I Enjoy Smoking!

So what exactly do you enjoy about smoking? The taste? The sensation of smoke going into your lungs? The good feeling you get from the nicotine? The habit/ritual of smoking? Having something to do with your hands?

The Taste

If it is just for the taste, why not replace smoking with something else that tastes nice? After all, it's an expensive pastime for just enjoying the taste. And do you not think that enjoying the taste is just a psychological thing? Think back to your first smoke - did you enjoy the taste then? No, it made you feel sick and tasted awful. So when did it start to taste nice. It tasted nicer the more addicted to the nicotine you became. You desensitise your body to the awful taste and sensation of smoke so that your brain could get its fix of nicotine. Now you associate smoking with making you feel relaxed and calm and so there is an association in your mind between the taste of smoke and feeling better. So the combination of these two things; the pleasurable association you make with the taste and the fact that you are desensitised to the sensation in order to feed your nicotine craving, mean that you think you enjoy the taste. Think of that first smoke - that's how much you really like the taste of smoke.

The Sensation of Smoke going into your lungs

That should scare you - the fact that you now enjoy the same sensation that made you choke and cough the first time you had a cigarette. But your body is a remarkable machine. It has the capacity to adapt to its environment. If your environment is particularly noisy, your body will react by making your hearing less sensitive so that you don't feel the discomfort of the noise. This sounds like a good thing - but most people would rather not be deaf - if they knew it was happening they would do something about it. If it has already happened they will try to do something about it. With the same token, if you are subjected to very bright lights for a long period, your body will react by making your vision less sensitive to light - but again, most people would rather not be blind and would try to prevent it. So why do you differentiate between these things and damage to our lungs. Damage to your lungs from smoking is a voluntary thing that you have almost complete control over. In the same way as the taste is now associated with pleasure the sensation of inhaling smoke is now associated with pleasure because you make the mental link between that sensation and feeling relaxed and less stressed. The fact is that smoke is as welcome in your body the same as it was on that very first occasion. But because your lungs have got used to the sensation and the sensation is associated with pleasure you think that you enjoy the feeling of your lungs filling with smoke.

The Good Feeling You Get From Nicotine

The feeling that nicotine gives you is nothing more that the relief of the stress artificially created by your smoking. Nobody is a born smoker. The fact that you started smoking was ultimately down to you. There may have been severe outside pressure from your parents, friends and advertisers, but only you made the decision to smoke that first cigarette. In doing so you created a need for nicotine that did not exist before. But it wasn't just one because one will not get you hooked - you had to train yourself to get hooked, by suffering the unpleasantness of the first few dozen cigarettes until you had built up a need for nicotine. Once the initial need is established the addiction gets worse. Then, after the addiction comes the tolerance. You will reach a stage when the pleasure you get from cigarettes is no longer as good as is was - you need to smoke increasingly more just to get the same effect.

So, all you are ever doing when you smoke, whatever reasons you give yourself, you are only trying to satisfy your body's need for nicotine. And rather like a dog chasing its own tail you will feel like you have nearly caught up with it when the target moves. You satisfy your cravings but as soon as you put out your cigarette the withdrawal starts again. In a way, this short-term nature of smoking is something that helps us to stop. You were very quick to get addicted in the first place, the effects only last a very short time, the nicotine quickly filters from your body and the physical addiction only lasts for a matter of weeks.