“The truth about Smokers ‘Pleasure Paradox’ “
Smokers love excuses. They get a small kick out of saying things like, ‘I can’t quit because ‘ they really believe their own excuses.
All these excuses are cop-outs. There’s no good reason to smoke and no real way of rationalizing it. Smoking doesn’t have any redeeming benefits. It’s 100% harmful.
Many smokers don’t want to hear that. In fact, they already know it’s poison. They just ignore the facts staring them in the face. They just haven’t yet discovered how to quit. Reading the truth, in a non-aggressive, non threatening way, helps to get started on the quit smoking path.
So the excuse, ‘I enjoy them’, ‘they give me pleasure’, needs to be examined carefully. Do smokers really enjoy smoking? Or are they making a ‘Can’t quit’ excuse?
In reality, the pleasure comes from the experiences associated alongside smoking. For example, the company, the morning coffee, the early morning drives…
But it doesn’t come from smoking itself.
In fact, smoking becomes the ‘avoidance of displeasure’, rather than the ‘gaining of pleasure’. Smoking brings temporary relief to the withdrawal symptoms that smoking caused in the first place.
Have you always smoked? Or do you remember back to a time you felt peace and confidence, before this addiction took hold of you? Any pleasure comes from temporary relief of withdrawal symptoms created by the nicotine in the first place.
That’s the sad truth.
Where’s the pleasure in loss of taste? A build up of tar and other chemicals on the tongue causes a gradual loss of taste due to clogging and decimation of taste buds. Smokers sometimes don’t notice because it slowly happens over many years.
In fact, good company and conversation provide the pleasure, which a smoker mistakenly associates with his cigarette.
What else causes us to associate pleasure with cigarettes?
Unfortunately, over many years, cigarettes have featured prominently in movies. Famous, beautiful people seem to love their cigarettes.
From a scientific point of view, this happens because nicotine attaches to the sympathetic points in the brain, causing associations between enjoyable experiences which cause the brain to release dopamine, which bonds with the nicotine.
Have you noticed how most romantic movie moments used to involve two people lighting up cigarettes together?
Luckily that’s less common in modern times, but who can forget Humphrey Bogart and in the classic old films.
Cigarettes still get advertised around the world, associated with something pleasurable. Once again,
Romance, freedom, open countryside, tranquility are all scenarios used to advertise cigarettes.
This psychological conditioning prevents thousands of people quitting. The myth of ‘pleasure’ is stronger than the reality of physical nicotine dependency.
Truth be known, nicotine disappears from the body in under a month. The only thing causing someone to start smoking after 6 months of having quit is the psychological addictions, or “talking themselves back into it.”
Have you ever heard a smoker say they can’t wait for their children or grandchildren to get started smoking? Of course not!
They know it’s harmful, and usually openly admit they would like to quit.
They even agree with policies that restrict smoking in public places!
They admit they found the taste awful at first. But persevered so they could seek the pleasure they hoped to emulate. Nature makes poisons foul-tasting for good reason – a warning not to use that substance.
Smoking actually removes pleasures previously taken for granted.
We’ve already covered taste. How about physical fitness? How about the ability to run more than a few yards without gasping for breath? How about your long suffering non-smoking friends and family, who must breathe passive smoke, and find their clothes foul smelling in the morning?
So the biggest pleasure in quitting smoking actually comes from regaining past pleasures! Unless you’re a lifelong smoker, you’ve forgotten the simple pleasures lost. It comes from regaining freedom and liberation from something you handed your freedom over to for so many years.
But here’s some good news. Those pleasures can come back. When you quit, your senses eventually return to normal, as if you had never smoked in your life.
Once again, you will taste and enjoy food. Taste starts to return after only a few days. Over time, your fitness will improve. Your habits will change as your non-smoking personality starts to emerge.
The pleasure of non-smoking far outweighs any imaginary pleasure from smoking. Regaining life’s simple pleasures is a worthwhile goal, and good reason to quit smoking right now.
Darren Williger is an over-caffeinated, low carbohydrate eating, non-smoking winemaking enthusiast who writes for SmokersWebsite.com, FitnessPad.com, and LifeSatori.com
