We learned that in grad school. And it’s “start having irreversible issues.” Cigarettes can create health issues at any time, even irreversible ones in a much sooner time frame, but in general 20 pack-years is a threshold.
I smoked a pack a day when it was still cool to be a smoker. I stopped in 1992 after 17 years. No offense meant to the OP, but I often wonder how anyone can still be a smoker in this day and age.
If you play in a rock band, it is almost required. Almost EVERYONE in the live music scene smokes.
Edit - most of them don’t smoke continuously IMO. They have a pack of cigarettes on them when they’re out and they smoke one here and there during breaks - which I do too, occasionally. Or, more accurately, one or two guys takes out a pack and then 6 other guys bum from them.
I’m actually surprised. Twenty years ago in the rock music scene it seemed to be less than half of musicians smoked, and this was in Europe where everyone was still smoking. I’m shocked that it’s still that prevalent – that musicians smoke is not that surprising – but that almost all rock musicians do? That’s weird. I was a smoker back in that day, but 3/5 of the band were not.
I’d say at least among the people in rock bands I associate with, it’s probably around 50%, which does seem a lot higher than the general population these days. I’m the only full time smoker in my band out of four, and only one other member occasionally smokes cigarettes.
I smoke a pipe, and that is exactly what a filter is supposed to do: “take the edge off,” as we say. I can smoke the same blend in a filtered pipe, and then in an unfiltered pipe, and there is a noticeable difference: the smoke from the filtered pipe is smoother and less “bitey,” if that makes any sense. At any rate, there are some pipe tobacco blends that (IMHO) need a filter and some that do not.
Like the OP, I enjoy an occasional handrolled cigarette (oh, misspent youth!) of a European tobacco blend (in my case, Drum Original), but that’s a treat and not daily. It may take me a couple of months to get through a 50g pouch of the stuff. It doesn’t need any kind of filter to taste great, unlike the popular domestic rolling tobaccos. Like I said above, a filter takes the edge off.
Nicotine is both a stimulant and a relaxant. A very strange chemical, for sure.
I was a heavy smoker, up to 2-3 packs/day. Then I was in a Psych class, and we had to do a project dealing with desensitization of a bad habit (losing weight, quitting smoking, saving money, cleaning house, etc.) I chose to quit smoking, though I was very skeptical. So I made a list of all the brands of cigarets and their nicotine content, in descending order. I started with the brand I’d been smoking, and switched to the brand with the next lower nicotine. When I became sensitized to that brand, I switched to the next. At no time did I limit the amount I smoked. Finally I was smoking the lowest nicotine brand (Carleton, at the time). One day, it occurred to me that I hadn’t had a smoke all day, and I didn’t miss it.
That was almost 42 years ago!
This May will mark 29 years smoke-free for myself.
50 for me.
Both caffeine and nicotine help anyone with ADD/ADHD focus, or “get unfogged”.
I’m extremely AD…sorry, had to identify a squirrel…D.
I spent a year with a doc whose specialty was finding the right meds for ADHD patients. I was so excited the day I told him “Hey, you finally found one that isn’t keeping me wired and awake at night!” He laughed, “I really just gave you two cups of coffee. So if you want, just have two cups in the morning, and one after noon. You could also start smoking, but the trick there is quitting.”
And don’t underestimate psychological “pairings”. For me, I need coffee and a donut to make art, a beer and Dot’s pretzels if I’m watching sports, rum and coke and Lennon and McCartney if I’m relaxing… (just rum and Lennon? Not relaxing…)
for you it might be the pairing of coffee and cigarette when you need to be alert.
This is exactly how I quit, and also almost 42 years ago (1979). I moved to Vantage, Decade, Carleton, and Now, I think (not sure of the order anymore). One day I realized I hadn’t smoked all day, and just stopped. Pretty pain-free. But I’d only smoked 1 pack a day, so I had an easier challenge than someone smoking 2-3 packs/day.
I am usually nearly dead when I ‘wake up’ with persisting sleep inertia, body pain and a bad mood. What changes that for me and makes me a reasonably productive citizen? Modafinil + a whole bunch of morning nootropics - Phenylpiracetam, Oxiracetam, Sulbutiamine. A cup of instant coffee, a B vitamin tablet every other day, and I am usually good to go.
On what basis is a 20 pack-year history considered a threshold for health problems?
There’s research (including a recent prospective study following over a half million people) showing that low levels of smoking corrrelate with significantly increased risk of bad outcomes, even if it’s just one cigarette a day.
“People who consistently smoked an average of less than one cigarette per day over their lifetimes had a 64 percent higher risk of earlier death than never smokers, and those who smoked between one and 10 cigarettes a day had an 87 percent higher risk of earlier death than never smokers, according to a new study from researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Risks were lower among former low-intensity smokers compared to those who were still smokers, and risk fell with earlier age at quitting. The results of the study were reported December 5, 2016, in JAMA Internal Medicine. NCI is part of the National Institutes of Health.”
“When researchers looked at specific causes of death among study participants, a particularly strong association was observed for lung cancer mortality. Those who consistently averaged less than one cigarette per day over their lifetime had nine times the risk of dying from lung cancer than never smokers. Among people who smoked between one and 10 cigarettes per day, the risk of dying from lung cancer was nearly 12 times higher than that of never smokers.”
“The researchers looked at risk of death from respiratory disease, such as emphysema, as well as the risk of death from cardiovascular disease. People who smoked between one and 10 cigarettes a day had over six times the risk of dying from respiratory diseases than never smokers and about one and one-half times the risk of dying of cardiovascular disease than never smokers.”
Of course, there will be examples of people who smoked one cigarette or less a day and never experienced definite health-related issues, just as there are cases of heavy smokers who reportedly lived relatively healthy lives into their 80s. The odds however are not in their favor.
Time to first cigarette is one of the standard questions asked on tobacco use surveys. Some of the addiction experts I work with say that a short time between waking and first cigarette is an indicator of a strong addiction.
This is best represented by the scene in Absolutely Fabulous when Joanna Lumley’s character gets in bed, puts a cigarette in one hand, a lighter in the other, and then falls asleep. The instant she wakes up she lights the cigarette.
@Lamoral’s behavior is very unusual.
I also don’t eat breakfast or lunch. The only meal I eat is dinner. I simply do not get hungry until around 7 pm.
It’s been this way ever since the summer of 2017, when I had a major depressive/OCD episode during which I had no appetite at all for around two months. I was holed up like Howard Hughes in that infamous “milk bottle” scene in The Aviator, although I hasten to mention I was not literally pissing in bottles, but everything else about it was pretty similar. I could only muster up the ability to drink a protein shake or eat some carrots every few days. I lost around 50 pounds.
It was a horrible experience, but with the help of a good psychiatrist and the right meds, I was able to get it together and I’ve been doing fine (better than fine, actually) ever since. But one odd result of the whole thing was that when my appetite finally returned, it only happened at the end of the day. Ever since then, I only get hungry at around 7 pm. Dinner is my one meal. Actually, I kind of think of it as a reward for accomplishing the day’s work. I typically watch Jeopardy while I eat dinner.
I’ve struggled with various manifestations of OCD for my whole life; right now, thankfully, it’s very much under control, but the desire to impose a daily routine on the way in which I eat dinner is sort of a benevolent form of it. It’s reassuring to have each day come to a close in exactly the same way.