Am I addicted on 4 a day? My friends say I'm not but I think they're lying

[hesteralumni23]

All my smoker friends tell me that four cigs a day is basically a quit. I dunno, though. I feel like an addict. I've been sneaking out of bed at 11 pm to wander the streets and smoke two cigarettes. In the morning, I wake up at 6 am, race outside and smoke two cigs. Don't smoke again until 11 pm. I need to stop because it's messing up my sleeping patterns and I'm becoming a mess at work and a zombie at home.  

But my friends insist that this isn't an addiction at four cigs daily. Even when I point out I have been smoking since I was 13 and am smoking at 24, they say it's not addiction. 

Are they right? It sounds suspiciously like the lies of junkie thinking and I'm talking to my doctor this week about anti depressants to beat the morning crave and stop. 

Edited September 15, 2020 by hesteralumni23

[jillar]

Hesteralumni, of course you're addicted otherwise you wouldn't crave them everyday. Why you are listening to smokers tell you its not an addiction I don't know. You know smokers, and I'm speaking from experience, are never going to admit they're addicted to nicotine until they're ready to quit and see the addiction for what it is.

I would give anything to rewind the clock and quit when I was your age but I continued to smoke until I was 52 years old and only quit because of breathing issues. BREATHING ISSUES hester, in case you didn't read it the first time. It doesn't matter if its 4 or 40, smoking does irreparable damage................................

[Doreensfree]

Your smoking friends are addicts H ....and you are too....

Whether you smoke 40 a day or 4....

Your sneaking out of bed to smoke ...that's junkie thinking and junkie behaviour....

You need to stay on the Train a while ...read all you can,watch all the video,s....

Quit while your young ...I smoked 52 years ....because I was addicted ....I don't advise this at all....

[johnny5]

If you are not an addict, why do you keep sneaking out to smoke?  Why do you continue to feed yourself nicotine if it is ruining your sleep patterns and making yourself a mess at work and a zombie at home?

 

I think you know the answer.  It is that you are an addict.  Its that simple.

 

It is best to get nicotine out of your life once and for all.  A non-smoker and a non-nicotine addict does not let nicotine control them.

 

It is time to quit smoking and nicotine for good now.

[d2e8b8]

Yes, you're an addict.  And it doesn't take long to go from 4 to 10 to 20.  Best to accept it for what it is and if you really want to stop, please take action now.

[Layla]

Your use will increase and before you know it, you'll be smoking a pack a day.  In my early 20's, depending on who I was with and the environment I was in, I could smoke 4 or 15 a day.  Then, I ended up quitting for a a few years,  then went back to smoking and in no time was smoking a pack a day.  Only now, at age 46, (23 years later!) I am quitting for good.  Smoking is very insidious, and, as long as you smoke 4 a day, it has a hold on you, and as time goes by, that hold will increase.  You may think it won't, but it will.  Take it from people who have been there, done that.  Right now, you seem to have a ritual of 2 before bed where you are restless and wandering the streets, and then your first thought when you wake up is for cigarettes....yes, you are addicted and that addiction will grow if you don't quit.  I hope you quit now where it will be easier than quitting once you are smoking a pack a day.  It will never stay at just 4 cigarettes.  Good luck to you...please quit for your health...it's not worth it getting more and more hooked.

[Mac#23]

Like everyone else has said. You're addicted to nicotine. Just because it's only 4 smokes a day doesn't mean your not addicted. The fact that you continue to sneak out at night to have a couple smokes proves it. This is classic junkie thinking and rationalization. Quitting is the best thing to getting your life back to some sort of normalcy. So, find a seat on the train and let us help you toward a happier and healthier version of yourself.

[Reciprocity]

There's an acronym quitters often refer to .... N.O.P.E. That stands for: Not One Puff Ever.

The reason this acronym is so important in the quit community is that it is the only hard and fast rule for putting your nicotine addiction to sleep for good! Once you quit, you must never take another puff because when you do take a puff, it immediately awakens your addiction again and it will once again start screaming to be fed. 

 

If one puff a day keeps your addiction at full strength, just imaging what 4 cigs a day is doing. You are actually making things harder on yourself smoking 4 a day than just quitting altogether! Quit completely just once and get the withdrawal over with once! Stop putting yourself through constant hard withdrawal @hesteralumni23

 

 

Edited September 16, 2020 by reciprocity

[catlover]

I agree with all that's been said here. If you can just stop going out at night and getting up early to get your fix of nicotine ,  then all would be well, BUT....... if  you have no control and are driven to do it, that is definately ADDICTION!!!!

Like a puppet having its strings pulled, You dont have a choice!!

Read up and take control .

[Doreensfree]

H ....

You have had great Honest Replies ....to your question ....

I have a question for you !!!!!......

Are you ready to Quit for good ..?????...if you are we have tons of great information for you ...

Take your seat and buckle up ....

[hesteralumni23]

Really appreciate everyone's bluntness. I know I'm addicted, but my smoker friends insisted I was t and I wanted to hear it from people who aren't in denial about addiction. I don't want to be in denial either about who and what I am

 

thanks. It's really kind of everyone

[JohnQ]

I don't think your friends are lying, they probably don't know don't know any better. Most smokers think it's a habit, that's why it's so hard for most people to quit because they don't know that they're actually addicts.

 

23 hours ago, hesteralumni23 said:

... I'm talking to my doctor this week about anti depressants to beat the morning crave and stop. 

 

Why do you you think you need anti depressant?    

I smoked for nearly 40 years, more than just 4 a day, but didn't need any medication to quit cold turkey.  For me the Nicotine withdrawals was not difficult to get over (after I learned about the addiction), the mental ones are more difficult to deal with; however everyone's body reacts differently to the Nicotine withdrawals, some (like me) have no physical issues, but others do, just quit cold turkey and see how your body reacts to it.  

IMHO, the best medication for quit smoking is the education about the Nicotine addiction, so do yourself a favor and go through the materials in the static posts in this forum to learn about the addiction.

[Sirius]

This is one of those, "if you have to ask, you already know" kinda questions.

 

As smoking is messing with your sleep schedule, interfering with your work, and taking the glitter from your sparkling personality, I would have

to side with the majority here that smoking is adversely affecting you. 

 

Definition of addiction:  Knowing something is harmful and continuing to do it (for no other reason then it's a compulsion). 

 

 

 

 

[garry mhudson]

I smoked for a lot of years. Pack a day. Quit a few years and started back up just smoking a few everyday. This eventually took me back to the pack a day habit. fast forward 25-30 years I had cut down to where you are and I managed to hold that MOST of the time. Is only smoking 4 day better than 15 or 20? Of course it is but you will spend your life fighting the addiction when you can end it. Your young. Don`t waste the years like I did. I ALWAYS knew I should quit but just told myself I could not do it. Always making excuses for myself. Lookin back a lot of years it was not all that tough to do. Take the step and get it out of your life. Best wishes and hope to see you around.

[hesteralumni23]

i smoked my four a day for another week and then I got bored with smoking and stopped feeling the heart thumping crave or sweet pleasure of feeding it. It was just smoke in smoke out. 

 

i wasn’t into it and then my girlfriend caught me holding my pack and said she couldn’t be with a SMOKER and it wasn’t worth it for me to keep doing something I wasn’t enjoying once I had rebuilt my nicotine tolerance

 

i overate mad for a week and then got my diet under control

 

i haven’t smoked since September , but I dunno what it means because I’m only stopping for someone else to stay with me. Started smoking casually at 13. Totally addicted at 15 on half a pack a day. And from 17 -24, I have been smoking 4 a day for a week, stopping for a few months, then repeating once my nicotine tolerance is down. It’s like I dont quit cigarettes, I take tolerance breaks to revisit how it felt when I first started playing with a deadly poison ugh so stupid 

Edited December 28, 2020 by hesteralumni23

[jillar]

1 hour ago, hesteralumni23 said:

 It’s like I dont quit cigarettes, I take tolerance breaks to revisit how it felt when I first started playing with a deadly poison ugh so stupid 

 

Those are called relapses......We're addicts, nicotine is our addiction. 

[Doreensfree]

Well done for not smoking since September....

 We all quit for a reason .... yours is to keep your girlfriend who hates smoking ...nothing wrong with that ..

I Quit because my feet where about to be amputated ...

Your a Non smoker ...because you have chosen to be ....

Rejoice ....it just may save your life one day ...

[Fluffyyellowduck]

On 9/16/2020 at 10:58 AM, hesteralumni23 said:

Really appreciate everyone's bluntness. I know I'm addicted, but my smoker friends insisted I was t and I wanted to hear it from people who aren't in denial about addiction. I don't want to be in denial either about who and what I am

 

thanks. It's really kind of everyone

Sounds like you just needed some validation so that you feel like you have a reason to quit; and confirmation that they are wrong. 

 

If it only takes one to get addicted what do you think four a day do? 

I'm only on day two of my quit but I smoked 4-5 a day since I was 19, and usually just halves at a time. If I wasn't addicted it wouldn't have taken me 14 years to be ready to stop touching them all together and if you weren't addicted you wouldn't be stressing about it and your girlfriend wouldn't be upset with it. 

Your friends have bad science. It gets passed through the grapevine by someone who thought they knew something as common knowledge but it's entirely unscientific. You can tell them to sit right down and then you can tell them that Penn State College of Medicine and Duke University says even 1-4 a day smokers are still addicted and require treatment. 

 

Actual Science

 

"Smokers tend to take in the same amount of nicotine from day to day to achieve the desired effects. They adjust their smoking behavior to compensate for changes in the availability of nicotine (e.g., when switching from regular to low-yield cigarettes) to regulate the body’s level of nicotine. Light smokers (those who smoke ≤5 cigarettes per day) and occasional smokers smoke primarily for the positive reinforcing effects of nicotine and have minimal or no withdrawal symptoms. They smoke primarily in association with particular activities (after eating a meal or while drinking alcohol), and are less likely to smoke in response to negative affect. Although withdrawal symptoms may not be prominent, many light and occasional smokers have difficulty quitting. Some of them have a high level of dependence, but with pharmacodynamic (edit: by pharmacodynamic, they're basically saying what the drug does to the body) that differ from those in heavier smokers." Nicotine Addiction, Neal L. Benowitz, M.D.

Basically, that means even with five or less cigarettes a day,  ya'll still addicted and your withdrawal symptoms could be less or nothing, but still addicted. 

Edited December 28, 2020 by Fluffyyellowduck
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