Nicotine addiction
Bruce Watson
1991.
p.3
To the casual, nonsmoking observer, it's as if smokers have gotten the
worst of both worlds: drug addiction without drug euphoria.
. . . smoking's nebulous benefits come attached to a habit of amazing
power. Ninety percent of all drinkers drink alcohol when they feel like
it but leave it alone when they don't, which leaves about 10 percent
drinking out of compulsion. These percentages are almost exactly reversed
with smoking: only about 10 percent of the smoking population are thought
to be "chippers," who can take smoking or leave it as they please. The
Smoking Nag must be served at regular intervals for 90 percent of the
smoking population, and this population amounts to better than one in four
adult Americans. Since smokers take about 10 drags per cigarette, a pack-
a-day habit, which is about the average, adds up to 200 "hits" of tobacco
per day--or about 70,000 hits annually. The number is easy to calculate
because there are no vacations from the practice.
. . . smoking has first call on the smoker's activities. . .
How amazing, then, that smokers have so little idea of why they do it.
Smoking seems to sit, fat and laughing, on one of our cherished
assumptions: that we have reasons for doing what we do. . .
anon3c...@gmail.com
1991.
p.3
To the casual, nonsmoking observer, it's as if smokers have gotten the worst of both worlds: drug addiction without drug euphoria.
. . . smoking's nebulous benefits come attached to a habit of amazing power. Ninety percent of all drinkers drink alcohol when they feel like it but leave it alone when they don't, which leaves about 10 percent drinking out of compulsion. These percentages are almost exactly reversed with smoking: only about 10 percent of the smoking population are thought to be "chippers," who can take smoking or leave it as they please. The
Smoking Nag must be served at regular intervals for 90 percent of the
smoking population, and this population amounts to better than one in four