This is a place to share greentexts and witness the confounding life of Anon. If you're new to the Greentext community, think of it as a sort of zoo with Anon as the main attraction.
Be warned:
If you find yourself getting angry (or god forbid, agreeing) with something Anon has said, you might be doing it wrong.
When I get super terrible, a single tablet (2mg) can make me feel better. Doesn't even make me feel like I need another. Fine for weeks
They called it a peace pipe for a reason. We're the ones that went and capitalized on it and made it horrible and deadly addictive.
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
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.
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.
Still a big reason a lot of joes start smoking. If you don’t have nicotine and alcohol issues going in, the Army is happy to issue you some.
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.
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.
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.
Yeah, my coworkers take smoke breaks together and I genuinely think I missing some important socialization because I don't smoke
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.
This is what I used to do, the smoking area outside was a nice little shaded area, i just generally stood upwind of the smokers or slightly askew to avoid the 2nd hand smoke. No one gave me shit, I was just asked occasionally if i smoked.
Take a cup of coffee or tea and go with them. There are multiple modern addictions that you can choose from.
Take a sparkler to hold, so you can ask for a light
I never understood this argument.
Colleague goes for a smoke break? I go with them, just don't smoke.
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
I haven't smoked in 15 years, and I could start again tomorrow. I love smoking and still miss it.
Thats a good streak, dude. Keep going :)
Yah, remembering the feeling of being knifed in the chest still keeps me from going back.
Have you tried smoking cigarettes instead of knives?
I quit smoking cold turkey almost 10 years ago. I promised myself I can start smoking again when The Fall happens.
That's good! The nitrites in cold turkey are probably super bad for your lungs.
I'll see myself out....
4 years free myself!
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.
Awww man I was really looking forward to heroin in my later years.
Five, hundred, cigarettes.
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".
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.
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.
90% of schizophrenic people smoke. It helps their illness. I don't know if the mechanism has been discovered.
Fascinatingly, tobacco has been used as “traditional medicine” by native populations for centuries. In psychedelic ceremonies, it’s very common to have a tobacco component. So I’m sure there’s a link between tobacco and the psyche.
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
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?
You already said it kills you faster then if you didn't smoke.
There’s something pleasurable about exhaling mist out of your mouth.
plus potential undiagnosed adhd self med maybe? I always could solve any problem if I only had a smoke to think. It’s like some kind of unlocking full potential
It’s been 10 years since my last and I still miss that full potential feeling. I feel like I live with a constant fog on my mind without it
It’s very hard to part ways with the clarity that nicotine gives me. As if teleported to some dimension where everything is easy suddenly and very clear. Time slows down
Fuck maybe it’s worth going back just for that clarity. I never really recovered since quitting
I thought I could overcome it with sheer force of will and my brain will somehow get used to it and work fine without nicotine but that never happened
I miss that kind of focus
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.
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 substance that works like nicotine, is easy to obtain and has less or no health risks
Probably gotta go to psych at last but I procrastinate on that since years
I was thinking recently let’s go and enroll in a course to become air traffic controller but I need nicotine for that. To pass tests and to work
Thing is I can’t even take the nicotine pills technically because I am in thrombosis risk group.
If I was usual medically person I would just take nicotine pills and deem the eventual risks completely worth having actual ability to focus and work. Without nicotine my career life is depressing if it even exists
I underestimated how this vile habit helped me pass to the top university but to be honest when I was studying I smoked like a lot, more than I ate and started to feel so fucking terrible that I switched education to something easier that I already knew how to do
Just use patches man
Smoking not only kills you, but those around you too.
I still don't understand why they don't outright ban cigarettes entirely.
Lol as a non smoker when I take a rip I feel so lightheaded and awesome. No wonder people get addicted
I know what you mean. As a non drinker I love getting drunk every week.