I’m going to assume that most everyone participating already knew that it was dangerous when they started. But I’m curious because it’s not like alcohol where you lose inhibitions and feel really good. I’m told there is a high but it seems more like something you have to do because you’re addicted than just a high in the general sense. I guess to me I’ve never done it because it seems like a lot of really horrible effects (the obvious ones like cancer, and stuff like smelling bad, wrinkles, bad breath) for something that hardly seems worth it. What is the incentive when you start?
Peer pressure. Plus, when you’re a teen, nothing can REALLY harm you.
Counts for maybe half of why I started. Back then (1958, let’s say) ads made you look like a shit if you DIDN’T smoke. Movies and TV, too.
It was a goddamn conspiracy!
I honest-to-god did not start to look cool. None of my friends smoked when I was a teen and still many years later none of my friends smoke. I’ve only ever dated one guy who is a smoker.
I don’t know why I started casually when I was 17, but I know that when I was in college a year later I was desperately homesick. And my dad smoked, so I liked smoking to remind me of home. Then I liked it because it gave me a reason to talk to people at college or to go off and do something for a few minutes (smoking outside with other people). I was horribly shy.
Now I just do it solely because I’m addicted to it. Otherwise, I hate it.
I was in grade 7 and all the cool kids were doing it. I don’t think I need to elaborate. I’m just glad that I came to my senses in college and realized that I’d probably be better off quitting then than trying in 10 or 20 years.
Also, it made hangovers 1,000 times worse the following day.
Youth, stupidity. For me, I had ADD and didn’t know it and the nicotine was a very effective medication for it. Quitting smoking is what led to my diagnosis.
I started smoking when I was 14 and it was all about looking cool. My mother started smoking at 35 to lose weight. I quit at 21, she’s still smoking a pack a day after her father died of lung cancer and my stepfather died of COPD.
I smoke occasionally - I think it goes well with a beer, or an evening walk. Of course, I’m leery of the risk of addiction, so I don’t smoke much, or often - but when I do, it’s because I like it. shrugs
I’m a bit unusual, though, as I never smoked until well into my twenties.
For those that started in the past 25 years, some combination of the following:
Low self esteem
Low IQ
Limited direction in life
Depression
Smoking a cigarette was a fun thing to do right after smoking a joint.
To have something in your hands (and as an excuse to strike conversation with people of your preferred sex) at parties.
Some people (including me) don’t get addicted to nicotine and only smoke during social/drinking occasions.
That wasn’t a fun thing to do, it was the freakin’ law.
See? Totally beyond my control.
It started as a social thing. All the people I knew would ‘go out for a smoke.’ Eventually, I felt pretty stupid just standing there (or hanging back alone).
Now, I am just stupid for doing it at all.
I started in the mid-60s, when I got a new bf who smoked. The smoking lasted longer than he did . . . and the danger of smoking wasn’t really established back then.
Next Monday (Memorial Day) will be my 31st anniversary of being smoke-free.
You see, I never cared for tobacco. This led to my looking for something else to take its place. Fortunately, that something was sex.
Back when I started, it was because it was cool. Now, I hear that the kids start because cigarettes mask the odor of weed. It did back then, too, but that’s not why we started.
I think peer pressure (or at least “everybody else is doing it”) is the most compelling reason.
Not that I’m prejudiced or anything, but my older daughter was (and is) beautiful, intelligent, accomplished, and extremely self-assured. If anyone should have been resistant to cigarettes for multiple reasons, she would be it.
Nevertheless, she started smoking in high school, probably because her boyfriend smoked. And she continued to smoke all through college and beyond, because nearly all of her friends did.
To her great credit, she realized a couple of years after graduating that she needed to stop. Went about it very systematically with help and encouragement from a free state program (tons of online resources, people you can call if you get the urge, etc.).
She quit for several months, backslid, then quit a second time. She’s been smoke-free for about three years now, and I believe it’s for good. She will tell you that it was the hardest thing she’s ever done.
To the original question, everyone’s circumstance is different. I don’t know what magic combination of ingredients it takes to assure that a young person never starts, but there seem to be few guarantees. As my daughter’s case illustrates, all the positives in the world may not be enough of a counterbalance.
It was cheaper than weed, and sort-of-but-not-quite gave me back the high without becoming obviously stoned. Also: tobacco and alcohol seem to be an awesome combination (in a not-good-for-you-at-all sort of way).
Because they’re on fire.