# What is the physical appeal of smoking? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 9, 2004, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-physical-appeal-of-smoking/268335 "2004-10-09T05:52:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-physical-appeal-of-smoking/268335/1 "2004-10-09T05:52:33Z")
I’m not talking about the social aspects of smoking (doing it to be cool, peer pressure) or just plain habit (do it because you are so used to it). Does someone who smokes a cigarette _feel_ any different? Is there something pleasant about it? 😕 I ask because most of my life I have been very careful to avoid smoking at all costs. My dad is a smoker, and once made a promise to my mother that he would quit when I was born. Last time I checked, its taken him 24 years :rolleyes: and counting to quit. However, one time at a bar, I was very drunk and thought, “what the hell, might as well see what all the fuss is about” so I had a couple of cigarettes. I didn’t feel any different (maybe being drunk had something to do with it 😛 ) but it made me kind of wonder- do people get some sort of ‘buzz’ from cigarettes? I mean, I can honestly see the appeal of acohol- for many people it helps them relax and lower inhibitions. Caffeine wakes you up, gets your brain running at 9000 rpm for a while. Other not-so-legal drugs have their own respective euphoric/hallucinogenic effects. But what about cigarettes? It would seem really peculiar to me if the whole thing _just_ revolved around addiction, and that they offered absolutely no pleasant sensation of one kind or another. ---
**Author:** ![Blonde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Blonde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blonde)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-physical-appeal-of-smoking/268335/2 "2004-10-09T06:18:08Z")
There is a pleasant sensation, sort of like eating when you’re hungry. I guess I can’t explain it better than that! Irony: obesity just passed smoking as the #1 preventable death cause ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-physical-appeal-of-smoking/268335/3 "2004-10-09T07:01:15Z")
Yes, people get a buzz from nicotine. It’s a narcotic, and we who smoke are all junkies. We are, for all intents and purposes, high all the time, and functioning. The thing is, you only get that buzz for a little while when you first start. Gradually, it becomes less intense, then hardly noticeable, then you don’t feel it at all. By that point, you are addicted to narcotics. For however long you continue to smoke, you will never get that buzz again, no matter how many cigarettes you smoke at once, but every single one will be your “maintenance dose.” That’s why quitting is so hard. There is a pleasant sensation for sure, even though it doesn’t feel like it did in the beginning. A cup of tea or coffee and a smoke is the only way millions of people can wake up. A smoke after dinner is probably the best smoke of the day. A smoke if you’re nervous helps you feel better. By narcotizing you. I have no evidence to back this up, but I have read in several texts that it is, or seems, harder to quit nicotine than heroin. If you’re trying to quit and you go hours and hours without a smoke, then you break down and have one, you’ll get that buzz, and it’s the hardest goddamned thing in the world to train yourself to _not_ want to have another one. I know, or I would have been successful at it by now. “And curse Sir Walter Raleigh. He was such a stupid git.” ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-physical-appeal-of-smoking/268335/4 "2004-10-09T07:24:33Z")
Incubus, you are right to avoid these things. Even without booze, cigarettes also help you relax. I don’t know about lowering inhibitions. But a great many people find their first cigarette not pleasant at all. And yet, they keep on with it. (Well, a lot of them don’t keep on with it, but some do.) So I’d have to say the addiction part is more psychological. OTOH, if you’re a smoker and you feel bad, physically, having a smoke will make you feel better. So there must be some kind of body trip. ---
**Author:** ![jellyblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e480ec/32.png) [@jellyblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jellyblue)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-physical-appeal-of-smoking/268335/5 "2004-10-09T08:14:28Z")
When I was a smoker (quit 3 years ago, Halloween) and I couldn’t smoke, like on a plane (I hated planes), I felt like someone was holding my head under water, like I couldn’t breathe. So that’s pretty intense. After that, the first drag you take from a cigarette (after you’ve sprinted through the entire airport :rolleyes: ) is great. Very much like the first couple of bites you take of a sandwich when you’re low-blood-sugar kind of hungry, or when you finally get to pee when you really, really have to. So relief from a negative is probably the biggest part of it, but positive reinforcement aspects come into it as well, and of course, habit. You’re smart to stay away. My dad died of lung cancer when I was 25 and I kept smoking more years than I’d like to say after that. Quitting is a big point of pride with me, in a quiet way. Sometimes when things are bad I think, “yeah, but at least I don’t smoke anymore.” My mom still smokes though, and that’s sad for me. I really don’t want to watch another parent die that way ☹ . ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-physical-appeal-of-smoking/268335/6 "2004-10-09T08:23:33Z")
Well… I’ll admit: I like the taste of cigars, or cigarillos. Cigarettes, however, don’t do anything for me, except on occasional moments. I guess after you get accustomed to smoke going in and out of your lungs, it loses any sort of discouraging effect. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-physical-appeal-of-smoking/268335/7 "2004-10-09T08:32:31Z")
Just gotta say (since this is IMHO, after all), I’ve had between maybe 10 and 15 cigarettes in my life, a few of them to join in a communal experience with some friends on special occasions, and the others to piss off a friend who was ‘quitting’ smoking (long story). Not a single one of them was very much fun or enjoyable, and not one of them made me feel noticably different afterwards. ---
**Author:** ![chorpler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chorpler/32/2888_2.png) [@chorpler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chorpler)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-physical-appeal-of-smoking/268335/8 "2004-10-09T08:43:46Z")
> [@Cicada2003](#): > > But a great many people find their first cigarette not pleasant at all. And yet, they keep on with it. (Well, a lot of them don’t keep on with it, but some do.) So I’d have to say the addiction part is more psychological. I’m not sure if it’s psychological. I read the following in _The Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs_, [chapter 25](http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/cu/CU25.html): > [@](#): > > Dr. Hamilton Russell also notes: “It is far easier to become dependent on cigarettes than on alcohol or barbiturates. Most users of alcohol or sleeping tablets are able to limit themselves to intermittent use and to tolerate periods free of the chemical effect. If dependence occurs it is usually in a setting of psychological or social difficulty. Not so with cigarettes; intermittent or occasional use is a rarity––– about 2 percent of smokers.”[sup]13[/sup] > > In the discussion of heroin in Part I, it was noted that nobody knows how many casual “weekend users” end up as heroin addicts and how many escape addiction. Dr. Hamilton Russell does provide statistics of this kind with respect to nicotine. “It requires no more than three or four casual cigarettes during adolescence,” he reports, “virtually to ensure that a person will eventually become a regular dependent smoker.”[sup]14[/sup] And again: “If we bear in mind that only 15 percent of adolescents who smoke more than one cigarette avoid becoming regular smokers and that only about 15 percent of smokers stop before the age of 60, it becomes apparent that of those who smoke more than one cigarette during adolescence, some 70 percent continue smoking for the next 40 years.”[sup]15[/sup] > > Dr. Hamilton Russell then goes on to explain this remarkable long term effect of a few early smoking experiences: “The first few cigarettes are almost invariably unpleasant.” Hence an adolescent may try one cigarette, decide he doesn’t like it, and never smoke again. But if, despite the unpleasant side effects, he goes on to smoke a second and then a third and fourth, “tolerance soon develops to the unpleasant side-effects and skill is quickly acquired to limit the intake of smoke to a comfortable level, thus lowering the threshold for further attempts. Herein lies a possible cause of the virtual inevitability of escalation after only a few cigarettes. With curiosity satisfied by the first cigarette, the act is likely to be repeated only if the physical discomfort is outweighed by the psychological or social rewards. If these motives are sufficient to cause smoking to be repeated in the face of unpleasant side-effects, there is little chance that smoking will not continue as these side-effects rapidly disappear.” [sup]16[/sup] Once the threshold––– the third or fourth cigarette––– has been crossed, few turn back. Doesn’t that seem like an awfully high rate of addiction of it is only psychological? ---
**Author:** ![Asteroide](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@Asteroide](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asteroide)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-physical-appeal-of-smoking/268335/9 "2004-10-09T11:18:51Z")
> [@Incubus](#): > > It would seem really peculiar to me if the whole thing _just_ revolved around addiction, and that they offered absolutely no pleasant sensation of one kind or another. I had this very conversation with my (12 yr old) son a couple of days ago, and you know, that was pretty much my conclusion. It’s like addiction without the high - a purer and more sincere form of addiction. I quit smoking some years ago - but as best I can remember the main interest in lighting up a smoke was to make the need go away. It’s not like you get a boost or a buzz from a cigarette, it just makes that antsy “I need a smoke” feeling go away. So then my son asks me why do people start smoking in the first place - got me there, but it doesn’t look like it’s going out of fashion anytime soon. ---
**Author:** ![Lsura](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7993a0/32.png) [@Lsura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lsura)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-physical-appeal-of-smoking/268335/10 "2004-10-09T11:51:23Z")
Here’s how it was explained to me (I do smoke, but this came about in a conversation with my doctor before my last serious attempt to quit). When you first start smoking, many people do get a buzz. Then you have to smoke more to keep getting that buzz. Finally, you’ve taken in enough on a regular basis that you have a physical addiction going on, and you have to have the nicotine to just feel _normal_. You’re no longer doing it for the buzz. Instead, it’s so you can function during the day. ---
**Author:** ![calm\_kiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@calm\_kiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calm_kiwi)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-physical-appeal-of-smoking/268335/11 "2004-10-09T11:57:14Z")
I can’t remember a horrible moment since I was 17 where having a ciggie didn’t have some kind of weird focusing/calming effect. On a daily basis…well it helps wakes me up. Coffee and a fag are the perfect brekkie. I can’t imagine finishing a meal without the ciggie and given the choice I would have the ciggie not the meal. Certain activities are just not right without a smoke; coffee, phone calls, driving, yes even sex :D. OK I can do them without but they are so much better with. On the odd occasion I have gone a lengthy time without a smoke the ‘head rush’ is unpleasant yet good at the same time. I have attempted to give up (without actually wanting to) I made it 48 hours and I was ready to KILL. When the very worst moment of my life happened my FIRST reaction was to tell everyone to fuck off while I sat in the corner and had a smoke. It didn’t help anything but it sure did calm me. My family has a history of emphasemia. I’m not a stupid person (I just play one on SDMB). I realise that when my father’s doctor told him to tell any smokers in his family not to worry about cancer cause emphasemia would get them all, well I know he meant me. Smoking gives a very real physical feeling. Well real enough that you are willing to stand on the footpath in the middle of winter. Real enough that hearing people talk about stinky smokers just makes you chew some gum. Real enough that the last half hour of a movie will be drowned out by the Must Smoke Now thought. Real enough that a crisis will make you reach for a smoke before you can reach for a person. And it is pleasurable. That first drag on a smoke who have been thinking about for hours is heaven. Something inside you goes AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH even as those around you cough :D…sorry. I admire those who give up more then I can say. That’s just me. I’m currently under intense pressure to quit…but it’s part of me. Ok I’m also deathly afraid I would take up eating for sport if I gave up. I was a fat teenager. Haven’t been fat since I smoked. I know if I wasn’t smoking I’d be eating. Heart disease or emphasemia? …well we all go someway. Weak as dishwater but I need my cigs. ---
**Author:** ![calm\_kiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@calm\_kiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calm_kiwi)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-physical-appeal-of-smoking/268335/12 "2004-10-09T12:00:11Z")
Oh and I have told the child if he ever smokes I will cut off his air supply myself! (though I remember that lecture myself and I took up smoking to annoy my father…so I’m not going to go on too much to the child. He has the brains and confidence I didn’t have). ---
**Author:** ![Winterwren](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Winterwren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Winterwren)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-physical-appeal-of-smoking/268335/13 "2004-10-09T12:30:06Z")
For me, there’s a physical buzz, as well as the oddly sensual experience of the heated smoke in the mouth. I have friends were were two-pack-a-day smokers (they’re not now, and will never smoke again, because for them, there’s no place between none and two packs a day) who told me that nicotine helped them think faster and better, making more connections more readily. I am, when I remember, a clove cigarette smoker, left over from my late days as a goth, back when one could smoke in NYC clubs. But at my heaviest, I was a five cigarettes per week sort of smoker; now I’m the sort of person who can buy a pack of cigarettes and forget that I have them for three months, and then take another three months to smoke half of them. It’s an affectation, and it does give you something to do with your hands… ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-physical-appeal-of-smoking/268335/14 "2004-10-09T12:33:50Z")
I enjoyed smoking. I loved the harsh feel of the smoke going down in my lungs. I loved the bitter taste. To this day, the smell of a freshly lit Marlboro makes my mouth water, and I haven’t smoked in almost 15 years. ---
**Author:** ![calm\_kiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@calm\_kiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calm_kiwi)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-physical-appeal-of-smoking/268335/15 "2004-10-09T12:33:57Z")
Wel you ain’t a smoker! And that is a good thing and something to be proud of. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-physical-appeal-of-smoking/268335/16 "2004-10-09T14:28:26Z")
Yes, nicotine is very subtle yet still highly physically addictive, as others have pointed out. (nice cite, **Chorpler**!) I’ve been addicted to booze, morphine (and its derivatives) and nicotine, and it was the damn nicotine that was the hardest to give up! Once you’re past the physical withdrawal of nicotine (which is a bitch) your body still remembers the molecule, and demands it every time you are stressed or in a situation where you regularly got relief from smoking (or chewing). As a result, there are very few ‘social’ smokers compared to the number of nicotine addicts. BTW, I’ve been off alcohol and associated controlled drugs for over 14 years now, and off nicotine for over 7. And frankly I still feel more cravings for nicotine than I do for alcohol or morphine. My (thankfully infrequent) “using” dreams generally consist of me relapsing on tobacco. ---
**Author:** ![Joe\_Mahma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@Joe\_Mahma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joe_Mahma)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-physical-appeal-of-smoking/268335/17 "2004-10-09T14:33:06Z")
I tried it and did get a buzz, but it was an unpleasant buzz. Sort of woozy and headachy. It never became pleasureable, and I did not continue. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-physical-appeal-of-smoking/268335/18 "2004-10-09T14:39:44Z")
> [@Joe Mahma](#): > > I tried it and did get a buzz, but it was an unpleasant buzz. Sort of woozy and headachy. It never became pleasureable, and I did not continue. Intelligent choice. I tried one cigarette at age 12, and got the same result. Unfortunately, at age 26, I tried nicotine gum, and got hooked into the drug by the product meant to deliver smokers from the addiction! Foolish, foolish, foolish! :o ---
**Author:** ![Incubus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c68b51/32.png) [@Incubus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Incubus)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-physical-appeal-of-smoking/268335/19 "2004-10-09T15:30:37Z")
You got hooked on nicotine _gum_ ? :eek: Yikes! Wouldn’t that stuff have the ‘opposite’ effect on someone whose not normally a smoker? (getting you addicted) ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2004, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-physical-appeal-of-smoking/268335/20 "2004-10-09T16:11:45Z")
> [@Incubus](#): > > You got hooked on nicotine _gum_ ? :eek: Yikes! Wouldn’t that stuff have the ‘opposite’ effect on someone whose not normally a smoker? (getting you addicted) For me, it was a ‘gateway’ drug. 😃 Hey, nicotine is very addictive, I’m an addict (albeit recovering now, thankfully). It didn’t take long for me to go from a 2 mg piece of nicotine gum to a great big wad of chaw in my cheek. Eventually I went back to the gum (years later) and after trying to quit gum a number of times, I finally succeeded. If you’re interested, the quitting technique that worked for me was IV nitroglycerine. Once I had that for my acute MI 7+ years ago, I never picked up nicotine again, in any form. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-physical-appeal-of-smoking/268335.md?page=2)