To Live and Suffer? or to Smoke and die in with some peace?

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Im considering buying a pack of smokes due to the fact they releive my mind. BUt if I do I eventually will die from it. Help me make a decision, Live and suffer? or Smoke with some peace and die.

Have you smoked before? If not, then don't. It doesn't give you peace, it's like any other drug. Temporary "peace", then it wears off and you're worse off than before. Smoking is extremely addictive so that will make things even worse.

If you have, I can't speak from experience, as I don't know how the effects of smoking feel (I have had less-than-popular addictions in the past, however). But I would suggest against it. Everyone suffers. Life is pain, and there is pain in everything. No one, not even NT's, can find as much "peace" as you're talking about.

It's true we'll all die at some point, but that isn't the way to go. If you're looking for an escape of some sort, it's getting really clear by now that you're depressed. Find a special interest.

It won't stop you from suffering at all, if anything it'll only make you suffer more.

To live my life the fullest and to be happy.

I remember an old Tshirt slogan or something; "You might get hit by a bus tomorrow. Go on! Have a fag."

I think any 'pleasure' derived from smoking is not worth the cost and effort.

Suffer? I'm not the one who's suffering.

As an former smoker I'm glad I gave up. It was just an expensive addiction that made me ill. It is very easy to start smoking but very difficult to stop. Smokers quickly become dependent on having a quick fix of nicotine in lots of everyday circumstances. The benefit is negligible and wears off in seconds. Even if you don't die of lung cancer or some other terminal smoking related disease it can make your life a misery. It can cause eye-sight to fail too "macular degeneration" and make you short of breath with the simplest of things like running up a flight of steps.

You won't die immediately. You are at an increased risk of developing lung cancer further down the line though, and the prognosis for that is very poor, but it won't happen overnight.

However, if smoking is the only thing that's making you feel better right now, I'd say light up; you can always quit at a later date when you're emotionally stronger. Depression is also a risk factor for a premature death.

If you find that it helps with your symptoms, use nicotine gum instead. It's much cheaper anyway.

What about dip? No smoke there.

I quit years ago and no way would I start that again. I was not any happier smoking than I am now. I thought I was relieving stress when I would fire one up, but it was only temporary anyway. Smoking makes you stink, it robs you of your health in more ways than you even notice. It limits your friendships and dating pool. It stains your teeth and fingers, costs a lot of money, and is a useless habit. There are no positives to it. You just get addicted so you make up reasons why you keep doing it.

SO obviously I vote NO, don't start/restart/continue that crap.

It's worth a try, in the sense that if you find that the first one doesn't help there's no obligation to continue. The vast majority of smokers don't get lung cancer; the risk is double that of the general population, and how many people do you know with lung cancer? The actual numbers are very tiny.

More important is what it will do to your image; if you find yourself disliked now, adding smoking to the mix will only make that worse.

My grandpa smoked all his life and lived to be eighty. But I wouldn't count on that even if you never light up in your life.

I say buy the pack, smoke the first one (or part of it) when you won't need to be around people for a while and decide whether it actually helps. If not, you have a pack of smokes you don't know what to do with (you can toss them if you want) and your breath smells bad for a while. If it helps, determine whether it helps enough to justify the expense of buying them, the added stigma of being a smoker on top of being an Aspie, the health risks (it is not certain that you would die from them... but it isn't certain you wouldn't, either; even so, the title of this thread is misleading), the fact that your movements will be somewhat restricted (i.e., the smoking sections of restaurants, and not spending a long time in places where you can't bring them with you) and the fact that should you become addicted (again, not a certainty if you light up once, nor even more than once-- but very likely) you will be vulnerable because you will depend on your cigarettes. If it's not worth it, again, you'll have a pack of cigs and nothing to use them for (actually, you do have a use for them, if you have a garden).

You want to know what I think is probably gonna happen? You're gonna take my advice, go out and buy a pack. You're gonna take a drag, start coughing and wonder why you even considered this. No harm, no foul.

There actually are positives to it for some people. (I wouldn't smoke, ever, and don't care if there are positives, they're not outweighed by the negatives for me.) It's known to counteract side-effects of neuroleptic drugs, for instance, which is why so many people in the psych system smoke, and it can also have other effects for people with certain problems. I'm not saying smoking is a good idea, but the idea that there are no positives isn't true (this has been studied). There's just so many negatives that for nearly all people it's not worth the positives (when they exist at all, which isn't all the time).

+1

Smoking is very addictive. If you smoke daily for a few months you will already become addicted. And it is a horrible thing to stop smoking if you eventually want that in the future. I used to spent the whole day thinking of having a fix when I quit. Imagine that! It is that when we are young we think that we can do everything and nothing will happen to us! But we can´t! And also we don´t listen to what other people say (especially older people)! I think it was the most unwise thing I have done in my entire life. I think it is a good thing the fact that you are thinking through the issue before taking the decision! So I recommend you not to start smoking if possible!

Last edited by Wedge on 19 Sep 2010, 2:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I have heard that dip has similar carcinogenic effects as smoking, it just causes mouth and throat cancers instead of lung cancer.

There must be something positive about the smoking experience, otherwise it wouldn't be so difficult to quit!

I've wondered whether the relaxation of my standards might make me fit in better and be more likeable. However, even if I were to find a social improvement, I would have to weigh that against the negative aspects, and I probably would still find in favor of not smoking. I'm going to do what's best for ME, because other people just aren't worth it!

If you want to try nicotine, stay away from actual tobacco. All that soot and crap you inhale from smoke is mostly not nicotine, and if you chew tobacco, you'll have problems with your teeth and gums. Tooth loss, rotten gums, not being able to breathe and severe disability are sure to cause suffering. Problem is, you don't necessarily die suddenly at 55 from smoking, and cancer is not a sure thing either. Odds are you'll still live to be 80 or so and you'll end up wishing you were dead when you realize that cancer's not the worst thing that can happen.

There's the nicotine gum, and there's also the electronic cigarette. Many smokers don't want to use these even though they are cheaper and much less damaging (perhaps not damaging at all? I don't know). Maybe it's because it doesn't look as cool?