Help Ely Quit Smoking

[Eilonnwy]

I sincerely doubt your anecdata. Nicotine as a chemically addictive substance is a proven fact.

In fact, it's such a well known fact I can't believe we are even having this ridiculous argument about it.

[Rhizomorph13]

Scarface,

If I understand what you are saying it goes like this:

1. Some people do not get addicted to cigarettes
2. Therefore cigarettes are not addictive

Using similar logic:

1. Some people survive plane crashes
2. Therefore plane crashes are not fatal

Does this seem right to you?

To answer your question, "Why is it that when I'm not smoking I don't particularly miss it, and Eilonnwy can't get her mind off it?" You are not trying to quit smoking. You know that you will have one when you want one.

Rhizo

[Scarface]

You're being very selective. If someone stops smoking, you ignore that. As soon as they start again, you cry "addiction!". But if it was an addiction, it would be very hard to stop in the first place, which for many people it is not. An addict cannot stop doing something without great difficulty yet many smokers do stop, with no difficulty. It hasn't ocurred to you that if they do decide to start again, that it might just be out of choice. It certainly cannot be due to addiction because an addiction would have made it hard to stop, which as I say is not the case for many people. And your comparison is flawed because it is one dimensional. What I am saying is that addiction involves two things : a substance, and an individual.

Poor old eilonnwy, to make herself feel better about her addiction, she actually believes that all smokers are in the same boat as her. She doubts it when someone tells her that they have stopped smoking for very long periods of time with no trouble at all, and she reverts to spouting the usual mantra about nicotine. She can't even believe that we're having this discussion, that's how brainwashed she is. To her, nicotine is like heroin. What about chocolate? Is that addictive? Many people can't stop eating it. Then again, others eat it occasionally. Eilonnwy probably thinks chocolate is also like heroin.

[Eilonnwy]

And I see from another thread you have a fundamental mistrust of science. Therefore, as far as I'm concerned all your arguments on the matter are idiotic and I'm done with the conversation.

[Scarface]

Of course you're done. You've made up your mind, based on having been brainwashed, that nicotine makes everyone who touches it addicted. But the fact is that it is you who is the addict. Therefore, as far as I'm concerned, all your arguments on the matter are merely the words of an addict. Your addiction makes it impossible for you to acknowledge that you have a problem with nicotine, whereas others are quite happy to smoke from time to time without getting the shakes, like you do.

[Tiberius]

I don't think any of us ever said that everyone who touches nicotine gets addicted, however since nicotine is an addictive substance (provably), if you keep on "touching" it, you will eventually become addicted to it. There isn't a damn thing you can do about it. For some people it hooks them on the first cigarette; for some on the thousandth.

You are denying every scientific study out there, and you have no evidence to even back up your assertions.

[Eilonnwy]

Your addiction makes it impossible for you to acknowledge that you have a problem with nicotine,

And yet I have admitted I have a problem with nicotine, and I quit. So your statement here is beyond absurdity.

By your warped logic, I wouldn't be an addict if I was still smoking. That's brilliant, really.

[Scarface]

Eilonnwy, even you, an addict, must have heard of the term occasional smoker, or social smoker. They smoke, and many of them have done so for years and years, therefore they've had probably thousands of cigarettes, yet they are not addicts like you.

[Eilonnwy]

I have heard of them, and they are rare.

The overwhelming majority of people who smoke are addicted. Your logic is flawed and has no basis in reality. As Rhiz pointed out, by your logic plane crashes aren't fatal.

If smoking is so non-addictive, why don't you quit?

[Tiberius]

Some of them may not be, and they are the lucky ones. Most of them are in denial, and the reason they are a social smoker still is because at some point during the night, they have a small craving.

I fail to see how the existence of social smokers nulls the well known scientific fact that nicotine is addictive.