Cupicake

Hope you don't mind....I have a question to pose.
I started a conversation last night with exrah that started out on the topic of Heath Ledger and how senseless it was for him to pass in this manner then he escalated it into how my smoking is just as harmful the only difference is it's a legal drug. No matter how much I agree with him on the fact that smoking is very harmful to my own body I feel like when he brings this topic up to counter what I'm saying about drugs...it annoys me to no end. Especially when my intention was not to debate him on any issue but to just talk about Heath Ledger. I don't know....is it his diversion tactic, a way to say I'm no better, concern for my health,....? Whatever it is I found it extremely annoying.
So...here's my question...
I was never able to classify cigarettes in the same category as crack, cocaine, heroine, meth,.....
What do you think? Is it the same? Is it different?

Done_With_It

Personally I think cigarettes do kill you, but they don't steal your mind, they steal your body, there is a difference.
*I mean they are both addiction form, but as said, you won't leave your family, kids, or home for cigarettes, like you will for other drugs*

I can see both of your points of view. Me being in recovery for meth, if I were having the conversation with you, I wouldn't bring it up. I know what you mean, esp. when you weren't up for a debate... That is annoying when you just want to talk, and someone turns it into a debate, or tries to. I find that happens often with addicts, or addicts in recovery. I'm not sure why, but it does.
But I just end up not talking anymore.... It bothers me also.

hello-kitty

Very interesting. Did you know that nicotene affects your dopamine receptors, just like crack?! That's why we get so addicted to it. I'm on chantix right now to quit and the way it works is that it encourages the release of dopamine into your system which helps to end cravings. And get this... as a recovering crack addict, I actually thought that sounded cool! (Gawd I'm such a freak.)

However, that said, you won't get arrested and thrown in prison for smoking cigarettes. And you usually don't screw your family over or desert your children over a cig. And you don't have to buy it off the street from dangerous criminals. It's a completely different thing. Except for the dopamine...

Babs

The legality is different, and the strength of the high is different, but in my humble opinion, the addiction is the same. They are all obsessions. Smoking, drinking, shopping, crack. Some have more physical manifestations, and some more mental, but the compulsion to do more is the same.

Just my opinion, now. Nobody shoot me, okay?

Babs

hope213

cig. are entirely different than the drug. they r legal.they also do not lead you down the road to crime & destruction of other people & their things. they are harmful to your body but they will not cause you to shoot another person. they are not mind altering.

laurie6781

Nope not gonna shoot you...................gonna give you a BIG PAT ON THE BACK as what you said is SO TRUE.

I have been sober and clean for a long long time, HOWEVER, giving up the damn cigarettes is harder than anything else I have ever tried!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am on the Chantix now. Have been on it for a while. It does seem to be helping. They have a great 24/7 Hotline and they do not chastise you if you break down and have a cigarette. They just talk you through the whole thing, help you to think the whole thing through. I have to tell you the break downs are getting further and further apart.

And this is from someone who is now 62 1/2 and has smoked continuously (except for other attempts to quit) since I was 14. I have tried everything out there.

Anvil brings up some great points Cupcake. I don't how far into recovery your exrah is but I would like to believe that he is starting to see "addiction" in a different light, I know I sure did, and realized that I was addicted to a lot more than booze and drugs. He may also have been trying to show you that you guys do have a common bond still and that he understands just how hard its going to be for you to give up those cigs eventually. Just didn't HAVE THE RIGHT WORDS to express himself.

Anyway, I can guarantee you that if and when you do decide to give up the cigs, you will become RESTLESS, IRRITABLE AND DISCONTENT, just like an alkie or addict when they first give up their DOC.

Today I give people the benefit of the doubt....................................was he trying to get the focus off of him? probably. Was he concerned about what the cigs are doing to you? probably.

Legal or not..............................CIGARETTES DO KILL, and in many cases it is a much slower and more agonizing death than one from alcohol and/or durgs (at least with those the person is partially or fully numb) pain meds do not take away the pain of lung cancer and advanced COPD.

J M H O

Love and hugs,

cinderellawkids

I find this topic very interesting for several reasons.
1. My grandmother died as an effect from smoking and immediately following my dad started smoking and battles with cigarettes for several years after that, hid them from my mom lied ect.

but more recently Ive notice this. My AH is a crack addict. He only smokes cigs when drinking heavily and just after using...until recently.
Recently when all the same patterns come back where normally he'd take off after his DOC, now as a precurser he gets a pack of cigarettes. Many times hes stopping there other times he's not. Its weird to me though to see a guy who doesnt smoke usually not drinmk or get high that night but smoke a whole pack be sick the next day and then touch nothing not cigs, alcohol or his DOC for another week.

So Im glad to here there is a connection to him being down and anxious and then suddenly smoking since/if it effects his dopomine levels

VanessaLee13

Done made a good point. People don't do the things they do with smoking that they do with other addictions. Well, usually. My now recovering ABF has stolen money from me in the past to buy cigarettes. But I do believe that was when he was also active in his addiction.

The legal end of things doesn't really come into play in my mind. My ABF's DOC was painkillers. Although he obtained some of his supply illegally, a lot of what he got was through legal prescriptions. Albeit obtained from numerous doctors and hospitals and not for the purpose they are intended.

It will probably always seem to me when an addict gets sober, but continues to smoke, that it is like trading one addiction for another. BUT, I have chosen to let go of the smoking with my ABF. It is a lot better than the drugs.

Anyways, to answer your question, I feel the addiction is the same, and the potential to kill you is there also. But it all comes down to what you are willing to do, and who you are willing to hurt to continue the addiction. Most people really won't go to the same extremes for cigarettes as for drugs.

Just my opinions.
Vanessa

Cupicake

I agree with all of you. Talk about internal conflict. I feel I can't argue the facts...the facts are the facts and yet I still can't "fully" agree with exrah but I do partially agree and in the same breath I still don't believe it's the same. I have explored the side of things that anvil brought up and I know a lot of my annoyance came from feelings of "who are you to tell me..." and "i'll stop when I want to stop..."
He's been working his recovery for six months now and HP willing he will continue. But he has always been on me about smoking even when he was in active addiction. Here's a little irony....he's an addict but yet he was able to kick smoking cold turkey about 20 years ago and never looked back.

GiveLove

Pretty complicated, huh cupi? I think about those things all the time. I hate the thought that some addict is justifying his own addiction by pointing to yours. That's stinky.

I think it's very different but perhaps no better in some ways. Sure, cigs are legal, and they don't drive you to steal, lose your job, crash your car, or ruin your family. It's a very personal choice to put chemicals in your body in order to feel a certain way, and as long as it's legal, who are we to say?

But people who smoke heavily are almost certainly going to stop living a whole lot earlier, and some of them will place a very heavy burden on the ones who must take care of them when they're old and their bodies are trashed by decades of smoking, not to mention the pain of watching our smoked-out loved ones die 10-20 years before they should. Statistically, heavy smokers also get sick more often, stay sick longer, run up higher medical bills, and spend many thousands of dollars on their chemical addiction.....often while saying "sorry, honey, we can't afford that [car that works, house of our own, college for the kids, etc.] Been there, done that.

But it's another detachment thing, imho. Smokers make this choice for themselves; it's not for me to say. I would no longer get romantically involved with a smoker for that reason....my priorities have changed and it's no longer something I want to spend energy on. But I don't love my brothers, etc. any less for doing it.

If only it were easier to quit! I have smoking friends who I adore, and they all, to the woman, bemoan the fact that it's so hard to quit....they know the score but still can't seem to quit. I'm watching the whole Chantix affair with great interest...I'd love for it to become easier in some way, so more people could enjoy their lives just as much without a cigarette in their hands. But that's just me being ms. wishful-thinker, thinking all people should be able to be happy, even without chemicals.

Abundance

Great thread... I have wondered the same thing...

greeteachday

Absolutely!! So well put as always, Anvil. :ghug

Impurrfect

(((cupicake)))

I smoke, and have been trying to quit. Actually had about a week, but got robbed at work (gunpoint) and picked up the cigs. I'm planning to quit again, when this pack is gone.

My dad used to smoke 4 packs/day and quit. He is what I consider "one of those reformed smokers". When I got into recovery from crack, he would always talk about "well, I quit smoking". I told him it's so NOT the same. Cigarettes never made me do the things I did while smoking crack, and I never got locked up or lost a nursing license for smoking a cigarette.

However, quitting smoking is, to me, way harder than anything else I've done. I really like what Anvil wrote and it DID make me think. This may just be a pet peeve of his, and now that he's in recovery he's more in tune with his feelings. It may also be a way to deflect attention off of him and his use. Who knows?

As a former crack smoker and a cigarette smoker, I don't feel they are the same, but I do know that smoking cigarettes is harming my health and quite honestly, it's gotten way to expensive, so I want to quit. The first 3 days I quit I was definitely restless, irritable and discontent. Don't really want to go through that again, but I will.

Hugs and prayers!

Amy

Gmoney

Interesting topic.

IMO, they aren't the same. It has been my experience that anytime someone attempts to compare smoking cigarettes with the drugs you've mentioned, it's because they're trying to justify a point of view they have. Addiction is addiction...no matter what the "symptom" is, and we can talk about all the drawbacks and potential negative outcomes till the cows come home. Dopamine receptors are affected by everything we like from cookies to carrots...if there's a reward or pleasure derived from it. We addicts can become addicted to anything we like, but for someone to bring up YOUR addiction to smoking cigarettes during a conversation about Heath Ledger instead of their own addictions says a lot to me. Restlessness, irritability and discontentment are all things that come along with the removal of the pleasure source - no matter what it is.

Annoying? You bet it is. Defensive? Bet that too. Self-righteousness is hardly ever pretty, but I have a tendency to counter it readily because I suffer from the same character defect.

Why are you eating another slice of cake? (How does that feel?)

Do you have to go to the mall again? (does that get your hackles up a bit?)

That's the 3rd soda you had today. Isn't that a bit much? (getting defensive yet?)

My point: Advice is best given when asked for and some opinions are best kept to self.

SoberAndy

My step-daughter's mom used to fight with my step-daughter over cigarettes. When SD bought a hookah strictly for tobacco, her mom took it away. Afer we found that she was doing hard drugs including heroin, smoking seemed like such a small deal, that we gave back the hookah and started buying her cigarettes. Cigarettes may kill her 30 years from today, but they won't kill her now. Hard drugs very easily could.

And as others have said, cigarettes don't maker her steal, lie, and act belligerent. They don't make it nearly impossible to get out of bed in the morning like hard drugs did. They don't rob her of her mind.

There just is no comparison.

Ann

Good question Cupi, and I think we all know the difference even though smoking is not good for us either.

But I have to admit, Anvilhead touched a nerve with me because she is right, I KNOW smoking is bad for me just as the addict KNOWS drugs are bad for them and I don't like to be poked and prodded about my bad habits anymore than they do.

Good reminder to keep me talking about what I can or cannot accept in my life and not try to talk to any addict about what is wrong with them. They know, I know and more than that is just nagging at the wind.

Hugs and Thanks for the reminder.

sleepygoat

The biggest differences are the cost (most of us don't have to prostitute for a pack of cigs. but our teenagers and pre-teens have certainly been known to steel from our purses for $ for a pack), and the level of impairment (you won't drive all funny if under influence of a cig or drive like a maniac due to false sense of invincibility - though you may get in an accident when the lit cig falls onto your crotch while driving )

Before chantix, which works without many withdrawal symptoms, I quit once (2 yrs) using another method - and I was totally nuts for the first 6 months - barely able to function from the withdrawal and mental anguish and crying all the time. so I got it, really got it, that cigarettes were a highly addictive drug that is hell to get off of. Also, never able to quit cold turkey so I get it when my AD can't (not just won't but can't) stop using heroin on her own.

If cigarettes were $150 a pack, those who couldn't quit would have to resort to some pretty shady stuff to keep up the habit, right??

also, I have done some dumb, uncomfortable, and just plain insane things to smoke:

stand out in the cold, rain, snow, wind, hurricane, blizzard....
rush out in the middle of the night to a store to buy some because I couldn't wait until later....
asked total strangers on the street (is that asked or begged?) for one....
counted my change including pennies (yeah, I was younger and poorer, but still) to scrape together enough for a pack....
Lit one against a gas stove many times....
picked up an unsmoked one off the street that I happened to find; in fact this ended a 4 month quit once....

I suspect that if a day's worth of crack cost $5 (like a pack of smokes), our crack addict loved ones would have pretty normal lives...

GiveLove

I had one of those "things you always remember" things happen to me when I was younger. One of my teachers was quitting smoking and when I asked her why, she told me that she didn't want to be beholden to anyone or anything, and that there was no way she would be a prisoner in her own life.

That still pops up a lot in my head......whenever I can't kick a certain compulsion or when I get a craving to pour or inhale something into my body in order to feel good about myself and my day. It doesn't always work, but it does make me stop and think....do I want these shackles on my hands today?

Wonder what ever happened to her.

hello-kitty

I had to think about this and then I got really freaked out about it because no one who uses crack could possibly live a normal life - even if it was free and handed out by churches. It screws up your brain - bad - it makes you crazy. For real.

Crack eventually turns users into a paranoid schizophrenics who peeks out blinds, hear voices and sirens, see things that aren't there, locks themselves in bathrooms, pick at the carpet and the sidewalk. You can't make eye contact with people because you are always looking at the ground - even when you have plenty. You become a deviant who cares about no-one or anything but the drug. It makes people violent. You get so hooked you can't do anything but smoke it.

Crack is more than just a compulsion. It makes you insane in so many ways. It's completely different than cigarettes. It's complete and utter pychosis.

Money and legality is only the tip of the iceberg...

Gmoney

I don't know about that. Real addicts have a tendency to substitute. They'd probably chew toothpicks until they cost $10 a peice.

I agree with Hello-Kitty. Comparing the affect crack cocaine has on a person to the affect smoking a cigarette has is like comparing an orange with a rock of asphalt. I've never seen anyone abandon eating, sex, hygiene or supporting themselves completely for a cigarette. I've never seen anyone pick at their skin until they have a open, bleeding sore after smoking a cigarette. I've never seen anyone lose the ability to speak after smoking a cigarette...I can go on and on...

That's a fact...plain & simple. Cost may be the biggest difference seen by someone who has never used crack, but those of us who have know there is no comparison.