Product Description
Physicians are often asked whether it is harmful to smoke three cigarettes a day, or five, or fourteen, or a pack; people seem to seek a standard measurement. If they exceed it, that would be bad; if they smoked fewer than the standard, that would be all right.
But no such figure can be set. For several of my patients, one cigarette a week would be too many cigarettes.
A better way to respond to questions about cigarette smoking, then, is to speak not of quantities but of habit patterns. You are smoking to excess if you do any one (or more) of the following:
1. Reach for a cigarette the first thing in the morning, or the last thing at night.
2. Light a cigarette without realizing it, find yourself smoking, and wonder why you lit it and when.
3. Claim that you are unable to enjoy certain situations without a cigarette—your morning coffee, food, reading the paper, playing cards, and so on.
4. Feel it necessary to explain the number you smoke with such phrases as "They help me relax" and "I only take a puff or two, forget it, and then light another."
5. Become severely upset when you find yourself in a "no smoking" area—certain theatres and public buildings, for example—and feel compelled to "duck out for a quick cigarette," or are ready to risk public disapproval or punishment by "sneaking" a few puffs.
6. Find it almost unbearable when you are out of cigarettes, and are unable to tolerate the situation; instead, are willing to go to some lengths (dressing, walking to the corner store, stopping a stranger) to get a cigarette.
7. Feel that you have to smoke to show that (a) you are one of the gang, or (b) "adult."
If with any degree of regularity you act or react in any of the ways described above, you are smoking to excess.
But no such figure can be set. For several of my patients, one cigarette a week would be too many cigarettes.
A better way to respond to questions about cigarette smoking, then, is to speak not of quantities but of habit patterns. You are smoking to excess if you do any one (or more) of the following:
1. Reach for a cigarette the first thing in the morning, or the last thing at night.
2. Light a cigarette without realizing it, find yourself smoking, and wonder why you lit it and when.
3. Claim that you are unable to enjoy certain situations without a cigarette—your morning coffee, food, reading the paper, playing cards, and so on.
4. Feel it necessary to explain the number you smoke with such phrases as "They help me relax" and "I only take a puff or two, forget it, and then light another."
5. Become severely upset when you find yourself in a "no smoking" area—certain theatres and public buildings, for example—and feel compelled to "duck out for a quick cigarette," or are ready to risk public disapproval or punishment by "sneaking" a few puffs.
6. Find it almost unbearable when you are out of cigarettes, and are unable to tolerate the situation; instead, are willing to go to some lengths (dressing, walking to the corner store, stopping a stranger) to get a cigarette.
7. Feel that you have to smoke to show that (a) you are one of the gang, or (b) "adult."
If with any degree of regularity you act or react in any of the ways described above, you are smoking to excess.
