Here’s the deal: you’re at a house party, in the basement. An open doorway and maybe twenty feet of space separate you from the band in the far room; they are tucked away in a corner, playing a Jet cover and ducking their heads to avoid the low ceiling. People are packed in shoulder to shoulder, bobbing their heads with cups in hand and generally contributing to the stifling atmosphere of alcohol and perspiration. There is some reprieve from the odor in the room that you stand in; the air is instead heavy with the fruity smell of hookah smoke. This room has less bodies in it, less voices. You can almost hear yourself think.
Then, from across the room, you notice a girl remove something small and square from her pocket. It’s highlighted by a red label and still has that glossy, reflective sheen inherent of a pack of cigarettes just out of the wrapper. The girl holds the cigarettes in one hand and zips up her jacket while nodding in affirmation at a comment from her conversation partner. Finally prepared, she turns towards the doorway.
“I’m going for a smoke,” she announces to no one in particular. Her conversation partner nods and turns to next available ear, but the statement drifts largely unheard through most of the room, as thin and transparent as the hookah smoke. Except for you, no one seems to notice, or care.
This is your shot. You take a deep breath and cross the room in two strides, until you are close enough for the girl to hear you but not close enough to seem threatening.
“Hey, can I bum a cigarette?” You say, as casually as you can manage.
The girl looks up briefly, recognizing your face. You know her too, she’s an acquaintance, a friend of a friend. She nods shortly and says, “Sure,” quickly followed by “You smoke?”
Here it is, the moment of truth. If you say yes, you’ll have to keep pretending like you didn’t just have your first cigarette the week prior, like you know what you’re doing. If you say no, you’ll provoke, probably, a myriad of “whys,”; questions that you don’t want to deal with. You don’t even want to ask yourself why you’ve gone this far in the conversation. You don’t want to think about it at all, in fact.
“Yeah, I do,” you say, hoping it sounds somewhat nonchalant. It seems enough for the girl, who nods again and motions for you to follow. You hold your breath as you walk up the stairs, but once you cross the threshold into the cold night air, you know that you’ve done it. You’re in.
You stand outside the house with the girl, underneath a streetlight, cigarette clenched clumsily between two fingers. You inhale and exhale and talk in low voices about the end of the semester and graduation and future plans, all exasperated agreement and senior year cynicism. You talk about siblings and where you’ll be living this summer and how awesome the band is. You barely know this girl, but all of a sudden you find yourself laughing, and then coughing, as she relates adventures from the previous night. You respond in kind with your own story, dragging naturally on the cigarette as you do. All of a sudden, you can’t imagine having this conversation without one. It fills the holes in the conversation, giving you both a chance to muse before someone speaks up again.
Yeah, she’s crazy.
Inhale.
I’m looking at an internship this summer, actually.
Inhale.
They’re really killing it in there tonight.
Inhale.
To everyone else, you’re invisible. The streetlight may as well be a bubble, preventing anyone from seeing anything but the small cylinder of paper between your lips. Inebriated or not, they can’t stop themselves from grimacing at the smell of the smoke or casting incriminating looks in the direction of its source.
And then, it’s done. You both discard your butts (something else for people to grimace at in the morning) and head back towards the warmth and social acceptance of the party. This, this is what it’s like on the inside, you think. Congratulations, you’re a smoker now, and you better expect that you will be treated like one. It doesn’t matter that this is your second cigarette ever, or you’ve never bought a pack in your life. They can’t see past the curtain into the community that forms nightly in alleyways and under streetlights. And that’s a shame, you think, as you grind the butt of your cigarette into the sidewalk with your toe. It’s not so bad on this side.
The topic of these sorts of vices–so to speak– fascinates me. I find that the majority of people who smoke or use smokeless tobacco are fully aware of the negative effects of what they’re doing–yet they continue to spend countless dollars and hours on a product that is killing them.
And so I thought, well, why? What’s the appeal for a product that’s major side-effect is listed in large, dangerous bold letters on the package? I use to ask myself a similar question when I worked as a grocery store cashier in high school. Customers would ask for a particular brand of cigarettes or dip, and in the back of my mind as I fetched it I couldn’t help but thinking, what’s the difference? Don’t they all kill you the same? I suspect a number of people have had the same reaction when walking downwind from a smoker.
I have had friends who have picked up the habit try and explain it to me. A friend of mine came back from college, saying that after starting dip he hadn’t fallen asleep in a single class. Also, he’d cut down substantially on his caffeine intake. Similarly, I noticed a non-smoking friend of mine bum a cigarette from another friend who did smoke. When I asked him why, he said it was something he’d picked up when working on the oil rigs in Louisiana. He explained that because there were so many ways of hurting yourself on the rig, nearly everyone smoked to relieve stress. Yet another another friend told me that he dipped because he was bored and “liked the buzz.”
So, that’s it then? People use tobacco as study aids, stress relievers and for the high? Even if that were the case, it would seem to me the possibility of mouth or lung cancer would far outweigh the benefits gained from a nicotine buzz. Presented with this choice, in a perfect world where everyone made perfectly logical decisions, big tobacco companies would be out of business within a month. Obviously people don’t, and big tobacco companies aren’t. Nicotine addiction and lack of dopamine, all the sciencey stuff, can be blamed for the continual use of tobacco products. But what about the impetus? What drives people to pick up tobacco, especially in an age where anti-tobacco advertising is so prevalent?
While I can’t speak for any of my friends that smoke or dip, I can talk a little bit about why I started using smokeless tobacco and my (pretty terrible) reasons for doing so. I want to be clear about a few things, though: first, I didn’t start using smokeless tobacco in order to get “an inside view” on the lifestyle of individuals who dip regularly. It wasn’t a social experiment, or so that I would have something to write in a blog. Secondly, I don’t mean to advocate for or against the use of tobacco with this post. Having not dipped for the majority of my life, I was quick to judge anyone who used smokeless tobacco. I want to avoid this, while still making it clear that I’m not advocating anyone go out and pick up a can as soon as they read this. Finally, yes, I know it’s bad for me. More on that later.
So, why do people still use tobacco products in light of the overwhelming evidence of their negative health effects as well as anti-tobacco advertisements? If the threat of cancer and the sheer ridiculous cost of tobacco are huge cons, what could possibly be on the pros list? While I won’t advocate for its use, here are 5 reasons I think the average individual could pick up tobacco.
WARNING: THE PROCEEDING LIST MAY CAUSE SEVERE DISAGREEMENT AND/OR LOSS OF FRIENDSHIP
1. The Buzz
Ah, the nicotine buzz. Useful for everything from long car trips to a respite from the clutches of finals week, the buzz that both cigarettes and smokeless tobacco provide is, I think, the most common reason anyone decides to start using. Cheaper, quicker and less potent (in some situations) than alcohol, tobacco attracts a lot of people who work long hours doing labor-intensive jobs such as construction or truck driving. Unlike alcohol, nicotine is a stimulant, so the buzz can provide a nice midday perk to those struggling through office tedium or holed up in a campus library. While I don’t think the buzz alone is enough to justify the inherent dangers of tobacco, I do think it’s the most common reason people (myself included) pick up the habit, before the reality of the danger sets in.
2. “It’s Something to Do”
I may be alone in this regard, but I think (and study) better when I’m chewing on something; traditionally I’ve been a fan of sunflower seeds or gum, but I think lots of people would agree that the physical action of smoking a cigarette or having a dip in produces a similar feeling of increased awareness (buzz aside). There’s something to be said for routine. Even when I was working in the grocery store, I enjoyed something about the the feel of a pack of cigarettes or a can of chewing tobacco. It’s hard to explain in words, but the comfort of the can or pack in a hand or in a pocket is probably closely akin to a cellphone in the pocket of most people today for heavy users. You feel naked without it. The routine of packing the cigarettes or slapping the can against a middle finger produces a an onomatopoeic satisfaction that is a large part of it’s so hard to quit. Another friend of mine began buying and using fake chew, simply for the feel of the tobacco in his lip. While this is a more obscure reason that people start using tobacco products, I think it becomes more and more prevalent the longer an individual uses them.
3. The Community
I recently read a story by Esquire writer Tom Chiarella about his experience of picking up smoking at the age of 46. The article, which can be found here, is ethnographic in nature and delves into Chiarella’s experience with the community of smokers. It’s a fascinating look into something I touched on in my intro: habits like tobacco seem to have the power to bring people together. Whether it be outside a party, behind a bar or in the fields, I am of the conviction that there is a myriad of stories to be found within– for lack of a better term– “smoking circles.” This is a community made up largely of strangers who find unity in their vice; it is a simultaneously open and closed group, in the sense that they are shunned from the larger social sphere, yet will take in any wandering stranger looking for a light. It’s a group that is almost impossible to enter without taking part in the use of tobacco, but once in reveals an incredible amount of personal trust and mutual understanding. This is the strongest social pull for the use of tobacco products– whether you’re a 20th century cigarette-on-a-balcony kind of person or a guy who just enjoys a dip with his buddies– the habit offers countless paths into the lives of others, an opportunity an aspiring journalist like myself finds extremely appealing.
4. Stress Reliever
While I touched on this before, I think it’s important to mention. Like my buddy who worked on oil rigs, I think that a large number of tobacco users can be found in jobs with a high stress level. My personal opinion on this reason is that while it may be enough to start someone smoking, it is also the most dangerous. Even more so than using tobacco because “you like the buzz,” using tobacco when anxious or stressed really cements a pattern in one’s life. When this is the case, the next time you begin to feel anxious and stressed you can feel yourself already reaching for the pack or the can. It becomes a crutch, an addiction even harder to break free from than the nicotine.
5. “Because I Want To”
This is a group of people I haven’t encountered in force, but I know they’re out there (Hunter S. Thompson, anyone?). For whatever reason, some people just really enjoy using tobacco products. I can’t say whether this is a genetic thing, or a learned behavior from parents, or genuine enjoyment developed over time, but there are individuals who will spend thousands of dollars away on tobacco products and endure lecture after lecture from spouse, doctor and dentist without blinking an eye. I don’t judge these individuals for their actions, but I find it interesting that the only response is a shrug and a “I like it.” This wasn’t how I started, or most of the people I know, but hey, to each his own. I’d love to have a conversation with a person who loves their addiction; I want to understand what it is that drove them to start, and what fuels them to continue.
I want to note that by no means is this a comprehensive, or even true, list of why people use tobacco products. I base my ideas off of things I’ve observed, both before and after I began using smokeless tobacco. My own personal decision to go out and buy a can was not motivated by any of the reasons above. I purchased a can impulsively one night, and after much fumbling and googling, I discovered how to properly put a good dip in. The routine of dipping and the community came in later, but as of yet has not reached the point where I have had to use the “n” word (need).
This may come off as typical this-next-can-is-my-last can addict bravado, and maybe it is. I hope to be able to say I experienced this lifestyle and came out on the other side relatively unscathed, but I suppose that depends on my own self-control. If there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s that nicotine addiction and the impulse to continue the habit is real, and it is strong. Tobacco isn’t something I would recommend to anyone, but current users won’t get any proselytizing from me. In the words of Chris LeDoux: “If you don’t use this nasty stuff then don’t start, but ff you’re hopelessly addicted, I guess you gotta find something good to say about a bad habit.”
Field Notes 