Context - I have been smoking off and on for more than 10 years now. There were a couple of years in between at grad school when I was smoking quite heavily, about a pack a day. Apart from that though, it’s been very intermittent. Even when I do smoke, it’s typically an average of one cigarette a day. I only really want to smoke when I drink. I find it easy to give up smoking, and have done it often (as Mark Twain said I believe?) for periods ranging from 2-3 days to 6-8 months. I only drift back into it because most of my friends are smokers. Smoking does nothing for me except give me something to do with friends. I practically never smoke alone.
Yet, as I said in the beginning of the post, I’ve been smoking for more than 10 years now. As an experiment, I gave up smoking again two months ago. (I smoke 2-3 cigarettes a week, only when I’m drinking on the weekend, and none at any other point in the week) I do this without any ill effects that I’m aware of. No cravings that I can identify, but then I figured I don’t know how to identify tobacco cravings. What are they like? Do you think I’m addicted? How can I find out?
It’s like snakes in your brain. They rattle, writhe, and bite when you don’t have enough nicotine. Get some and they go to sleep. Take away the nicotine for a long enough time and after an initial frenzy they fall into a coma. But just a little taste of nicotine will wake them up again, and they will be hungry when they wake up.
My relationship with tobacco is almost identical to that of the OP, i.e. for about a decade I’ve smoked 1 or 2 cigarettes per week, around friends, usually while drinking. Sometimes I’ll go weeks or months without, and experience no cravings or sense of loss. Basically, I enjoy smoking but can take it or leave it. The one exception was a 2-week period leading up to my master’s defense when I used nicotine and coffee to stay awake/alert to work on my talk. Smoked about 4-5 Camels (NOT Camel Filters) per day. Not a heavy habit by smokers standards, but it was enough that I’d find myself with this anxious, tingly feeling in my head. The itch-you-can’t-scratch description would be spot on. I smoked the rest of my pack at my successful defense party, and was symptom free a couple days later. Obviously I wasn’t strongly addicted, but I was surprised at how quickly physical addiction followed a slight “stepping up” of the tobacco habit I enjoyed for close to a decade.
Some people think it can be harder to quit the small volume habit. No single cigarette is all that important to a 2 pack a day smoker as those 1 or 2 could be for a light smoker. I guess the purely physical aspects of withdrawl aren’t as great on light smokers, but I could see the psychological effects being just as bad.
I have noticed a number of people over the years who only smoke while drinking (they claim). I wonder if mixing the two intoxicants somehow changes the way the addiction works.
You know how when you break up with someone and you need to live your life without them but you can’t imagine your life without them because your life has included them for so long and you find yourself thinking “WHAT DO I DO NOW?!” and bursting into tears?
That’s what a smoker feels like every 20-30 minutes. Until they have a cigarette.
This is the best way I can describe the physical addiction component (which I believe lasts about 72 hours): You reach for a drink of water. Something instinctive that you do every day of your life, whenever you get thirsty. But then, your hand gets to where the cup should be, and you realize it’s not there. Oh that’s right, I can’t have it! But I’m thirsty! I really want some water! I’m not going to die if I can’t have some right now, but goddammit I want it. And then you get cranky until you forget about being thirsty… this repeats every 30 minutes-2 hours over the next 3 days.
Once the physical component is gone, the psychological component remains. Its hold over you will probably vary based on willpower. Sometimes it gets easier over time (like the first time I quit), but sometimes it gets harder with time (the second time I quit). For me, dealing with the long-term psychological addiction is the hardest part. When I get done talking to a rude customer at work, the first thing I think is, “Damn I could really use a smoke right now.” Or when I get news of a friend or family member who is sick, dying, or dead, I reach for that pack. When I found out a former classmate of mine had died of breast cancer at age 24 (survived by her husband–another classmate–and a young son), I was smoking before I even realized it. Same for the two young guys I went to school with who committed suicide after serving in the Army. It’s sad, and it’s stressful, and smoking helps.
OP, something casues you to reach for another cigarette, what is it? A vague feeling that one would taste good right now; a slight hunger like feeling; a search for something to do with your hands? That times 100 for me. I dipped for years but quite about 10 years ago. Just talking about it makes me remember how good it tasted and that warm feeling I got when uncle Nick hit my blood, filling that empty place.
Thanks for the responses all. No real resonance yet(which is a good thing I think), except with the psychological association of smoking with certain situations that rachelellogram describes. Whenever I get bad news, or have a particularly stressful/emotional time (which is rare) I think that I should smoke. It does nothing for me physically, but it’s just the connection I make in my head.
Well, I’m a light smoker, but I have almost never smoked 1-2 cigarettes each day. I smoke 5-6 cigarettes one night a week, and don’t smoke for the rest(usually). So really, the only cigarettes that are important for me are the ones I want when I drink. As for that - I don’t know how the mix works, but I do know that once I’ve had two stiff drinks, lighting up a cigarette just makes enormous amounts of sense somehow. Hmm. Maybe that’s what cravings are like.
I’ve never been a smoker, but I chewed snuff for over 20 years, a can a day, no “breaks.” I quit (cold turkey) 7 months ago.
I never experienced the 72-hour physical withdrawal (which I warned my kids about), and I still don’t have any cravings.
Was I not physically addicted after 20+ years?
Is the delivery mode of nicotine a factor in the intensity of the addiction (i.e. smoke in the lungs versus juice in the mouth tissues)?
Not that I’m complaining, but some people (my wife included) are a little jaded that it wasn’t “harder” for me to quit, considering that they have tried and failed multiple times. And I don’t have superhuman willpower (as my waistline will attest :p)
I was a 2-3 pack a day smoker for several years before I decided to quit. I substituted chew for cigarettes, and did that instead for a little over a year. The intention was to eventually wean myself off that as well, and be nicotine free.
One morning on I realized I needed to pick up a can on the way to work. As I approached the store, I realized I just really didn’t want to any more.
I had tried to quit before and suffered from the shitty withdrawal, unsuccessfully. That time, though…no withdrawal. Absolutely none, and went form a can a day to nothing.
Similarly, towards the end of my divorce process this summer, I realized I was drinking quite a bit more that I should. It was a realization that crept up on me in increments, and several times I thought I should probably quit, but didn’t because of what were probably addiction cravings. Then one day in August I just didn’t buy any more beer.
Can’t explain it…going from having every sign of craving and addiction to going cold turkey and having absolutely none…but it apparently happens.
To explain so a person who never had such an experience, what it feels like to not being able to have a cigarette when you are addicted to them, I would (like another poster above) compare it to thirst. You are very thirsty but you cannot have a glass of water. As time pass (minutes, hours), you can’t think of anything but having a glass of water, eventually it drives you insane, you really need a glass of water – but then again, you cannot have it, even though you could have it right now if you decided too. When you give in to the addiction, it is sooo good. That’s exactly what you needed. It tastes good and you feel good.
Repeat.
However, addiction to nicotine (or I guess anything else) is very individual, but the thirst simile is good enough to make a none addict understand the struggle I think.
I like this. If a non nicotine addict wanted to see what addiction was like wait until you are a little bit thirsty and want a drink of water, then wait 3 or 4 hours before you give in and get some water. Odds are after a few seconds the initial craving will go away but will come back periodically and tickle you eventually making you really uncomfortable.
The emptiness simile that **tdn **gave at the top of the thread is apt as well.
That’s exactly what cravings are like, except that regular smokers have a lot more triggers than just drinking - driving in the car, drinking your morning cup of joe, taking a break at work, etc.
I recommend having a couple stiff drinks and seeing how long you can go without a cigarette. You will most likely feel the same emptiness and distraction that a lot of regular smokers feel when they can’t have one.
