initial wooziness they feel is already due to the weed, when really, it is a tobacco hit. The weed effects generally come afterwards.
Of course, the effect is not at all as intense as alcohol or other drugs, but there are effects. There are also, to my knowledge, some indications, that a lot of people with ADHD use it to self-medicate, since it seems to affect them differently, like other drugs do, too.
Jesus_666@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Of course, the effect is not at all as intense as alcohol or other drugs, but there are effects. There are also, to my knowledge, some indications, that a lot of people with ADHD use it to self-medicate, since it seems to affect them differently, like other drugs do, too.
Sounds plausible; nicotine is a stimulant by means of triggering the release of adrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin. That is pretty much what an ADHD brain lacks.
Amanduh@lemm.ee 1 day ago
If you get drunk and throw a dip in your head goes spinning like crazy lol
stebo02@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
the reason is in the post. it’s highly addictive. quitting is basically impossible without professional assistance
someguy3@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Nicotine is a stimulant.
arrow74@lemm.ee 1 day ago
A drunk cigarette is quite nice ngl, usually makes the hangover worse though
NotSteve_@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Nicotine does have a high, that’s why. It’s subtle and a bit similar to caffeine
mavu@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
Because it’s a drug that makes you feel good?
Also: I am now convinced that a sizable portion of the Population is neurodivergent in a way that Nicotine does A LOT more for them than “a slight calming effect”.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Because it’s a drug that makes you feel good?
More specifically, its a stimulant that makes your brain more active and helps you cut through your exhaustion. Like caffeine, its a “work drug” designed to crank more units of labor out of you in a limited time span, at the expense of your overall health and well-being.
That’s why capitalist countries have been so loathe to outlaw it, when compared to the creative/transgressive stimulants like LSD and THC.
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world 1 day ago
TL;DR: Show me someone with any hard-to-quit habit, and I’ll show you someone that’s self-medicating for something.
This is tragically under-appreciated in our society. Especially when it seems everyone is converging on some kind of self-diagnosis, and collectively coming to a “hey nobody’s normal” conclusion. We’re so very close to framing help as “harm reduction for nicotine” and “maybe it’s also neurodiversity and/or trauma”, but we keep missing the mark and argue about vapes instead.
Also, as the greentext suggests, I personally think we’re way past the point where people that can avoid starting or can quit easy, have already done so. What you see these days is a rather hard-core use cohort that has complex addiction to work through.
So… yeah. Helping a friend quit? Please work with them to consider the jenga-tower of adverse psychology that a-pack-a-day might be holding up. It could be way harder to pull off than either of you think.
MutilationWave@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
90% of schizophrenic people smoke. It helps their illness. I don’t know if the mechanism has been discovered.
theblips@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Apparently there are some people that live under the illusion that nicotine doesn’t actually do anything, I saw one of these guys in another thread. I’m sure whoever placed them under that illusion did it with good intentions, but the implication that there are people getting hooked on it every day just to look cool is so funny
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 11 hours ago
People say the same about caffeine. All it means is you have a high tolerance to something. Doesnt mean addiction but it could be part of it.
damdy@lemm.ee 9 hours ago
ADHD and cigarettes pair so nicely. 3 mins of turning off the world every hour is why I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to quit. Being a single unit item is why things like vaping never worked for me either. I had a small amount of luck with cans of fizzy drinks, but I’d need an insane amount and 2 weeks off work with none of my usual triggers for a chance.
Strawberry@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
Nicotine makes my whole body vibrate and I would describe it as feeling quite high for about 2 minutes
levzzz@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
I kinda miss this feeling, I vape 50 mg (or is it really?) salt and I hardly feel anything
MutilationWave@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
That goes away when you become a regular smoker.
Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Interesting. It makes me feel like I suddenly became super heavy, like the Earth’s gravity just dialed up a notch. Oddly, if I were already high on cannabis, a toke of nicotine would take away some of the weed buzz. I know I wouldn’t be “more sober” with both, but it feels like it (which makes me then think that I wasted that weed by doing both.)
bitwolf@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
I read that the MAOIs in Tobacco can enhance the effects of nicotine.
Thus, if you really want the fix, the effects will be much stronger.
Googledotcom@lemm.ee 9 hours ago
There’s something so great about mist going out of your mouth.
If there is cold outside and you start to exhale the vapour with satisfaction then you are potential cigarette addict
InputZero@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
It’s not worth going back! I’m trying to quit, my advice to you don’t think about the high. Think about how expensive it is, how gross it smells, how much time it takes from your day, how much easier it is to breathe. The high is fleeting, the damage to your body is permanent.
Googledotcom@lemm.ee 7 hours ago
Yeah I know I know. I even can’t do it like medically I am not supposed to more than usual person.
I need some kind of thing that works like nicotine, is easy to obtain and has less or no health risks
almost1337@lemm.ee 1 day ago
A friend of mine started smoking because it was the only way to take regular breaks from his construction job.
lightnsfw@reddthat.com 1 day ago
I just went out with the smokers when they were taking smoke breaks. I only ever got shit about it from two bosses and everyone else backed me up so they dropped the issue.
echodot@feddit.uk 1 day ago
I’m pretty sure that legally they can’t discriminate against you and deny you extra breaks just for not smoking, because otherwise there they are saying that smokers need (as in absolutely require) more breaks than non-smokers, and therefore saying that smokers are protected class, which obviously they’re not and gets into a whole quagmire.
I would love someone to try and litigate this.
Sporkbomber@lemm.ee 1 day ago
This is what I miss about using an ecig. Even if you get given the same breaks as a smoker, what are you going to do, sit inside? Then people will still bug you.
But as a smoker you get to go outside, the smoke smells horrible to non-smokers so the number of people who can bug you is reduced (Moreso now since less people are smoking), and that break can truely be a ‘turn off brain from work’ sort of break.
someguy3@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Uh take the ecig outside?
echodot@feddit.uk 1 day ago
Were you smoking your e-cigarette inside? what a dick move. Please absolutely do feel free to go outside, I know more want to smell like blueberry raspberry then I want to smell like smoke.
Rooskie91@discuss.online 1 day ago
Some of y’all have never been addicted to anything and it shows.
echodot@feddit.uk 1 day ago
Yeah you say that like it’s a character flaw.
“You’re worthless suckers have no vices”
Rooskie91@discuss.online 1 day ago
I’m saying that the person in the green text is judging people for going through something they have literally no experience with.
Obviously addiction is bad, but that doesn’t mean the people who become addicted are stupid or make bad decisions. The way addiction works means there is no choice. If it was as simple as making a choice addiction wouldn’t exists.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 day ago
“You’re worthless suckers have no vices”
Vices are social taboos, not iron laws. And if you haven’t ever transgressed, I gotta wonder what kind of life you’re living (particularly in a society that’s puritanical in its ethics)
SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 1 day ago
IMO if you go your whole life not trying drugs you’re robbing yourself of important experiences.
Everyone should known what addiction feels like, even if it’s just the slight nagging of a cigarette.
Everyone should do a psychedelic at least once, most people who have had a positive trip rank it as one of the three most important experiences of their life along with things like the birth of their child.
Flickerby@lemm.ee 1 day ago
I can speak as someone who previously smoked for a decade+ and then quit. I started because some friends who smoked offered me one and I was dumb enough to say yes. Horrible. But there was a very nice immediate head rush/high. And then that led to friends continuing to offer cigarettes and me continuing to be dumb. And then addiction takes hold and it goes from there.
I probably didn’t actually BUY my own smokes until I’d already smoked more than a carton off of other people offering.
tetris11@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
As a non-smoker, I get that sensation when I smell a cigar or cigarillo - a sweet scent of tobacco.
But cigarettes? What’s even to smell? It just smells like an ash toilet
loutr@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
It just smells like an ash toilet
IMO that’s part of why so many people (me included) fall for this shit: “there’s no way I’ll become addicted to this horrendous shit, no harm in bumming another one to look cool”.
jballs@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Elementary school always warned us that people would offer us free drugs. This whole time, people have joked that no one is going around giving away free cocaine and heroin. Turns out, it was cigarettes they were trying to warn us about
LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yeah from what I’ve heard that feeling never goes away. I remember someone who quit smoking telling me how good secondhand smoke smells.
arrow74@lemm.ee 1 day ago
I smoked occasionally while drinking at bars/parties. Bought a few packs to smoke/share. Never smoked outside of those times and at worst it was maybe every other week.
I guess I had a decent addiction tolerance.
kemsat@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I was in the military, and smokers got breaks.
It does have a felt effect, but is very mild. The thing is that the body loves nicotine, and even if you’re not consciously getting high, your body is getting high. That’s why vapes were able to become popular.
The body loves it so much, the smoke stops smelling bad to you.
tmyakal@lemm.ee 1 day ago
smokers got breaks.
When I quit smoking, I pretty much stopped going to parties, conventions, dance clubs, and concerts. Having an excuse to get out of the crowd and noise and decompress for ten minutes every couple of hours made “going out” so much more tolerable for me.
TheDoozer@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I (also military) used to grab a cup of coffee and bring it out whenever the smokers went out (though I had to start doing half a cup, because the smokers took a lot of breaks).
Then one chief established there would be no more “smoke breaks” for the smokers, but everyone would get regular breaks (and the smokers could take theirs outside). People (including the smokers who had been taking breaks all along) started making jokes about taking their “union mandated” breaks. And the smokers just went out twice as often.
grahamja@reddthat.com 20 hours ago
I’d rather smell like smoke than body odor after being in the field for a week or two with no showers.
TheGiantKorean@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It certainly does have an effect, albeit much less than hard drugs. I’ve smoked twice. The second time I decided to try a cigarette with a beer to see why people liked it so much. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to never try smoking again.
LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Basically why I am extremely hesitant to try most drugs. Either I don’t like it, or I DO like and and want to keep trying it… either way the odds of it being a good thing for me long term are pretty sketchy.
MDCCCLV@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
I believe the head rush effect is mostly when you first start and after that it diminishes and then you’re just dealing with the withdrawal.
RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Need to shit? Smoke a cigarette quickly and you will soon be shitting. Need to relax? Long slow drags of a cig will relax you? Need to perk up lots of short quick puffs will raise ypur energy levels (note do not do this if holding back a shit)
peteypete420@sh.itjust.works 13 hours ago
Tried in high school. I wanted to be able to smoke even if i didnt have or couldnt smoke weed. Thankfully a couple days in cigarettes made me vomit and I stopped without looking back. Wish I had been able to do that the first time alcohol made me vomit.
Interstellar_1@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
vaping is the new cool thing. I wasn’t super socially present through high school, but I know that lots of the kids there do vape in the bathrooms and stuff and it’s seen as cool somehow
RedSnt@feddit.dk 1 day ago
I just watched Casablanca for the first time a couple of days ago, and as someone that hates smoking, I just don’t get how it came to be everywhere back in the day. Ingrid Bergman is probably the only non-smoker in the entire movie! Both her (breast, 69) and Humphrey Bogart (esophageal, 57) died of cancer.
Growing up with two smoking parents that’d both gladly hotbox their kids, my brother and I, when we drove anywhere was just awful. I really don’t get how you can do that to other people without feeling ashamed.sturlabragason@lemmy.world 1 day ago
You’ve obviously never been a smoker 🚬 sweet sweet nicotine, i miss u so!
TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee 1 day ago
cool another post on Lemmy about not understanding addiction
rabber@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Lol as a non smoker when I take a rip I feel so lightheaded and awesome. No wonder people get addicted
Wanderer@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Picking up girls and making friends mostly.
The rest is to get away from dancing/ loud music/ heat.
My ideal place to go out would be a location with no dancefloor just a bar and a smoking area where you can’t smoke. Unfortunately the vibe of the smoking area just hits differently and no one can explain it. It cannot be replicated. It’s magic in a bottle.
JayJay@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Addiction is a helluva drug!
SRo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 hours ago
It’s cool
_cnt0@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Second line points out addiction, then goes on to ask why? That’s a special kind of stupidity on its own.
isekaihero@ani.social 1 day ago
I don’t smoke myself but you need to know that cigarettes are super-processed crap. They intentionally add more poisonous shit to them. Even I like the smell of loose leaf tobacco smoked in a pipe, or in a quality cigar. The reason people first started smoking tobacco is because it smells good. But you’re right that’s not cigarettes.
WILSOOON@programming.dev 1 day ago
I picked up a vape off the street a few days ago to disassemble and see how they work. I definitely get that nicotine craving they are talking about. The slightest whiff of that things odor is enough to make you curious to more. Ive had to put it in a jar to avoid the sweet smell
FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
I got hooked at first because as teenagers when we smoked weed we would smoke it cut with nicotine.
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 1 day ago
Tobacco is generally a pretty lame drug, but some forms of it at least smell somewhat good (e.g. waterpipes (though I think a lot of the ‘smells good’ is additives), or the old-fashioned smoking pipes).
lessthanluigi@lemmy.sdf.org 1 day ago
I think Nicotine has a stimulant effect, so there is that. Other than that, yea, the marketing devils get to them.
frostysauce@lemmy.world 1 day ago
If smoking isn’t cool anymore then I don’t want to live in this world.
Deflated0ne@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Because nothing matters. Never gonna retire. Never gonna own a home. Couldnt afford kids even if i wanted them. Why worry about “being productive” into my fuckin 80s?