Smoking Cigarettes

It’s best not to start, and it’s not impossible to stop.

Your First Cigarette

Admittedly, one cigarette won’t kill you. Those people who have been smoking for years are the ones who have to worry. If you’re truly curious, and stone-cold serious, in your belief that you won’t make a habit of it, go right ahead.

Just make sure to breathe in as you light it, so that the fire will catch. Tilt your head slightly upward, and keep your back to the wind. Any smoke or ash that gets in your eyes may give you conjunctivitis.

You’ll cough the first time.

Developing a Smoking Habit

If your friends could talk you into trying one cigarette, they can probably talk you into another. And if you’re not quite the character you thought you were, you may talk yourself into a third. A reckless decision is easy to make when everyone around you is making the same one. Besides, they taste good, and it’s fun to watch the smoke trailing into the air.

Nicotine addiction doesn’t happen instantaneously, but a quick internet search proves it does happen quickly. Tolerance builds, as does the frequency of cravings, and you still cough.

Smoking's Effects

That first cigarette didn’t pack enough of a punch to truly hurt you. Their constant consumption, however, forces the body to change. You may notice a few things:

• Your teeth stain yellow — even with the strongest whitening toothpaste.
• Your fingernails stain yellow, too.
• Your stomach hurts rather often.
• You’re spending a lot of money on this.
• The athleticism you once prided yourself upon is diminishing.
• People give you strange looks — and a wide berth — when you smoke in public.

Quitting Cigarettes:

Nicotine is a chemical. That rush it gives you is a nothing but a chemical reaction. If you were a dumb beast, you would be a slave to it, but you’re human. Humans have the intelligence to recognize that their immediate impulses may have future consequences, as well as the willpower to resist said impulses.

So throw out the carton. Don’t slowly wean yourself off of it. Don’t tell yourself that the damage is already done. Just stop. Don’t hide it in the dresser’s bottom shelf, or stash it in the medicine cabinet behind all the pill bottles. Throw it away.

You’ll notice less coughing.

To Relieve Withdrawal Symptoms:

Quitting isn’t impossible. For those who quit within their first few weeks of regular smoking, it may even be fairly easy. But for those with longer histories of the habit, it may be more difficult. It’s always more complicated than a list of cancers you put yourself at risk for. It’s found its place in the schedule you’ve grown so comfortable with, and its sudden disappearance may have a domino effect.

Therefore:

• Carry painkillers.
• You’ll get headaches — regularly, most likely; irregularly, if unlucky.
• Suck on a lollipop, or chew on a toothpick.
• Satisfy the oral fixation.
• Change your daily routine.
• Make up a schedule with no room for cigarettes.
• Explain your situation to those around you.
• Do so before your frustration overflows.
• Get a stress ball, or something to hit.
• It will feel good.
• Buy into “big tobacco” conspiracies. Turn the industry into the enemy.
• Whatever works.

Hold yourself accountable, especially when around others who smoke, but if you wake up one morning and recall smoking while in a dream, understand that it’s a memory, not a failure. Try not to let it get to you, and try never to see the next phases in line.

Slipping:

It’s not uncommon, and one puff of a cigarette after quitting won’t cause the demise of your progress. There may be so much to deal with that withdrawal symptoms become that one thing you just won’t put up with. Maybe you miss the taste. Maybe, for just a moment, you couldn’t care less about bettering yourself.

Relapsing:

Maybe the situation is a little bit worse than that, or somehow you’ve found yourself in the same position as the moment you first started.

Maybe you’ve admitted your struggles with cigarettes to someone who responded, “It’s not the worst thing you can be addicted to.”

When you think about the opioid crisis, you realize he’s correct. Cigarettes haven’t upended your life. They don’t turn you into a “junkie.” You don’t have cancer yet.

So you buy a pack. Or you find the carton you hid in your dresser. You slip back into the habit even more quickly than before.

See “Smoking’s Effects.”

https://smokefree.gov/