Tobacco "addiction"

[maplelakeduckslayer]

So, just curious who here has given it up and actually struggled when they quit? Is smoking vs chewing tobacco different?

I'm just curious, guess I "quit" chew last week for no other reason than I ran out and didn't feel like running to the gas station. Now, I did go from about a tin of long cut 15 years ago to about 3-4 pouches a day 3 years ago, prepping for the day id eventually quit.

But honestly was very anticlimactic...people say how crazy the withdrawals are, going on Nicorette, whatever...I dunno. Maybe dropping down to the minimal pouch intake daily lessened the blow. But Its been very easy a week in

Still not sure I'm actually quitting...more of an experiment to see how I feel before vs after.

[lanyard]

About 19 years ago smoked my last cigarette as a smoker. Was just done. I wasn't a pack a day or anything. Still enjoy one one in awhile, but it's like drinking scotch, not beer, if that makes sense.

[Hansen]

I chew probably 4-6 cans a year. Never at work, drive home, before work, after, etc. . . . . I only chew while duck hunting, sometimes fishing, drive home from the in-laws, or doing yard work. I've always thought moderation is the best way. I stop one day completely but not now.

[cstemig]

Never was a tobacco user, but lost my long time friend to it. He started at age 15 with unfiltered Camels and stayed with them until he died of early heart disease associated with long term smoking at age 58. He would literally shake at times until he had his nicotine fix....like a heroin or crack junkie.

I think that tobacco's (nicotine) effect is different with each individual based on their genetic make up. Some tolerate it fairly well, others become addicted to it.

[Fish Felon]

I never smoked through high school because I always thought it was stupid. My new year's resolution one year in college was to take up smoking....a play on everyone else's new year's resolution to quit smoking. I found it hilariously ironic at the time.

I smoked 6-7 years but was never really a day-to-day smoker. I'd have two beers and fiend, go to the convenience store, and buy the camel light three pack special....usually wound up at the bar and would chain smoke a couple packs. Loved It.

I haven't had a cigarette for I don't know how long, well over a decade.

Pretty easy to quit for me but I do have a couple brothers that still smoke.

[Fish Felon]

I think that tobacco's (nicotine) effect is different with each individual based on their genetic make up. Some tolerate it fairly well, others become addicted to it.

Spot on. I agree with this statement in regards to all drugs, really.

In my opinion, drug addiction can be broken down into two categories:

Speed freaks and heroin junkies. You're genetic makeup predisposes you to like speed---amphetamines, whether it's meth or adderall, to a lesser extent cocaine.....

Or they do heroin---whether it's popping pills (opiates) or shooting smack.

From my experience people fall in to one or the other, and I can't say I've ever seen a true addict that does both. There are people that like drugs that might have tried or even done both, but never at the same time, and never as a true addict where they're doing it daily and depend on having the substance in them at all times. The times people do both....like snorting a "Belushi" (coke and heroin) or shooting a speedball (meth and heroin)....well, they often end up dead.

I fall into the category of speed freak. Opiates and heroin do nothing for me....I think they're fukcing gay honestly.


Anyways, same thing with smoking, and tobacco and nicotine in general....or alcoholism for that matter. Some people really are just far more genetically predisposed to be addicted to it.

That's not an excuse or giving them a pass in the least. Some people are more predisposed to being overweight and getting diabetes. It just means they'll need to work harder and focus on it more than others to stay healthy.

The only person's health anyone should or can worry about is their own. Whatever someone's addiction is...don't see it as your problem....don't even see it as their problem....maybe it's what gets them through their days...you don't know. Nothing makes someone more set in their ways of doing something than people telling them they need to stop doing whatever it is they're doing. Try to care for them regardless of what their addiction is and maybe someday they'll care enough about themselves to love who they are.

---Two months and change sober, and feeling great

[emptymag]

I smoked for about 12 years. Tried to quit with chew, smoked and chewed for awhile. Quit smoking 3 1/2 years ago. The firsts 3-4 days sucked after that it was all mental. I’ll bum a smoke if I’m at a bar/party and had a lot of beer, mostly to remind myself how much I hate it now. Lost a grandpa to emphysema/lung cancer. Brother in-laws dad has lung cancer now too. My old man smokes marb reds or wherever there called now. Just waiting for him to get sick.

[Hansen]

I agree. I can go a month without needing a chew. Then chew for a week and not have one for another month. It's so different person to person.

[lanyard]

I smoked a pipe for awhile in my late 20's because I was sick of cigarettes and spent a lot of time driving between La Crosse, Sioux Falls, Des Moines and Mpls for work. It was easier to burn up time than smokes. A cigarette is a 3 minute deal, but a solid burn on a decent bowl of tobacco could get you to Pierz after clearing Brookings. Complete love/hate relationship with those drives. The two teeth most effed up in my old self are the bottom two from cracking hundreds of pounds of seeds through.

Tried smoking the pipe once at a family cabin. Hard not to look like an affected hipster when you're smoking a pipe in your 20s. Sort of like going to a bar in College and ordering good booze on the rocks.... no one does it.

Thinking this fall I'll get back into it. Love the smell of pipe tobacco, way better than cigars. I'm old and jaded, vs young and affected, own multiple side x side shotguns now, and am doing the "phuck technology" plunge. Add it to the list of old man things like going back and reading classic novels or walking slowly away from stupid conversations shaking my head.

[Fish Felon]

^^^My best friend's dad when I was five smoked pipe tobacco. He lived next door and we'd alternate having lunch at each other's houses daily. He had an end table that was either a hexagon or octagonal and doubled as his pipe holder....had twenty to to twenty five hanging around the entirety of it just below it's top.....

.....to this day I remember picking them off it to hold and then enjoy smelling them.

I've never smoked pipe tobacco but there are few things in this world that rival it's smell. If they made a cologne that smelled like it....

....I'd shower with it