Smoke gets in your lungs

[vakkotaur]

I've never smoked, not even once, at least not first-hand. I have known and do know a few folks who do smoke. One fellow related something rather interesting.

He'd first started smoking a pipe, but after a while switched to cigarettes as they were more convenient. A few years later he realized he was smoking quite a bit and the realization was discomforting to him. So he decided to switch back to using a pipe, figuring that'd slow him down as it takes a bit more time set things up with a pipe and a pipe needs some attention.

It worked, but not just the way he expected. He found he felt a bit better even if he smoked the pipe as often as he had smoked cigarettes, as he did initially. He figures that the burning paper and whatever additives might be in cigarettes are likely more irritating than plain tobacco.

A few months later he noticed something else. He said he tended not to have as deep cravings. There were times when he'd simply forget and not smoke the pipe and it didn't seem to bother him like when he missed a cigarette or two. He still smokes, and as far as I know isn't trying to quit. But for him it's changed from a decided addiction to something more akin to an occasional recreation. If his experience is at all representative, it might be a path to smoking cessation worth some consideration.

Comments

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

thebruce smokes a pipe, and it's as much of an addiction as any cigarettes would be. He had mostly quit (mainly because the wenches kept tellkinf him he was stinky) but took it back up during a very stressy time, and to my knowledge still smokes.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I was rather expecting that would be the case. I know cigarettes are quite manipulated (when tobacco companies they said they didn't add nicotine they were right, but only narrowly. Rather than adding nicotine, they used ammonia to make the nicotine already there more available...), but tobacco is the big thing whether cigarette, cigar or pipe. And since tobacco already has the nicotine... All that is why the information related about caught my attention. As I've not been there, and have no intention of ever going, I don't know directly.