And so it begins...

It's the nature of addiction, innit.

 

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That's not what I said. But here goes anyway!

Drug addicts, be they smokers or alcoholics, get their pleasure (as
Blaney says) from satisfying an addiction - relief from a need,
comfort from feeling life is again worth living. It's a huge physical
change.

Social drug partakers, be it of alcohol or nicotine, gain pleasure
from a nice taste, perhaps satisfying a bit of a thirst, blowing smoke
out of different orifices, having something to do with the hands while
chatting, feeling pleasantly tipsy - all sorts of miscellaneous
pleasures, many of them mental.

Whilst the distinction between the above is blurred (and
over-simplified by myself), particularly as most addicts also enjoy
the social pleasures, it is there. And whilst I think it is perfectly
in order to say that someone likes getting pissed occasionally, or a
social smoker such as yourself likes smoking, I think "like" is
completely the wrong word to describe how an addict feels about
feeding his/her habit. The mechanisms are very different. I'm not even
sure if "enjoy" even begins to describe it adequately.

That's point one - one of simple semantics from a personal
perspective, but not one that I feel strongly about.

Point two is that most people who smoke are addicts, whereas most
people who drink are social drinkers - so it is misleading to talk
generally about "smoking" and "drinking" as though they were broadly
similar phenomena.

When I said, in the post that started this sub-thread, that people
like getting pissed (and implied that "like" was the wrong word to
describe smokers' addiction), it was shorthand for all of the above. I
meant no more than that.

My reluctance to argue originates from a suspicion that everyone else
must be sick of this subject!

 

As anyone read anything similar with exploding sheep, aliens removing
the pyramids as they were an advertisement and the campaign finished,
and Nostradamus is immortal and teaching in a school. It's about the
end of the world.

Can't for the life of me remember the author or the title.

 

Ah, bit of googling later...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/000648302X/

"Before & After" by Matthew Thomas.

Recommended.

 

Your points of view are remarkably similar to a book I read recently:
Allen Carr's "Easyway to stop smoking". I read through the book, agreed
with many of his points, although I did consider the author to be a
particularly annoying, self congratulating conceited git.

I then didn't smoke for 21 hours until the boss asked me what I wanted
for lunch - 20 cigarettes - so much for that attempt.

 

I am talking about the author here not you Colin! Chris just accused me
of having a go at you <blush>

 

Heh - I never doubted that for a minute.

The only "Stop Smoking" book I've read is

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/009180969X/026-2007643-7410047

but it did the trick - thoroughly recommended.

 

This, I think, hits the nail on the head.

However, I wonder how I'd feel I were to decide to abstain from alcohol
for, say one calendar month....

 

I would suggest that if you can't do it, then you most certainly should.

(Of course, if you *can* abstain, then there's no need to bother.)

 

You and me both.

 

Are you still on the wagon then?

 

It's how I read:

But you've now explained the semantics of what you meant to say, TYVM.

I'm still not convinced, though, that...

.... is true. I suspect that a much larger number of smokers are not
actually addicted, but have just been conditioned to believe that they
must be, and that many more 'social' drinkers are in fact addicted,
but would _not_ care to admit it.

Current social conditioning allows people to accept that being
addicted to nicotine is somehow not their own fault, hence they will
happily admit it and even sometimes use it as an excuse to continue
smoking, although I'm sure in some cases it's just that they do
actually enjoy smoking and don't really want to stop. Conversely,
being thought of as addicted to alcohol retains a stigma, and a level
of guilt, such that most people, even those that sink ten pints a
night, will fiercely deny it.

FFS, where would we be if we all adopted that approach? Nobody's
forced to read it, you know.

 

It's a point of view - and not unwelcome.

My dismissal of Bear's concern (that a ban on smoking would
necessarily be followed by a ban on drinking) relied principally on my
perception that the general public views smoking and drinking very
differently, and would want any legislation to treat them very
differently. I see more in the above to support that perception than
to challenge it.

 

True. I mean, nobody ever caught alcoholism from passive drinking, for a
start.

 

On Wed, 9 Feb 2005 19:27:05 +0000,

There have been instances of people receiving a fucking good hiding,
and worse, as a result of it, though.

 

Colin Irvine wrote

Snot the general public who want it banned, it is the wine drinking
middle classes.

 

The Older Gentleman wrote

A long time since I studied it but figures suggest that alcoholics tend
to come from drinking families. A lot of these are not afraid to "give
the kid a drink, it won't do him any harm" whereas they might be less
willing to see their children smoking.

Fucking hypocrites the lot of them.

 

True. But then, you can always boast about it later. "That time when
I...."

Tales of derring-do always go well with alcohol (ab)use.

"That time I smoked ten Silk Cut one after the other" doesn't have the
same quality, somehow.

 

I don't think that's what Dodger meant.

If passive smoking is having your health damaged because of other
people smoking, then the equivalent of having your health damaged
because of other people drinking is quite obvious. Hence his ref to a
"good hiding and worse".[/QUOTE]


Ah. Indeed. I is slow tonight.