Why do I seem to see more people smoking today than ever?
Why, if there are fewer people smoking than ever, can you walk down any street, in major shopping centers or industrial complexes, or even outside any hospital and see more people smoking than ever before? The answer is quite simple.
Smokers used to smoke at regular spaced out intervals. They would smoke for five minutes or so once every 20 to 30 minutes. If you were outdoors and walked by a stranger who happened to be a smoker, the odds were you would miss him smoking at that moment and assume he was just another non-smoker.
Smokers are no longer allowed to smoke in their workplace, in stores, hospitals, or, in many instances, even in their own homes. By the nature of the addiction, though, smokers still have to maintain a minimal baseline of nicotine in their systems or suffer varying degrees of withdrawal. Having fewer opportunities to smoke indoors in the privacy of their own homes and offices, they are forced to get their full complement of nicotine outdoors, often in full public view. Today, if you see a smoker outdoors he is probably smoking one after another, desperately trying to elevate his serum nicotine level high enough to get him through the next few hours when he may not have the opportunity to smoke again. It is not a pleasant way of life--either publicly over-smoking thus embarrassing and poisoning himself with too much nicotine too quickly or under-smoking, thus feeling symptoms of irritability and physical discomfort until he can get his next fix.
Any ex-smoker who thinks back fondly of the days when he or she enjoyed smoking should watch current smokers now. See if they look like they are enjoying smoking. If you watch them light the first cigarette, you may feel a twinge of envy-but watch them finish that cigarette and then light another, then another. You will see they are smoking in a way that you do not wish to smoke. In all probability, he is smoking in a way he doesn't wish to smoke. You have a choice and he doesn't. You could go get a cigarette light it, and then down twenty or forty or more in your first day and continue at that level for the rest of your life-or you could simply ignore the thought and maybe not think about it for the rest of the day, the week, the month or maybe even years. You now have a choice, and you can always have that choice as long as you always remember to...NEVER TAKE ANOTHER PUFF!
