09-23-2012, 02:15 PM
First of all, I think I have a few years on Shannon. ;-)
Second, I don't consider nicotine itself to be bad. Rather, I consider being addicted to it, and all of the other chemicals the cigarette manufacturers add, a bad thing. I consider it bad because it suborns your free will, making you a slave to it. I regularly smoke hand-rolled, all-natural cigars myself. I never feel compelled to smoke, and only do it perhaps once a month.
Big Tobacco* has been approved by the FDA to add over 599 additives to cigarettes, as listed here.
There are many benefits from regular tobacco, which are documented on other websites. I'm not here to sell you on my viewpoint. For further reading, I suggest researching Dr. William Douglass, seeing what he has to say, and making up your own mind.
Finally, it sounds like cigarettes have allowed you to repress emotions instead of handling them. When you repress things, I liken it to rolling a ball of mud uphill, and the ball keeps getting bigger. Eventually, it is too big, and rolls back down on top of you, and you have to deal with all of that mud.
It's OK to be vulnerable in a safe place. I don't know where that safe place is for you, whether it is with family, a friend, a religious leader, or somewhere else. That vulnerability will let you process the emotions and get them out. Let them flow, and you'll be a new person afterwards.
* American Tobacco Company; Brown and Williamson; Liggett Group, Inc.; Philip Morris Inc.; R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company
Second, I don't consider nicotine itself to be bad. Rather, I consider being addicted to it, and all of the other chemicals the cigarette manufacturers add, a bad thing. I consider it bad because it suborns your free will, making you a slave to it. I regularly smoke hand-rolled, all-natural cigars myself. I never feel compelled to smoke, and only do it perhaps once a month.
Big Tobacco* has been approved by the FDA to add over 599 additives to cigarettes, as listed here.
There are many benefits from regular tobacco, which are documented on other websites. I'm not here to sell you on my viewpoint. For further reading, I suggest researching Dr. William Douglass, seeing what he has to say, and making up your own mind.
Finally, it sounds like cigarettes have allowed you to repress emotions instead of handling them. When you repress things, I liken it to rolling a ball of mud uphill, and the ball keeps getting bigger. Eventually, it is too big, and rolls back down on top of you, and you have to deal with all of that mud.
It's OK to be vulnerable in a safe place. I don't know where that safe place is for you, whether it is with family, a friend, a religious leader, or somewhere else. That vulnerability will let you process the emotions and get them out. Let them flow, and you'll be a new person afterwards.
* American Tobacco Company; Brown and Williamson; Liggett Group, Inc.; Philip Morris Inc.; R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company
Fear is a liar.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. -- Ernest Hemingway
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. -- Ernest Hemingway
